The Pacific Campaign in World War II: From Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal (Naval Policy and History) (Naval Policy and History)

THE PACIFIC CAMPAIGN IN WORLD WAR II: FROM PEARL HARBOR TO GUADALCANAL

CASS SERIES: NAVAL POLICY AND HISTORY Series Editor: Geoffrey Till

This series consists primarily of original manuscripts by research scholars in the general area of naval policy and history, without national or chronological limitations. It will from time to time also include collections of important articles as well as reprints of classic works. 1. AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN NAVAL POLICY, 1904–1914 Milan N. Vego 2. FAR-FLUNG LINES Studies in imperial defence in honour of Donald Mackenzie Schurman Edited by Keith Neilson and Greg Kennedy 3. MARITIME STRATEGY AND CONTINENTAL WARS Rear Admiral Raja Menon 4. THE ROYAL NAVY AND GERMAN NAVAL DISARMAMENT 1942–1947 Chris Madsen 5. NAVAL STRATEGY AND OPERATIONS IN NARROW SEAS Milan N. Vego 6. THE PEN AND INK SAILOR Charles Middleton and the King’s Navy, 1778–1813 John E. Talbott 7. THE ITALIAN NAVY AND FASCIST EXPANSIONISM, 1935–1940 Robert Mallett 8. THE MERCHANT MARINE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, 1850–1950 Edited by Greg Kennedy 9. NAVAL STRATEGY IN NORTHEAST ASIA Geo-strategic goals, policies and prospects Duk-Ki Kim

10. NAVAL POLICY AND STRATEGY IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA Past, present and future Edited by John B. Hattendorf 11. STALIN’S OCEAN-GOING FLEET Soviet naval strategy and shipbuilding programmes, 1935–1953 Jürgen Rohwer and Mikhail S. Monakov 12. IMPERIAL DEFENCE, 1868–1887 Donald Mackenzie Schurman; edited by John Beeler 13. TECHNOLOGY AND NAVAL COMBAT IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY AND BEYOND Edited by Phillips Payson O’Brien 14. THE ROYAL NAVY AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS Richard Moore 15. THE ROYAL NAVY AND THE CAPITAL SHIP IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD An operational perspective Joseph Moretz 16. CHINESE GRAND STRATEGY AND MARITIME POWER Thomas M. Kane 17. BRITAIN’S ANTI-SUBMARINE CAPABILITY, 1919–1939 George Franklin 18. BRITAIN, FRANCE AND THE NAVAL ARMS TRADE IN THE BALTIC, 1919–1939 Grand strategy and failure Donald Stoker 19. NAVAL MUTINIES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY An international perspective Edited by Christopher Bell and Bruce Elleman 20. THE ROAD TO ORAN Anglo-French naval relations, September 1939–July 1940 David Brown 21. THE SECRET WAR AGAINST SWEDEN US and British submarine deception and political control in the 1980s Ola Tunander 22. ROYAL NAVY STRATEGY IN THE FAR EAST, 1919–1939 Planning for a war against Japan Andrew Field

23. SEAPOWER A guide for the twenty-first century Geoffrey Till 24. BRITAIN’S ECONOMIC BLOCKADE OF GERMANY, 1914–1919 Eric W. Osborne 25. A LIFE OF ADMIRAL OF THE FLEET ANDREW CUNNINGHAM A twentieth-century naval leader Michael Simpson 26. NAVIES IN NORTHERN WATERS, 1721–2000 Edited by Rolf Hobson and Tom Kristiansen 27. GERMAN NAVAL STRATEGY, 1856–1888 Forerunners to Tirpitz David Olivier 28. BRITISH NAVAL STRATEGY EAST OF SUEZ, 1900–2000 Influences and actions Edited by Greg Kennedy 29. THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SOVIET NAVY IN THE BALTIC, 1921–1940 Gunnar Aselius 30. THE ROYAL NAVY, 1930–1990 Innovation and defence Edited by Richard Harding 31. THE ROYAL NAVY AND MARITIME POWER IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY Edited by lan Speller 32. DREADNOUGHT GUNNERY AND THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND The question of fire control John Brooks 33. GREEK NAVAL STRATEGY AND POLICY, 1910–1919 Zisis Fotakis 34. NAVAL BLOCKADES AND SEAPOWER Strategies and counter-strategies, 1805–2005 Edited by Bruce A. Elleman and Sarah C. M. Paine 35. THE PACIFIC CAMPAIGN IN WORLD WAR II From Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal William Bruce Johnson

THE PACIFIC CAMPAIGN IN WORLD WAR II From Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal

William Bruce Johnson

First published 2006 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group © 2006 William Bruce Johnson This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN10: 0–415–70175–9 (Print Edition) ISBN13: 9–78–0–415–70175–4

FOR MADELEINE

CONTENTS

List of illustrations Foreword

xi xv

1 The Pacific background

1

2 Why Japan gambled

22

3 The last clear chance

44

4 The long postmortem

74

5 The course of empire

91

6 Bataan through Midway

105

7 The counterthrust

136

8 The first two days

166

9 The Battle of Savo Island

177

10 Settling in

197

11 Up against it

208

12 A mixed picture

227

13 Courage and ambivalence

252

ix

CONTENTS

14 Medical issues

267

15 The end of the beginning

280

Notes Selected bibliography Index

317 371 395

x

ILLUSTRATIONS

Maps 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Distances possible from Tokyo at 17 knots in three, six and ten days, circa 1909 Chart of Pearl Harbor found in captured Japanese midget submarine Chart of flights of five Doolittle Raiders Map of area surrounding Coral Sea Search Patterns of VAdm. Nagumo’s Mobile Force, 0430–0950, Midway Approach by XRAY and YOKE transport groups to Guadalcanal and Tulagi Initial dispositions on Guadalcanal, 7–8 August 1942 Recreated track chart of Mikawa’s force on 7–10 August 1942 Portion of Japanese track chart showing second half of Battle of Savo Island Battle of Edson’s Ridge

9 57 120 123 132 168 174 185 186 237

Figures 2.1 Ambassador Kichisaburo¯ Nomura and special envoy Saburo¯ Kurusu meet reporters in Washington, November 1941 3.1 Photo taken from Japanese plane at about 0800 on 7 December, showing, from left: Nevada, Arizona (inboard) and Vestal (outboard), Tennessee (inboard) and West Virginia (outboard); Maryland (inboard) and Oklahoma (outboard), Neosho. Splashes from dropped torpedoes, torpedo running tracks, impact reverberations and spilled oil are visible, as is listing of West Virginia 5.1 Adm. Ernest J. King 7.1 Martin Clemens and members of his constabulary 7.2 Marine Corps recruiting poster by Haddon Sundblom, circa 1942 xi

32

61 94 137 141

ILLUSTRATIONS

7.3 7.4 7.5 8.1 10.1 11.1 11.2 12.1 12.2 13.1

13.2 14.1

VAdm. Robert L. Ghormley in 1942 Set of aerial photos of Lunga area. VAdm. Frank Jack Fletcher, 17 September 1942 RAdm. R. K. Turner (left) and Maj.-Gen. A. A. Vandegrift on flag bridge of McCawley Men in foxholes Dead from the Ichiki Detachment Poster featuring William F. Halsey Henderson Field photographed by aircraft from Saratoga, August 1942 Scene from Guadalcanal Diary © 1943 Twentieth Century Fox Adm. Nimitz, with Maj.-Gen. Vandegrift looking on, decorating Lt.-Col. Evans Carlson, 1 October 1942. Behind Carlson are, from left: Brig.-Gen. William B. Rupertus, Col. Merritt A. Edson, Lt.-Col. Edwin A. Pollock and Maj. John L. Smith Exhausted Marine, Victory at Sea © 1952 NBC/The US Navy Blackboard featuring baseball scores

149 159 160 175 204 214 221 227 251

260 263 271

Illustrations: Sources and Credits Map 1: Homer Lea, The Valor of Ignorance (New York: Harper and Bros. 1909). Map 2: US Geodetic Survey map, Photo no. 80-G-413507, US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Map 3: Record Group 407, Classified Decimal Files Folder 370.2 (1 August to 31 December 1942), file box 525, location 270-39-13-2, NARA. Map 7: Adapted from John Carnes, in Henry I. Shaw, Jr., First Offensive: The Marine Campaign for Guadalcanal. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, US Marine Corps 1992. Map 8: Adapted from Richard Bates & Walter D. Innis, “The Battle of Savo Island August 9, 1942: Strategical and Tactical Analysis” (Newport, RI: Department of Analysis, United States Naval War College 1950); Samuel Eliot Morison, The Struggle for Guadalcanal (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co. 1949); Richard B. Frank, Guadalcanal (1990; New York: Penguin Books USA Inc. 1992); The Japanese Navy in World War II (Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute Press 1969). Map 9: Marine Corps University Research Archives (MCURA), Gray Research Center, Quantico, VA 22134-50001. Map 10: Adapted from Marine Corps map by John Carnes reproduced in Henry I. Shaw, Jr., First Offensive: The Marine Campaign for Guadalcanal (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, US Marine Corps 1992) and from Marine Corps map entitled “The Perimeter.” xii

ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 2.1: Photo 208-PU-112P-5, NARA. Figure 3.1: NH 50931, Naval Historical Center (NHC). Figure 5.1: Courtesy American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming. Figure 7.1: Thayer Soule, Photo 80-G-17080, NARA. Figure 7.2: Courtesy Marine Corps Heritage Foundation. Figure 7.3: Photo 80-G-12864-A, NARA. Figure 7.4: MCURA, Gray Research Center, Quantico, VA. Figure 7.5: Photo 80-G-14193, NARA. Figure 8.1: Photo 80-CF-112-4-63, NARA. Figure 10.1: From US government film This is Guadalcanal. Figure 11.1: Hdqrs. no. 50,963, Marine Corps Historical Center (MCHC). Figure 11.2: Poster by advertising firm Einson, Freeman, Inc., in US Navy Art Collection, Washington, DC, donation of the Steamship Historical Society of America, 1965. Figure 12.1: Photo 80-G-16312, NARA. Figure 12.2: Scene from Guadalcanal Diary © 1943 Twentieth Century Fox, still courtesy Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. and Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Figure 13.1: Department of Defense USMC photo 50883, MCHC. Figure 13.2: Victory at Sea © 1952 NBC/The US Navy. Figure 14.1: Thayer Soule, Photo 80-G-17064, NARA.

xiii

FOREWORD Gordon D. Gayle, Brig.-Gen. USMCR

As a battalion-level planner and participant in the initial landing on Guadalcanal, and as a participant fortunate enough to have survived the 1st Marine Davison’s campaign there, I frequently pondered the high-level decisions and orders which initiated the campaign and shaped its conduct. At the time, I had few doubts as to the eventual success of the operation. Years later, as officer in charge of the then very small Marine Corps Historical Office, I learned something more about the many uncertainties on which the final result turned. But only after reading Dr. Johnson’s comprehensive and definitive account of the context of the campaign and its contentious high-level decisions (on both sides) did I gain a more accurate appreciation of how concerned we should have been in the fall of 1942 on Guadalcanal. He has put together the most lucid overview of the US actions and campaigns for the period from Pearl Harbor until the final victory at Guadalcanal that it has been my privilege to read. Like so much in history, once it happens, the outcome seems almost foreordained. But Dr. Johnson gives a description and feeling which leave the reader convinced that the outcome, and history, might readily have been different. His account makes quite clear the impact which the character and leadership (or lack thereof) of individual commanders had upon the unfolding and uncertain drama. This work makes clear what a huge factor was played, during the early months of the Pacific war, by chance, and by the optimism and determination of key commanders. Perhaps the book’s strongest message is that, when protagonists are anywhere near equal, the outcome is always in doubt, and the results will be shaped more by personality and character than we are accustomed to believe. While conducting a major war in China, Japan inflicted incredible defeats upon the Allies at Pearl Harbor, Malaya/Singapore and the East Indies, having already taken over French Indochina. These defeats were shocking to the western powers. But the professional Japanese military had known only success since their emergence on the world scene in the Meiji era, typified in their stunning victories in 1904–05 over the Russians. These “Sons of Heaven” thus had some cause to consider themselves superior, the xv

FOREWORD

European Allies having provided no evidence to the contrary. But in the first months of 1942, the US command, although having promised Great Britain to prosecute a “Germany-First” strategy, nevertheless threw the dice and made the commitments which enabled it to surprise the Japanese, first in a naval conflict at Midway, then at Guadalcanal, where Japan’s southern expansion was reversed. This is an account of the conception and implementation of that throw-of-the-dice. Among other things, the book could well make a participant thankful that, during the event, he did not truly comprehend the scale of the risks involved.

xvi

1 THE PACIFIC BACKGROUND

In 1893 Hawaii was in turmoil. On 14 January Queen Lili‘uokalani, having ruled for six years under constitutional restraints, attempted by edict to establish an absolute monarchy. Although she quickly accepted her advisors’ pleas to repudiate this brief arrogation of power, an oligarchy of sugar growers seized the chance to depose her and establish a new provisional government. US minister John L. Stevens declared the islands a US protectorate, raised the Stars-and-Stripes over Lili‘uokalani’s palace, and on 16 January landed Marines and armed sailors from the US sail-rigged cruiser Boston. Among Stevens’ stated concerns were possible attacks on US interests by Japanese cane workers.1 Stevens urged annexation, writing to his State Department superiors: “The Hawaiian pear is now fully ripe, and this is the golden hour for the United States to pluck it.”2 Naval theorist A.T. Mahan, lecturing at the US Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island, agreed that an uncommon opportunity was at hand. Because – he reasoned – Japan considered Hawaii a “natural” frontier for its own sphere of influence, the islands were going to serve either as a refueling station for a Japanese fleet bent on attacking California, or as a périmètre sanitaire against Japan’s imperial ambitions. “It is rarely,” Mahan observed, “that so important a factor in the attack or defence of a coast-line . . . is concentrated in a single position; and the circumstance renders doubly imperative upon us to secure it, if we righteously can.” The British lionized Mahan, not just because he chronicled them as the Chosen People of naval history, but because – like them – he mixed realistic, secular perspectives on power with a moral imperative to export “righteous” principles to an unenlightened and often recalcitrant colonial world. Now, with Hawaii, it was time for the US to assume a similar role, annexation being a “token” that the US “in its evolution has aroused itself to the necessity of carrying its life – that has been the happiness of those under its influence,” beyond its borders.3 In 1898, in no small part because of Mahan, Congress chose annexation, albeit with a less than resounding 42-to-21 vote in the Senate, 209-to-91 in the House. News of the annexation displeased 1

THE PACIFIC BACKGROUND

Japan, which noted that it altered the Pacific’s balance-of-power and might foster discrimination against the thousands of Japanese subjects working in Hawaii.4 Queen Lili‘uokalani, now forcibly retired, set about composing Hawaiian songs, the prophetic Aloha Oe having already established her eminence in that musical genre. The convenient arrival of the cruiser Boston off Honolulu in January 1893 had been a significant factor in the annexation. Diplomacy means nothing without power, which for Mahanists meant naval power. The two decades following the Civil War had witnessed such deep congressional apathy regarding the US Navy as to have been wittily called by officers “the doldrums,” an allusion to the huge stretches of ocean where the trade-winds die, leaving ships and sailors involuntarily becalmed until conditions change. But conditions were changing. In 1882, the US’s “antiquated wooden ships” had been as unready for modern combat – Theodore Roosevelt later wrote – as “the galleys of Alcibiades.”5 But in 1883 Congress funded three steelhulled, screw-driven protected cruisers, another eight in the next five years, including one without sails.6 That there would be commanders capable of utilizing such vessels, the Navy founded the Naval War College; that both vessels and commanders would be rationally employed, the Navy founded an Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI).7 In the March 1885 Harper’s, John Fiske was among those espousing “manifest destiny,” a US expanding until it stretches “from pole to pole,” a novel and odd idea for a nation which still studied Washington’s isolationist Farewell Address and still considered itself an innocent runaway from Europe’s imperial thrones. In the early 1890s Congress took the bold step of authorizing battleships, avoiding the imperial implications by calling them “seagoing coastal battleships.”8 By 1898, four had been built, with five more in process. In 1897 President McKinley had appointed Theodore Roosevelt as assistant-secretary of the Navy. Among Roosevelt’s early literary achievements was The Naval War of 1812 (1882), which had impressed Mahan and initiated their long friendship. Roosevelt had heartily embraced Mahan’s idea that Hawaii’s annexation would foil Japanese imperial ambitions, and, itching to commence hostilities with another imperial monarchy, Spain, Roosevelt attended to the thousands of financial and operational commitments necessary to get the Navy underway to meet its putative European foe.9 Soon one of the Navy’s new, steel-hulled battleships, Maine, arrived in the Spanish colony of Cuba. Its destruction on the night of 15 February 1898, widely reported as Spanish sabotage, provided an excuse for war.10 “Remember the Maine,” people shouted, “and the hell with Spain.” While an unproven provocation at Havana did not necessarily implicate reprisals in far-off Manila, Roosevelt sensed an opportunity. To command the Asiatic Squadron he chose the brilliant but theretofore untested Commodore George Dewey, ordering him to prepare Boston and six other 2

THE PACIFIC BACKGROUND

warships to engage the Spanish. On 1 May, Dewey’s force vanquished seven antiquated Spanish ships lying off the naval station at Cavite in Manila Harbor, thus bringing the US Navy into international prominence while exemplifying – if only in a small way – Mahan’s theory that sea power was defined not in terms of raids and skirmishes but “decisive engagements” which altered the world order. Roosevelt now quit his naval post to form the Rough Riders, thus satisfying his penchant for tactical command in a war he had helped foment.11 Aging Civil War veterans were sore to be left out of the fight. With the Spanish-American War swiftly concluded, the US in 1899 chose to keep the Philippines. While Hawaii was arguably within the hemispheric ambit of the Monroe Doctrine, possessing the Philippines made the US a world-class imperial power, imitating the British tradition of which the Founding Fathers had considered themselves victims. Roosevelt, now campaigning to be New York’s governor, blended Mahanian imperial themes with his own trademarked projection of manly vigor: The guns of our war-ships in the tropic seas of the West and the remote East have awakened us to the knowledge of new duties. Our flag is a proud flag, and it stands for liberty and civilization. Where it has once floated, there must and shall be no return to tyranny or savagery. We are face to face with our destiny and we must meet it with a high and resolute courage. For us is the life of action, of strenuous performance of duty; let us live in the harness, striving mightily; let us rather run the risk of wearing out than rusting out.12 Such rhetoric made Roosevelt the very personification of manifest destiny, while another official in an expansive mood, secretary-of-state John Hay, referred lovingly to the conflict with Spain as “a splendid little war.” Other thoughtful people, however, were not exuberant. Carl Schurz saw the “high-sounding cant about destiny and duty and what not” as a mere gloss for “vulgar land grabbing,” while Mark Twain and William James reminded readers of the American principle of government by consent rather than superimposition. As with Hawaii, Congress reflected the national ambivalence, the Senate ratifying the treaty acquiring the Philippines by a mere one vote. Many Filipinos saw the US not as a liberator but as another western exploiter, and in 1900 Arthur MacArthur, Jr., commanding 75,000 troops as the Philippines’ new military governor, let superiors know that the US faced substantial guerrilla resistance. By July 1902, efforts to secure the outpost had yielded 4,243 American deaths, with Filipino casualties numbering in the hundreds of thousands.13 In the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95, Japan had taken Taiwan and various concessions on the Asian mainland, while western nations muscled into their 3

THE PACIFIC BACKGROUND

own Chinese footholds: British Weihaiwei, German Tsingtao, and French Kwangchowan, with Russia occupying Port Arthur.14 Westerners saw China politically not as a sovereign nation but a collectivity of warlords, while viewing it economically as confused, naïve, and ripe for exploitation. American trade with China had a long if attenuated tradition. The Empress of China first sailed to Canton in 1784 to market its cargo of 58,000 pounds of ginseng, a popular herb which grew wild along the Hudson. Like the other great powers, the US wanted profit, but also entertained a paternalistic desire to protect China. In 1900 John Hay, concerned that other imperial powers were making China’s key ports closed fiefdoms just as the US’s own acquisition of the Philippines augured well for a profitable trade with the Asian mainland, extracted from the European powers and Japan acquiescence in an “Open Door” policy for China. US religious denominations, meanwhile, dispatched missionaries to Christianize China’s ancient but apparently decadent culture.15 In 1904, following six months of frustrating negotiations between Japan and Russia over their respective claims in China, Japan launched a surprise attack against a squadron of Russian ships at Port Arthur, initiating the Russo-Japanese War. On 1 May Japan’s 1st Army captured a number of Russian troops in the Battle of the Yalu River, the first defeat of a European infantry by Asian soldiers. On land, the war demonstrated that saber and bayonet charges could beat modern western armaments. A Japanese lieutenant recounted that the Russians lacked morale, while his fellows had Yamato-damashii, the “invincible spirit of Japan’s traditional values.” And on 27 May, Russia’s Baltic Fleet, having traveled round the world, was soundly defeated by Japan in the Battle of Tsushima, a clash by which Japan would now define itself, much as Britain defined itself by Trafalgar. Japanese officers trained at Britain’s Royal Naval College at Greenwich or at the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland now embraced the idea of sea power as the methodology of imperial expansion. While Mahan’s works were considered bibles of naval and political wisdom throughout the world, more were translated into Japanese than any other language.16 The Battle of Mukden, lasting five weeks, was in a sense won by the Japanese, even though they suffered 70,000 casualties as against the Russians’ 20,000. Although Japan could not reasonably hope to vanquish a nation the size of Russia, it believed it could expand its interests on the Asian mainland by pushing Russia to the point of negotiation. At a point when further fighting would have revealed Japan to be tapped out of manpower and treasure, senior Japanese diplomats applied for a political bail-out from President Theodore Roosevelt, in which he acquiesced. Since Matthew Perry had forcibly opened Japan to trade fifty years before, many considered Japan a protégé, a sort of favorite nephew, while the US had no positive feeling toward Russia.17

4

THE PACIFIC BACKGROUND

Roosevelt arranged for mediation in New Hampshire in the summer of 1905.18 Japan had borrowed heavily from American and British banks to finance the war and, considering itself the victor, demanded from Russia substantial reparations.19 On the eve of the last day in Portsmouth, a Japanese negotiator telegrammed Tokyo stating that because Russia had refused either to cede the island of Sakhalin or to pay “a single kopek” of indemnity, the Japanese delegates were about to walk out. Tokyo replied that since Japan was spent, its delegates should take any settlement they could get. Receiving no reparations, Japan did get the southern part of Sakhalin, a “puppet” state in Korea, the Liaotung Peninsula, its harbors at Port Arthur and Dairen, and the 512–mile, Russian-built South Manchurian Railway linking these harbors with the ores, soybeans and grains of the north.20 The Japanese Emperor’s advisors had no interest in monitoring whether the public’s expectations had been set appropriately, and when Japanese newspapers suddenly announced what seemed to be a shockingly disadvantageous settlement (Asahi Shimbun printed the peace terms in a funereal frame of black), the public felt angry and betrayed. A riot broke out in Tokyo’s famous Hibiya Ko¯en park, spreading over three days and resulting in seventeen deaths.21 Some sensed a betrayal by “all white men.”22 Perhaps – some hinted – the failure to get the indemnity was Roosevelt’s fault, with Japan’s heroism and sacrifice resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars of debt to US and British banks. Perhaps US paternalism had given way to jostling Japan for position in the exploitation of China.23 Roosevelt, for his part, noted that Japan’s leaders had foolishly allowed their people to see a victory as a defeat.24 For mediating the dispute he won the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize. A new era was at hand. Sociologist and former city-desk newsman Robert E. Park wrote that news of the Japanese victory in the Russo-Japanese War circulated farther and more rapidly than any other report of events had ever traveled before. One heard echoes of it in regions as far apart as the mountain vastnesses of Tibet and the forests of Central Africa. It was the news that a nation of colored people had defeated and conquered a nation of white people.25 If it was done once, it might be done again. With substantial British, Dutch, American, German and Portuguese holdings in the Far East, Japan could expand only by violating the “Open Door” policy in China or by challenging some other imperial holding. Many envisioned that locals would gather behind Japan in a pan-Asian confrontation with the West.26 American navalists now viewed Hawaii and the Philippines as potential Japanese targets.27 While the US began to build a two-ocean navy, Japan’s Imperial Navy (Kaigun) began thinking about Manila as a knife aimed at Japan’s

5

THE PACIFIC BACKGROUND

throat.28 Naval commander Hironori Mizuno in 1914 published a novel about the conquest of Japan’s navy by America’s.29 Even before Portsmouth, the US military had developed contingency plans. The Joint Army and Navy Board, an eight-member think-tank chaired by Admiral Dewey, pondered war scenarios, color-coded by country, Japan being “Orange.” Each scenario commenced by Orange attacking the Philippines and/or Guam, another uncomfortable American prize of the Spanish-American War.30 While Roosevelt had committed substantial resources to a squadron of battleships, in 1906 the British Dreadnought, at 18,110 tons, immediately rendered them outdated. Its ten 12-inch guns in five turrets delivered shells over 12 miles, thus destroying any enemy before artillery of smaller bore could be utilized.31 Roosevelt quickly commissioned ten US dreadnoughts.32 In 1908, angrily reacting to Army–Navy squabbles about choosing a site for a naval base in the Philippines, he directed the Joint Board to build one instead in Hawaii.33 Fourteen years earlier, Hawaii’s King Kalakaua had granted the US “exclusive rights to enter the harbor of Pearl River” on Oahu to “establish a coaling and repair station.” At the time, then-Princess Lili‘uokalani privately noted in her diary that this invitation to the Americans was a mistake, while the British commissioner in Honolulu prophesied that this would lead to US annexation.34 When in 1909 work began on dredging and a dry-dock, an old fisherman warned that this would anger the shark goddess Ka’ahupahau and she would take vengeance.35 With the Philippines relatively undefended, Hawaii was now one corner of a conservative defensive triangle formed with the Aleutians and Panama.36

Racism and power politics It was to limit Chinese laborers that white Hawaiian sugar planters had first invited the Japanese. By 1900 Hawaii’s Japanese population totaled 61,000, outnumbering Caucasians nine-to-one. Chinese immigration had also been limited to the US Mainland, and by 1900 California’s Japanese population reached 24,000.37 They were victimized by employers and demonized by politicians, one of whom referred to “immoral, intemperate, quarrelsome” veterans of the Russo-Japanese War who were driving down the state’s wage-scale.38 Following San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake, its school board, yielding to such demagoguery, relegated ninety-three Japanese – several dozen of them US citizens – into a segregated school.39 Some whites accused these immigrants of having caused the earthquake, others calling them an advance-guard of a Japanese army.40 When Japan protested this appalling racial insult, Roosevelt intervened personally by reaching a so-called “Gentlemen’s Agreement” with Japan which limited the immigration of laborers. By 1910, Japanese workers lawfully entering Hawaii totaled thirtyfive, the Mainland forty-seven.41 6

THE PACIFIC BACKGROUND

While reaching a Gentleman’s Agreement, Roosevelt also asked the Joint Board to develop contingency plans for war, then dispatched sixteen of his ships on a fourteen-month, 46,000-mile, round-the-world tour, a sort of coming-out party for Imperium Americana, which included a stop in Japan. As the armada steamed south from Virginia, rumors circulated that the Japanese might launch a sneak attack during refueling at Rio de Janeiro. Eventually the Great White Fleet entered Tokyo Bay to participate in ceremonies of mutual goodwill, intended to paper over the mutual hatred generated in California. Although thousands of Tokyo schoolchildren waved the American flags they had been handed, ceremoniousness could neither purge the racial issue nor erase the obvious new strategic challenge in the Pacific. The US Army War College’s 1907 war-plan scenario premised Japanese amphibious assaults on both Hawaii and San Francisco.42 In 1913, with Japanese owning a mere 12,726 of California’s 27 million acres, the state passed the first of several measures attempting to bar them from owning or taking extended leases on land. An Associated Press (AP) correspondent in Tokyo noted that feelings were more bitter than ever. “So long as Japanese are subjected to discriminatory treatment in any part of the United States,” the influential Kokumin Shimbun declared, “there is no hope of any permanent friendship between the two nations.”43 Some Japanese believed they could ingratiate themselves with the US by arguing that they were not just another group of Orientals, that they were “not Mongolians.”44 In 1910 Baron Dairoku Kikuchi, president of Kyoto’s Imperial University, wrote in the Encyclopedia Britannica: You “lump” us with other “Orientals,” then speak of a “Yellow Peril” and restrict immigration. We find this discrimination insulting, desiring to be recognized not as mere Orientals but as a sovereign nation with dignity equal to that of the great imperial powers. We have worked hard to merit that status. . . . The Japanese have . . . been considered in some quarters to be a bellicose nation. No sooner was the war with Russia over than they were said to be ready and eager to fight with the United States. This is [a] misrepresentation arising from want of proper knowledge of Japanese character and feelings. Although it is true that . . . Japan . . . engaged in two sanguinary wars [against China in 1894–95 and Russia in 1904–05] . . . neither of these was of her own seeking; in both cases she had to fight or else submit to become a mere cipher in the world, if indeed she could have preserved her existence as an independent state. . . . Besides, the Japanese have always regarded the Americans with a special goodwill, due no doubt to the steady liberal attitude of the American government and people towards Japan and Japanese, and they look upon the idea of war between Japan and the United States as ridiculous. 7

THE PACIFIC BACKGROUND

These would be enduring themes of paranoia, declared innocence, and ambivalence.45 A missionary in Japan, trying to explain to Americans why the Japanese never spoke candidly in conversation, noted: The hail-fellow-well-met characteristic of the Occident is a feature of its individualism, that could not come into being in a feudal civilization in which every respectable man carried two swords with which to take instant vengeance on whoever should malign or doubt him.46 A variety of “Yellow Peril” articles in Hearst newspapers in 1912 included groundless allegations that Japan was attempting to purchase a tract of land on Mexico’s Magdalena Bay, to use as a base for attacking the US (Map 1). Wild rumors circulated when the Japanese cruiser Asama went aground while entering an isolated Mexican bay in February 1915.47 As the US entered the European war, Henry Cabot Lodge (Republican (R)-MA) pushed through the Senate a resolution barring any foreign government from using any harbor in North or South America. Not surprisingly, a popular writer asked: Must We Fight Japan?48 In 1923 the issue of whether Japanese could buy land in the US went to the Supreme Court, which concluded that the great Anglo-American constitutional doctrines of “due process” and “equal protection” did not apply.49 In the following year the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” gave way to the xenophobic National Origins Act, which denied entry to the mere handful of middle-class Japanese immigrants per year whose existence had given some solace because it comprised a Japanese exception to the US’s flat prohibition on immigration by “Orientals.” That the statute also insulted the peoples of southern and eastern Europe was no comfort; in Tokyo a mob arrived at the US Embassy and tore down the Stars-and-Stripes.50 Even a decade later, a seasoned observer of Japan described the immigration issue as a “festering sore.”51 In 1909 strategist Homer Lea prophesied that Japan, ambitious to dominate the Pacific and aware of US ambivalence about its new imperial responsibilities, would unobtrusively expand its naval capability while steadily collecting insults and harboring grievances, any of which might justify a sneak attack.52 Among those absorbing Lea’s ideas were the Japanese; a translation became required reading by military officers and sold 40,000 copies.53 A Japanese war-plan of 1917 declared a “fundamental” strategy of eliminating the US naval force at the “outset” of hostilities.54 As Mahan had noted, the Great White Fleet’s tour had revealed the logistical issues involved in a pan-Pacific venture.55 Japanese planners thus saw the value of having their Mahanian “decisive battle” with the US take place in the western Pacific, since some portion of any US armada would inevitably drop 8

Map 1 Distances possible from Tokyo at 17 knots in three, six and ten days, circa 1909

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out along the way via attrition. While it thus made sense to allow distance itself to hobble the US force, an argument was also to be made for Japan’s steaming east. As the US Joint Board noted in 1919, since Japan had more ships in the Pacific than the US, it might commence a war by eliminating US naval capability at Pearl Harbor before the Americans’ Atlantic fleet could be brought through the Panama Canal.56 Japan had brilliantly exploited World War I. While Australia and New Zealand grabbed German holdings in the south – New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomons and the Bismarcks, including the great harbor of Rabaul – Japan took a total of 623 German islands in the Carolines, the Marshalls and the Marianas, bearing such names as Kwajalein, Truk, Peleliu, Tinian and Saipan.57 Japan refused to join the League of Nations because, among other things, the League refused to recognize racial equality, thus keeping in place the bans on Japanese immigration previously imposed by the US, Australia and Canada.58 When the US refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, the other Allies saw fit, as one of the inducements for Japan’s joining the League, to let it retain these 623 islands, a phalanx stretching 2,700 miles from west to east and 1,300 miles from north to south, blocking US access to the Philippines from the east, northeast and southeast.59 While Japan had won the Russo-Japanese War with battleships built in England and Italy, it was now fabricating its own. The US, seeing a way to break up Japan’s alliance with Britain, held a three-month naval conference in Washington in 1921–22. Knowing that Britain was too deeply in debt to US banks to engage in building more ships, the US promised to limit its own ship-building, while also taking over Britain’s naval role in the Pacific.60 The resulting Five-Power Treaty established that the US and Britain could each retain 525,000 tons of “capital ships”: battleships and battle cruisers, while the Japanese would be limited to 315,000 tons.61 Among the rationales for this 5:5:3 ratio was that the British and US navies, unlike Japan’s, were going to be more thinly spread across the globe, while if the US had to fight Britain for dominance in the Atlantic, Japan would ally itself with Britain and thus the US would be fighting in two oceans.62 Another rationale was a Mahanian idea Japan had already considered: since any decisive engagement with Japan was likely to take place in the western Pacific, the US would inevitably lose ships on the way. The Japanese Navy and the American each now recognized the other as its primary foe.63 Central to any putative US–Japanese war was the question of the Philippines. Just prior to the Washington conference, journalist Hector Bywater argued that even assuming a US fleet larger than Japan’s, Manila lay 4,600 miles from Hawaii but only 1,200 miles from Nagasaki, while the only nearby American base, at Guam, was 3,300 miles from Hawaii, blocked by Japan’s Mandates. The US would thus perforce need to decide whether – if tested – it would simply let the Philippines and Guam succumb to Japan, or steam across the Pacific with the forces necessary to retake them. This would 10

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be in Bywater’s view a “perilous adventure” since the US “could reckon with certainty on losing every disabled ship.” Bywater thus urged making the Guam outpost impregnable by installing massive 16-inch guns, capable of lofting 2,100-lb. shells over 25 miles, almost 6 miles longer than the range of guns on any approaching Japanese ship. In Bywater’s view a fortified Guam would thus be an absolute check on Japanese aggression against the Philippines, since it would assure the US a base only 1,397 miles from Manila, not much farther than the Japanese would have to travel.64 Although the Joint Board and Mahan himself had both previously urged the fortification of Guam, the US by treaty relinquished its right to fortify that island and to make Manila’s Cavite navy yard a major base.65 These capitulations shocked not only Bywater but another knowledgeable observer, Dudley Knox, a former faculty member of the Naval War College.66 On the other hand, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., serving as his father had done as assistant-secretary of the Navy, asserted that the treaty was only memorializing legally what the US had theretofore failed to do for lack of willpower.67 Nor, in the years after World War I, was there any sentiment for preparedness. Despite assertions that Pearl Harbor was too congested and easily subject to attack by aircraft carriers, the Navy in 1920 declined ambitious plans to upgrade the base.68 Bywater’s book was positively reviewed and sold briskly, yielding him a regular column in the Baltimore Sun, where for a time he sparred about naval theory with a third Roosevelt who had served as assistant-secretary of the Navy, Theodore Jr.’s distant cousin, Franklin. In 1925 Bywater tried his hand at a novel, combining a technical mastery of the relevant strategies, tactics and geography with a prophecy of a well-planned Japanese attack on the Philippines.69 Some Orange plan strategists had believed that even if Japan overran both the Philippines and Guam, US ships could nevertheless be outfitted and manned in California and Hawaii, successfully run the gauntlet of Japanese warships and the insular fortifications likely to be found in the Mandates, and relieve whatever remained in Manila of any local US/Filipino force.70 By 1931, however, most strategists accepted Bywater’s view that Manila could not be reached in time to save the paltry garrison Congress had funded there.71 In 1921 Bywater had warned of a military-industrial complex in Japan, a group of warlords who would eventually seize the government. Such men, he wrote, blithely dismiss as cowardly any fear of the US’s industrial might, believing the Americans would suffer one reversal and quit. This was, in Bywater’s view, a fatal misperception, since no “facile successes” achieved by Japan at the start of such a conflict “could avert the most ruinous consequences” in a protracted war. Bywater’s book, like Lea’s, was quickly translated in Tokyo and became required reading for all naval strategists.72 Time would reveal that they gleaned from it only what comported with their 11

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prejudices, ignoring all that they found cautionary, accusatory, or otherwise inconvenient. That the Japanese could grossly underestimate the American ethos was not surprising. The firebrands now coming into power had grown up knowing men who had embraced the samurai tradition not as a story but a vocation, men old enough to remember when Commodore Perry in 1853 had forcibly “opened” Japan’s feudal culture. Adopting western technology and aping western dress, the modernizers of the Meiji era (1867–1912) nevertheless were not interested in embracing liberal values.73 Nations exhibiting a life of freedom, leisure and conspicuous consumption are often misperceived by have-not nations as “soft,” “spoiled,” even decadent and immoral, ready to be toppled. The great metaphor of the early American– Japanese relationship was that of the predation of Japanese innocence, the first US consul allegedly being offered the 17-year-old geisha Okichi as an incentive to move trade negotiations along. With the Japanese newspapers of the 1920s revealing such Anglo-American legal principles as “due process” and “equal protection” to be pious frauds, the Japanese public would get an image of American life through the distorted lens of American films. These persuasive but deceptive artifacts of cultural imperialism displayed not just wealth and leisure but twisted cultural depravity. Walter Pitkin in Must We Fight Japan? (1921) recites: The motion-picture has, from all that I can gather . . . done more to blacken the reputation of the white race in general and the United States in particular than all the malice and libel of the most savage anti-American propagandists. . . . [T]he ordinary Asiatic, as he sits in the shabby theaters of the great ports and contemplates the world of the white man as reported to him by the white man himself . . . sees . . . the cheap, silly stuff that you may see any evening when you can endure sitting for an hour in almost any fifteen or twenty cent moviedive. The Japanese sees exactly what you see – murders, robberies, prostitutes exhibiting themselves as heroines, and supposedly sane characters saying and doing things which only morons or drug fiends could say or do. . . . [Seeing] them month in and month out, he is forced into the habit of believing that all this is American realism.74 Aldous Huxley, coming away from an open-air movie show in Java in 1926, wrote an article excoriating Hollywood for projecting a world of silliness and criminality. When its inhabitants are not stealing, murdering, swindling or attempting to commit assault . . . they are being maudlin about babies or dear old homes, they are being fantastically and idiotically honourable in a manner calculated to bring the greatest possible discomfort to the greatest 12

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possible number of people, they are disporting themselves in marble halls, they are aimlessly dashing about the earth’s surface in fast moving vehicles. When they make money, they do it only in the most discreditable, unproductive and socially mischievous way – by speculation. Their politics are matters exclusively of personal (generally amorous) intrigue. Their science is an affair of secret recipes for making money – recipes which are always getting stolen by villains no less anxious for cash than the scientific hero himself. Their religion is all cracker mottoes, white haired clergymen, large hearted Mothers, hard, Bible-reading, puritanical Fathers and Young Girls who have taken the wrong turning and been betrayed, kneeling with their illegitimate babies in front of crucifixes. Huxley was astonished that the Javanese audience, soaking in such material, did not immediately run amok and kill every white around.75 And in fact on several occasions they did just that. Among the arch-fiends Japanese audiences could enjoy in imported American films was a favorite son, Sessue Hayakawa. In 1908, forced to abandon a career in the Imperial Navy due to a punctured eardrum, he came to the US and entered the University of Chicago, where he became quarterback on the football team. Returning to Japan, he started his own stage troupe, which he brought to California in 1913. Two years later he became an overnight star with the release of Cecil B. DeMille’s The Cheat, where he played a perfidious and sexually predatory Oriental villain. Thus, while the Japanese saw the Americans as predators, no Japanese – even those who knew nothing of the San Francisco school case – could fail to grasp what the Americans thought of them. When at the London Naval Conference of 1930 the US again threatened to establish a naval capability at Manila, Japan accepted a renewed 5:5:3 ratio for heavy cruisers and a marginally better 10:10:7 ratio for light cruisers and destroyers, with parity for submarines.76 While this was not much to give up in order to keep a US naval base out of Manila, the agreement was made despite the vehement objection of the Imperial Navy’s General Staff. Admiral Kichisaburo¯ Nomura later characterized Japan’s failure to achieve naval parity as “a national humiliation.”77 When Premier Osachi Hamaguchi ignored the Navy’s dissatisfaction and signed the treaty, he was assassinated. Soon it became clear that elements in the Japanese military had no compunction about killing political leaders with whom they disagreed.

Japan takes Lebensraum In 1908 Japan promised the US to abide by the Open Door policy, an undertaking reiterated – albeit ambiguously – in 1917, and again in 1922, yet 13

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again in 1928. But the militarists considered such undertakings slavishness. The so-called Tanaka Memorial, a sort of Mein Kampf written in the mid1920s, asserted that if Japan wanted Manchuria and China, it would need to adopt a policy of “Blood and Iron” and “crush the United States just as in the past we had to fight in the Russo-Japanese War.”78 In the Depression-ridden US, the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act of 1930, as short-sightedly xenophobic toward foreign goods as the 1924 immigration statute had been toward foreign people, hobbled Japan’s attempts to sell to the US the value-added products it needed to export in order to obtain foreign exchange. Japan felt constricted, in need of raw materials, markets, space.79 While Japan had profited from the South Manchurian Railway, China now moved to shatter that monopoly by building a railway of its own, in contravention of the exclusive leasehold rights Japan had gained at Portsmouth and in a subsequent treaty with China itself. China also began flooding Manchuria with settlers of its own and initiated a massive boycott of Japanese goods.80 In September 1931, the Kwantung Army, Japan’s semi-autonomous Manchurian garrison, blew up 5 feet of their own track near Mukden, then accused local Chinese troops. A Japanese apologist in the US analogized the incident to the destruction of the Maine in Havana Harbor, that is, as an excusable pretext.81 Further annexations of Manchurian territory followed, Japan arguing that although the Manchus had ruled China from 1644 to 1912, Manchuria was not even Chinese, the Great Wall having been built to keep the Manchus out.82 By December 1932, Japan had over four divisions in the Manchurian puppet state it called Manchukuo. To lend an air of legitimacy, Japan installed Pu-Yi, the last of China’s Manchu emperors, as regent.83 Back in 1910, Theodore Roosevelt, quoting the old frontier maxim, “Never draw unless you mean to shoot,” warned his countrymen not to criticize anything Japan did in Manchuria unless they were prepared to go to war over it. Otherwise, he maintained, “Our vital interest is to keep the Japanese out of our country and at the same time to preserve [their] goodwill.” That was a subtle balancing act which never worked.84 In the early 1930s President Hoover, combining Quaker pacifism with the realism of an engineer, noted that saber-rattling over Japan’s conduct in Manchuria would yield Americans nothing but the loss of the Philippines to a Japanese invading force. Henry Stimson, former governor-general of the Philippines and head US negotiator at London’s 1930 naval conference, was now secretary-of-state. Finding in the US neither the will nor the funding to challenge Japan, Stimson in January 1932 simply stated that the US would not recognize Japan’s conduct as legitimate. Japan, unimpressed, now took land in the neighboring Chinese province of Jehol, then in Inner Mongolia. A Japanese publicist in the US argued that China’s boycott of Japanese goods was the equivalent of a blockade and that a blockade was an act of war to which Japan had to respond, regardless of non-aggression treaties it had 14

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signed. In January 1932 Japanese forces clashed with Chinese troops near Shanghai’s large International Settlement. When reports reached Washington of Japanese planes bombing Chinese civilians, Tokyo responded by saying “we had no other course.”85 The League of Nations, with no stomach to condemn a member, nevertheless sent a committee to investigate what Japan was doing. Upon receiving the committee’s highly critical report, Japan in March 1933 quit the League.86 Japanese movie studios now romanticized the Manchurian conflict, while publishers invented the notion that Japan had won Manchuria as a prize of the Russo-Japanese War. Meanwhile, Japanese publishers produced not fewer than eighteen books about imaginary wars with the US or Russia.87 The constitution of 1889, Meiji Kenpo¯, provided not only that the Emperor has exclusive power to make war and foreign policy, but also that Japan was “reigned over and governed by a line of Emperors unbroken for ages eternal.”88 In 1935 a constitutional scholar at Tokyo Imperial University was forced to resign for having written, among other things, that Emperor Hirohito, who assumed the throne in 1926 at 26 years of age, did not rule by divine right.89 In 1936, Imperial Army extremists assassinated several high officials, feeling “compelled” to kill them because they “have been shamelessly hindering the Heavenly prerogative of the Supreme Being.”90 Increasingly, “foreign policy” was comprised of post-hoc explanations for what the militarists were doing, the only meaningful political competition being between the Army and Navy.91 Political announcements had the totalitarian unreality that later generations would recognize as Orwellian, such as the policy statement of 11 August 1936 declaring Japanese expansionism to be a matter of “national defence.”92 In July 1937, exploiting a presumed provocation at the Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing, the local Japanese garrison reignited the war in China, captured Beijing, went after Shanghai, then cut a swath through the Yangtze Valley up to Nanking, later extending its gains even beyond the 110th parallel, fighting both Chiang Kai-shek’s ill-led Kuomintang army and Mao Zedong’s communists. In 1938 Japanese soldiers clashed with Russians near Vladivostok, launching a year later a small incursion into Soviet Outer Mongolia.93 While Germany had promised to come to Japan’s aid in any Japanese–Soviet war, in August 1939 it instead signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviets and invaded Poland. Since this violated the “peace of paper” Hitler had signed at Munich in 1938, Great Britain and its Dominions declared war on Germany. Japan’s treaty obligation not to fortify the Mandates did not include a provision for outside inspection. The legendary Lt.-Col. Earl H. “Pete” Ellis had risen through the Marine ranks to become an instructor in the Naval War College in 1912, before winning the Navy Cross in World War I. On a 15

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secret spying mission among the Mandates in 1923, Ellis died, several scholars asserting that he had discovered fortifications.94 While this was never proven, increasingly, the Japanese refused visits and fly-overs.95 Even before Japan quit the League, ships passing by seemingly uninhabited islands by night would suddenly find themselves under the gaze of 11million-candlepower searchlights.96 By quitting the League, Japan put in question the ongoing viability of its undertaking not to fortify the islands, albeit neither the remaining League members nor the US could mount an adequate protest.97 Now the only Japanese steamship line with access to these islands refused to book passage to foreigners.98 To quell the Americans’ concerns, Japan invited historian Paul Hibbert Clyde to visit nine islands. Clyde reported in November 1934 that he had seen nothing inappropriate, that no other westerner he had spoken to had seen anything inappropriate, and that the most one could say was that an island in the Carolines called Truk, with its large circular lagoon surrounded by cliffs, constituted a great natural fortress since it was subject to attack only from the air.99 When a month later the US and Britain rejected Japan’s request to replace the long-resented 5:5:3 ratio in favor of parity, Japan gave two years’ notice that it was abrogating the 5:5:3 treaty.100

The Philippines Theodore Roosevelt, despite his initial enthusiasm, eventually grasped that the Philippines had been a mistake, “our heel of Achilles . . . all that makes the present situation with Japan dangerous.” It remained an imperial lossleader, with US investment by the 1930s totaling a mere $200 million, as against a total military cost of $900 million. Isolationists argued that the best thing was to cut the losses, the Tydings-McDuffie Act of 1934 granting the Philippines independence by 1946. To facilitate the transition to military independence, President Manuel Luis Quezon y Molina asked his friend Douglas MacArthur, son of the Philippines’ military governor in the uneasy years following acquisition, to train an indigenous force. Some thought Quezon wanted an army so he could become a dictator. Others said that once a large number of Filipinos were handed weapons, they would turn on the Americans.101 In 1936 MacArthur told a gathering of Filipino military men that while a Japanese invasion was a concern, they could take heart from being a nation of islands. This was of course only whistling in the dark, cowboy radio humorist Will Rogers noting that the only reason the Japanese had not yet grabbed the Philippines was that they “didn’t use sugar in their tea. But they are liable to start using it any day.” The Philippines Herald bitingly characterized the US decision to grant independence as releasing a “helpless lamb.” While Guam, if fortified, would be impregnable, a huge island like Luzon, with innumerable places where an invader could mount siege guns 16

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against Manila, would require a permanent land force of around 200,000. The Depression-ridden US could muster no critical mass of interests to fund MacArthur’s project, and he seemed at times not to grasp an impending crisis. He would spend five years on Luzon, with little to show for it other than a handsome salary and a suite atop Manila’s best hotel, one officer characterizing him as “lazy, shiftless, frivolous, uncommunicative . . . and a SUPREME EMOTIONAL ACTOR. . . .”102 The Orange plans posited two alternative procedures: steaming directly to Manila, or taking the Mandates, island-by-island.103 Neither alternative was realistic, the Army and Navy both quietly believing that the Philippines were “doomed.” As Adm. James Richardson, commander-in-chief of the US Fleet, candidly told Congress in 1940, the Orange plans premised a voyage to Manila solely to justify maximum funding.104 One more realistic plan urged a conservative “position-in-readiness” along the Alaska/Hawaii/ Panama triangle, coupled with the use of embargoes on strategic commodities in order to destroy Japan without warfare.105

Rainbow and the rising sun President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), with a report in hand from US ambassador Joseph C. Grew that Japan “probably has the most complete, well-balanced, coordinated and therefore powerful fighting machine in the world today,” decided that one way to jump-start the dysfunctional US economy would be to build ships. With the considerable help of Carl Vinson (Democrat (D)-GA), Roosevelt ordered the construction of thirty-two vessels with a total capital outlay of $238 million, starting in early 1934 with the carriers Yorktown and Enterprise, each displacing 19,800 tons and capable of over 32 knots.106 The moment the Naval Limitation Treaty ran out in December 1936, Roosevelt announced two new battleships, North Carolina and Washington, both at 35,000 tons, and by 1939 naval expenditures had leapt to $673 million. Meanwhile, Japan in August 1940 launched the world’s largest battleship, Yamato, displacing 72,800 tons fully loaded. In war-games held early on a Sunday morning, 7 February 1932, RAdm. Harry Yarnell proved with the carriers Saratoga and Lexington that flattops, unaided by lumbering battleships, could approach Hawaii, hide behind the clouds typically hovering north of Oahu in winter, and launch a surprise attack from a mere 100 miles out. While battleship commanders persuaded the judges to minimize Yarnell’s achievement, it was not lost on the Japanese, who added a study of the exercise to the curriculum at the Naval Academy at Eta Jima. British Far East expert P.T. Etherton thought Pearl Harbor an obvious target for well-trained Japanese bomber pilots, since it was so confined that its ships could not escape out to sea. Orange plans of 1936 and 1938, and a study by the US Naval War College, recognized the possibility of a surprise attack, preceded by diplomatic crises and the 17

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collection of intelligence by local Japanese operatives and collaborators. In the early morning of 29 March 1938, RAdm. Ernest J. King and Saratoga repeated Yarnell’s success.107 When in 1939 it appeared that the US might be fighting Germany, Italy and Japan, all one-on-one Orange plans were revised to reflect a multinational war under the felicitous name “Rainbow.”108 Rainbow-5, forwarded to FDR in May 1940, projected US forces into Europe, stressing Britain’s survival and contemplating for the Pacific a defensive posture pending Germany’s defeat.109 An enormously ambitious, top-secret document calling for expenditures of $150 billion and the convening of 267 divisions, it was drafted by a number of top planners, including RAdm. Richmond Kelly Turner, who would soon be promoted to direct the War Plans Division under the chief of naval operations.110 The fall of France (“Gold”) on 14 June 1940 skewed Rainbow’s assumptions, necessitating further revisions. In the spring of 1940, worried about a Japanese attack on the oil-rich East Indies, FDR ordered Adm. Richardson to station the Fleet in Hawaii, citing its “deterrent effect” on Japan.111 Richardson was among those who vociferously disagreed with this deployment, telling Navy secretary Frank Knox and the Navy’s chief of operations, Adm. Harold R. “Betty” Stark, that since these warships could not fight Japan without first returning to the west coast for refitting, provisioning, and staffing up, retaining them in Hawaii constituted a hollow threat.112 On 27 September, Japan signed with Germany and Italy the Tripartite Pact, thought to be insurance against US intervention in the European war, since this would trigger Japan’s declaring war on the US, forcing the US into a war on two fronts.113 Wehrmacht commander Wilhelm Keitel also hoped the Pact would bring Japan into the war against Britain, thus forcing the British to transfer forces to the Far East.114 The Americans reacted to the Pact, not by focusing on the Pacific but by increasing their aid to Britain, gradually relinquishing their isolationism via a growing realization – hammered home by President Roosevelt – that the world’s malevolent forces were now joining hands. Richardson, testifying in 1945 at a congressional investigation of Pearl Harbor, recounted having lunch on 8 October 1940 with Roosevelt and with Adm. William Leahy. At the lunch FDR reiterated the deterrence value of retaining the Fleet in Hawaii. He had made a political rather than a military judgment, the Hawaiian deployment being the brainchild of no naval theorist but of ex-State Department political expert Stanley Hornbeck.115 Richardson countered that since Japan’s military undoubtedly knew that the US’s ships were not war-ready, deterrence would best be served by returning the ships to the Mainland for outfitting and staffing. Leahy, also testifying at the 1945 hearings, said that at the lunch he had been shocked to hear Richardson declare the US Fleet unprepared for war. While Leahy did 18

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not specifically recall Roosevelt asserting that a Hawaiian-based Fleet had deterrence value, he remembered that as a common opinion in Washington in 1940, although he – like Richardson and other experienced navalists – disagreed with it. At the time of the lunch, with a presidential election just weeks away, polls placed FDR in a dead-heat with a strong Republican candidate, Wendell Willkie. With some polls showing only one voter in five favoring US intervention in Europe, a plank of the Democratic platform vouchsafed non-intervention, “except in case of attack.”116 Roosevelt honed the appropriate rhetoric, proclaiming in Boston: “I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.”117 Isolationism was no fringe issue, its adherents including several powerful and vocal senators, the demagogic “radio priest” Charles Coughlin, and America’s most admired hero, Charles Lindbergh.118 Many believed that the US had been tricked into World War I by a sophisticated public relations campaign mounted by the British, in league with US vendors of war materials and the banking interests that had financed Britain’s purchase of those materials.119 Now the British were again beckoning for help, and many saw Roosevelt as too eager. By Richardson’s telling, Roosevelt in the course of the October 1940 luncheon remarked that if Japan attacked the Netherlands East Indies, or the independent, theoretically neutral Thailand, or the British possessions of Burma, the Malay States and Singapore, or even the Philippines, the US would not declare war.120 FDR added, however, that “sooner or later” Japan “would make a mistake,” thus rendering US intervention in a Pacific war inevitable.121 Leahy in his congressional testimony recalled no such comments from Roosevelt, adding that since the Philippines was still a US possession, of course FDR would have declared war if it had been attacked.122 Japan could make a mistake. Ultranationalist hotheads, unafraid to invent “incidents” and to kill opponents, had even schemed to assassinate Charlie Chaplin during his visit to Tokyo.123 More temperate Japanese military leaders, meanwhile, pondered how much Asian territory they might grab before the US reacted militarily. Irrespective of what Roosevelt might have said at a private lunch in October 1940, Isoroku Yamamoto, commander-inchief of Japan’s Combined Fleet, believed that a Japanese attack on the East Indies would trigger a US response. This was a reasonable guess, although no one could confidently predict what the US might do at any given moment under any given set of facts. A December 1939 Fortune poll had shown 45 percent of the public not even wanting to defend Hawaii.124 While a poll one year later revealed that 56 percent of the people thought the US should stop Japan from seizing the East Indies or the British bastion at Singapore, only 30 percent believed it should risk war to do so. A Gallup poll in the 23 February 1941 New York Times found only 39 percent of Americans ready to risk war over the East Indies or Singapore. 19

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Not that polls are perfect auguries of a democracy’s foreign policy. While under the US Constitution only Congress could declare war, a politically astute president could enlist opinion behind policies that could lead to war. British prime minister Winston Churchill later recounted that in August 1941, Roosevelt boldly confided: “If I were to ask Congress to declare war, they might argue about it for three months,” thus, “I may never declare war; I may make war.”125 Moreover, the polls were changing as the media showed America the Axis leaders, their ambitions, their methods, even their truculent personal demeanor. By November 1941 isolationism was slipping, Gallup recording a majoritarian commitment to fight if Japan attacked the East Indies. In the months and years following the luncheon, Leahy’s career continued its upward trajectory. He would become chairman of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff while at the same time serving as Roosevelt’s own chief-ofstaff and closest military advisor, being promoted in December 1944 to the five-star rank of Fleet Admiral. Richardson’s career, meanwhile, cratered. In a memoir written in 1958 but not published until 1973, he admitted holding back from his testimony in 1945 a frank admonishment he delivered to FDR during the luncheon: I feel that I must tell you that the senior officers of the Navy do not have the trust and confidence in the civilian leadership of this country that is essential for the successful prosecution of a war in the Pacific.126 Admitting in a memoir that one gave less than the whole truth under oath in a congressional hearing on a matter of crucial national importance, tends to undercut the credibility both of the original testimony and of the new, unsworn addendum. Since Richardson did not include this alleged part of the luncheon conversation in his sworn testimony, Leahy was not asked to affirm or deny that it was said. Nevertheless, there is good circumstantial evidence that Richardson did say this to Roosevelt: several months after the lunch, Richardson was relieved of command. When he asked Navy secretary Frank Knox why he was fired, Knox said the president would be calling him to discuss it. That call never came. But Knox did provide at least a hint: “The last time you were here you hurt the President’s feelings.” This was an oddly personal, sentimental way to express what Richardson should have already known, that his comment to his commander-in-chief that day had been not just inappropriate but grossly insubordinate. At a minimum, Richardson had pressed too hard his case for a battleready, Mainland-based Navy, and in doing so destroyed whatever chance a subtler, consensus-building approach might have had to convince Roosevelt to retransfer the Fleet from Hawaii to west coast ports.127 Thereafter excluded from power, Richardson at least had the consolation of being a prophet, 20

THE PACIFIC BACKGROUND

a whistle-blower, and a martyr. He no doubt endorsed the comment in 1946 by Rep. Frank B. Keefe (R-WI), a member of the congressional committee investigating Pearl Harbor, who advised that “[t]he American public in 1941 was deluded about the fighting strength of our Fleet . . . by irresponsible utterances from men in authority,” while Japan “was under no such misconception,” its agents in Hawaii needing “only their eyesight, and possibly binoculars, to appraise correctly the strength of the Fleet.”128 Japan’s spy at Pearl Harbor would later write that from his daily walks in the fall of 1941, he could see that the ships were not provisioning for combat.129 As to the notion of dashing from Hawaii to save the Philippines, Keefe, like Richardson, saw this as hollow rhetoric.

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Among the credentials of Joseph Grew, long-term US ambassador to Japan, was that of being married to the granddaughter of Commodore Perry. As a young man, Grew was befriended by Theodore Roosevelt, then graduated with Franklin Roosevelt in the Groton class of 1900, later joining him on the Harvard Crimson. On 14 December 1940 Grew told FDR that his various efforts in Tokyo to foster moderation had come to naught and that Japan should thus be considered a predator nation with which the US was “bound to have a showdown someday.” While Roosevelt’s reaction was characteristically murky, one thing was clear: he did not want the US to be the one unvanquished democracy left in the world and thus – despite all the votegetting rhetoric about non-intervention – he was not going to let Britain fall. Even before the 1940 election, he initiated on 16 September the nation’s first peacetime draft, calling for a uniformed force of 1.2 million and 800,000 reservists.1 With the election safely behind him, he could embark on an unprecedented third term with the powers invested in him by the LendLease Act of 11 March 1941, in effect ending the isolationists’ neutrality laws of the 1930s by authorizing aid to any nation “whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States,” without asking Congress for a declaration of war it was not yet likely to give.2 From late January to early March 1941, a series of “American–British Conversations” resulted in a joint plan called “ABC-1.” Like Rainbow-5, it posited that if Japan engaged the US in war, the US should nevertheless commit itself to defeating Germany first. The Navy in late May issued WPL-46, comprising the naval aspects of Rainbow-5, with the Pacific aspect, WPPac-46, approved by Stark on 9 September. Consistent with the Germany-First strategy, several ships were transferred from Hawaii to help protect Lend-Lease convoys to Britain from attacks by German U-boats.3 Rainbow-5, like previous Orange plans, wrote off the Philippines as well as Guam and Wake Island, the latter a small atoll taken by the US as a cable station in 1899, and otherwise of interest only because it lay about halfway between Midway (1,029 miles) and Guam (1,309 miles), thus making it a link for commercial and possibly for military aircraft between California and the 22

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Far East.4 But to consider an outpost “expendable” did not necessarily mean simply abandoning it. There were still thousands of US soldiers in the Philippines and hundreds on Guam, and in June 1941 the US sent the Marines’ 1st Defense Battalion to Wake, where civilian construction workers were enhancing the airstrip and other facilities in preparation for war.

Economic sanctions As a world power, Japan, even more than Britain, was severely limited in size and resources. The Home Islands’ 148,000 square miles, collectively about the size of Montana, lacked thirty-eight basic raw materials. Under 20 percent of the land was arable, not nearly enough to support 73 million people. Thousands of farmers and entrepreneurs were sent to Korea, Manchuria, then the newly claimed areas of China, where they showed what Japanese ingenuity might achieve.5 Despite the movement of extracted ores over the 670 miles of the South Manchurian Railway and a clever new method to extract oil from shale, Japan still lacked the full array of raw materials it needed to stoke its industries.6 A third of Japan’s trade was with the US. President Roosevelt, beginning with his controversial “Quarantine” speech in Chicago in October 1937, reacted to each new act of Japanese aggression in China by an additional ratchet on a series of increasingly draconian trade restrictions.7 In July 1939 he found congressional support to abrogate a long-term commercial treaty with Japan signed during Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency, thus freeing FDR to invoke trade restrictions.8 Japan had been a major importer of American scrap metal, and after Roosevelt embargoed one grade of meltable scrap in September 1940, Tokyo’s manhole covers began disappearing. The crucial commodity, however, was oil. In 1939, with Japan’s production of domestic crude totaling only 2.3 million barrels, it imported 27.2 million barrels from the US and 4.8 million from the East Indies and Borneo. With only 90,000 cars, trucks and taxies, Japan’s domestic requirements were exceedingly modest. But its imperial ambitions required oil, lest the Imperial Fleet, a senior Japanese diplomat later observed, “constructed at the cost of abrogation of the Naval Limitation Treaty, would soon become worthless.”9 Because Roosevelt’s gradually ratcheted embargoes had all failed to slow Japanese expansion, the only card left to play was oil, albeit Roosevelt had always feared that an oil embargo would trigger a Japanese invasion of the East Indies.10 In the summer of 1940 Roosevelt barred the export of high-octane aviation fuel and instituted other restrictions, while leaving Japan free to buy lower grades which could then be boosted with additives.11 France’s capitulation had yielded various political complications in its colonies. Since Japan had closed China’s ports and the Burma Road linking 23

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China with the British crown colony of Burma could not possibly serve all of China’s needs, the Chinese had availed themselves of Indochina’s Haiphong Harbor. But on 14 July, Japan told France’s pro-Axis Vichy government that it intended to occupy northern and central sections of Indochina. Vichy, pressured by Germany, consented, declaring Indochina a “jointprotectorate” administered by Japan.12 As Japan accumulated in Indochina the forces necessary to invade Borneo and the East Indies, in September 1940 it sent a cabinet minister to Batavia to ask for a five-fold increase in Dutch oil exports to Japan. The US and Britain protested, and Japan failed to get what it wanted.13 The Dutch, although stripped of a homeland in Europe, were nevertheless willing to fight in the East Indies to protect not only their financial investment and 300 years of rule over a population now reaching 60 million, but the lives of the 40,000 white and 200,000 Eurasian inhabitants carrying Dutch passports.14 In April 1941, Japan signed a neutrality pact with the Soviets.15 When in June 1941 Germany ignored its own treaty with the Russians and invaded, Japanese foreign minister Yo¯suke Matsuoka urged that Japan do likewise, and by August Japan had amassed sixteen divisions in Manchuria.16 Amidst rumors that much of the Soviet Far Eastern Army would be sent west to help repel the German invasion, some in Japan saw a golden opportunity. Germany, of course, urged Japan to proceed.17 Harold Ickes, US interior secretary and a Roosevelt confidant, thought Japan so focused on its opportunity in Siberia (an adventure for which Japan’s Army had been training for a generation) that it would not also invade the East Indies. RAdm. Turner, a former teacher in the advanced course at the Naval War College and now Stark’s senior intelligence officer, was tasked with evaluating intercepted Japanese communications and from them predicting the behavior of the Imperial Navy. Asked whether an embargo would trigger a Japanese attack on the East Indies or Malaya, he opined that it “probably” would, adding that since Japan would not leave its flank exposed, it would also attack the Philippines.18 Thus, Turner suggested that perhaps Roosevelt could postpone any oil embargo until Japan had committed its troops to Siberia.19 Japan, however, following an intelligence report that Josef Stalin had not in fact dismantled his Far East Army to fight Germany, decided to forgo this chance, fearing being trapped in the Siberian winter with no chance for any quick and decisive action, and with a German victory over the Soviets likely but by no means certain.20 Thus, planners in Japan’s Imperial Army now paralleled (one could not say they joined) their counterparts in the Imperial Navy by focusing exclusively on the South.21 One of Ambassador Grew’s fellow “soft-liners” in the State Department, Maxwell Hamilton of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs, agreed with Turner that an embargo would trigger war. Alger Hiss, Edwin O. Reischauer and a dozen other members of Hamilton’s staff were about evenly divided on the issue.22 Stanley Hornbeck, closer to the President’s ear and harboring 24

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an “almost pathological hatred” of the Japanese, urged the President to invoke the embargo, as did Ickes.23 In London, Anthony Eden asked the War Cabinet whether Britain should attempt to restrain the US from initiating such a “drastic” step.24 Since Churchill desperately wanted the US to intervene in the war, he would of course make no such attempt. On 24 July Roosevelt, Stark and under-secretary of state Sumner Welles warned Japan’s ambassador in Washington, Admiral Nomura, that if Japan attacked the East Indies, Britain would intervene, thus commencing a Pacific war.25 On 25 July the morning newspapers reported Roosevelt’s comment that although the US had continued selling Japan oil only to keep it from invading the East Indies, such sales might end. In Tokyo, Admiral Osami Nagano, chief of the Naval General Staff, told a colleague: “Things have come to such a pass that there is nothing else to do but stand resolute and break the iron chain” being forged by the US. The next morning’s papers reported that Roosevelt had frozen Japan’s assets in the US, generally construed as an absolute embargo on all exports to Japan, even though Roosevelt assured Nomura that this was only a warning, while confiding in Churchill that he was “babying Japan along.” Britain, the Philippines, New Zealand and the London-based Dutch government-inexile quickly followed with their own oil embargoes. Nagano told the Emperor: “we have no choice but to come out fighting.” Chances for a negotiated resolution were fading.26 Although senior US diplomats understood that Roosevelt had not in fact declared an absolute embargo, the Washington bureaucrats to whom Japan was now obliged to “apply” for oil proved intransigent, and the embargo became absolute. Roosevelt, now in his secret “Atlantic Charter” meeting with Churchill in Newfoundland, failed to see what was happening, and by September, with almost no oil products going to Japan, Roosevelt may have feared that if he now tried to clarify his intent, the Japanese would construe it as backing down from the absolute embargo they had been experiencing since July. Meanwhile, Japan had learned that Boeing B-17 “Flying Fortress” bombers were arriving at newly built airstrips in China, along with US pilots and ground crews, while volunteer “Flying Tiger” fighters under Claire Chennault were already operating at both ends of the Burma Road to keep it open. Increasingly, Japan’s leaders saw themselves as in an undeclared war with the US, while Roosevelt, with constantly growing press support, began to prepare for the inevitable “showdown.”27 While for years Japan had been hoarding oil to counter an embargo, its stockpile, reportedly between 38 million and 78 million barrels, would last for only a year or two of war. Nagano argued strenuously at the Imperial Conference of 6 September 1941 that Japan’s position was deteriorating daily, while the Allies’ position improved.28 As a Japanese journalist later noted, if Japan’s oil reserves had been substantially greater, it might have waited to see if Britain fell, while if they had been substantially less, Japan 25

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would not have risked war for fear it might run out before it could secure more. Thus, it had “just enough” oil to support a “now-or-never” mentality.29

The calculation Japan’s Army and Navy planners, working independently and often at crosspurposes, faced several choices. Japan could grab the substantial oil production at Palembang on Sumatra and/or Balikpapan on British North Borneo (ancillary prizes being tin and rubber), deal with whatever forces the British and/or Dutch assembled, and hope the US did nothing. This would have been a reasonable gamble, Roosevelt having repeatedly promised voters peace unless the US itself came under attack. Although the US polls were already tipping away from isolationism, Roosevelt had no guaranty of congressional support for war merely because an oil-starved Japan stole some exotic islands from some European imperial power.30 Another option was to stop all expansion and negotiate some compromise. While Nomura, Yamamoto and prime minister Fumimaro Konoe believed this possible, others viewed it both as a repudiation of Japan’s decade-long policy of imperialism, and as disrespect for the thousands of soldiers who had already died in China. In some circles the mere suggestion of compromise invited assassination. Nomura suggested a meeting between Konoe and Roosevelt in Honolulu, Juneau, or some other mid-Pacific location.31 While secretary-of-war Henry Stimson thought this suggestion a “blind” to lull the US away from preparedness, Grew thought Konoe ready to make concessions.32 Nomura found Roosevelt amenable, although secretary-of-state Cordell Hull insisted that the substance of an agreement be reached before the US president committed his prestige.33 Achieving a mid-Pacific meeting would of course burnish Konoe’s reputation and perhaps foster an atmosphere of moderation in Tokyo. At Japan’s Washington embassy, first secretary Hidenari Terasaki told a newsman: It is like a father and son who argue for ten years. The son apologizes, the father apologizes, and peace emerges. Well, Japan (the son, presumably) has now apologized.34 In the end, Roosevelt declined to meet, and on 16 October 1941 Konoe’s government collapsed.35 The die was cast. Since the military controlled Japan’s government and media, one heard little about anti-war factions. Moreover, for a Japanese generation raised on news stories about US racial insults, war was far from unthinkable, given Japan’s victory over another lumbering white giant, Russia.36 Matsuoka was confident that Britain would soon fall to the Germans, eliminating it as a second enemy in the Pacific and rendering its holdings ripe for the taking, much as Germany’s Pacific holdings had been taken in World War I. The Soviet Union seemed about to collapse, Japanese officers having high confidence in the aggressive Prussian methods in which they had been trained.37 German success would isolate the US, and a few quick, dramatic 26

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victories in the Pacific would bring the Americans to the negotiating table, where Japan would be able to keep its new empire and economic independence.38 And even if American “softness” did not yield a quick resolution, Japan could outlast the US in terms of psychological commitment. After all (as General George Marshall would later write), a democracy cannot fight a Seven Years War.39 In 1908 the ONI hired its first translator of Japanese documents, a student whose father had served as a missionary.40 Among the reasons for Japan’s bitterness about the 5:5:3 treaty was the publication in 1930 of cryptanalyst Herbert Yardley’s tell-all memoir admitting that the US had decrypted 5,000 communications of Japanese negotiators, thus giving the US a decided – if “unfair” – edge.41 Yardley’s indiscretion led Japan to invent and to borrow from Germany more sophisticated kinds of encryption. In the spring of 1941, after a German diplomat suggested that the US was decrypting Japanese diplomatic messages, Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs scoffed, ¯ bun Injiki (Alphabetical Typewriter Style 97) disbelieving that its 97-shiki O 42 could ever be cracked. Style-97, derived from the German Enigma cipher system, involved two Underwood typewriters, twenty-six wires, and sockets on a so-called “plug board,” with operators each day plugging the wires into a different combination of sockets, using the settings given in an accompanying book. Plaintext material typed on typewriter 1 came out encrypted on typewriter 2, while encrypted text typed on typewriter 2 emerged in readable text on typewriter 1. The dazzling power came from advanced telephone-exchange dialing switches, which offered so many variants that cryptanalysts could find no recurring patterns, even among hundreds of messages. Nevertheless, even without the benefit of the accompanying book, Style-97 could through monumental effort be decoded, by collecting and comparing messages sent simultaneously in Style-97 to embassies equipped with the cipher machine, and in other encryptions – already broken – to embassies that did not have it. The key was that the Japanese messages had to be written using ro¯maji, a romanized western alphabet. Since that alphabet contains fewer vowels than consonants, the number of substitutions representing vowels would be smaller than the number made for consonants, thus inevitably yielding a pattern. One could also take advantage of the fact that diplomatic messages commonly provided repetitive clues, such as: “I have the honor to inform Your Excellency that . . . .”43 Lt.-Col. William Friedman of the US Army’s Signals Intelligence Service (SIS) had come to cryptology via Shakespeare, having explored via linguistic analysis the common premise that the real author of the plays was Francis Bacon.44 In August and September 1940 mathematician Frank B. Rowlett, statistician Genevieve Grotjan, cryptanalyst Harry Lawrence Clark and others working under Friedman, with a common genius for dogged, 27

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frustrating puzzle-solving, broke Style-97 and the protocol for changing settings, then used reverse-engineering to build an equivalent machine, employing the Underwood typewriters and off-the-shelf electronics used in the original.45 So skilled was Rowlett’s team that a signals officer called them “magicians.” The first diplomatic encryption worked on had been “Orange.” A successor, more difficult (thus, “darker”), was deciphered by a mechanical “Red” machine. But the cipher Rowlett’s team now conquered, extremely difficult and even “darker,” was nicknamed “Purple.”46 The messages these magicians cracked were themselves referred to (by the few with access to them) as “Purple,” although some called any message, whether in Purple or any other cipher or code, “Magic,” with a few, borrowing from contemporary British usage for messages deciphered from the German Enigma machine: “Ultra.” The first reverse-engineered Purple machine began cranking out messages on 25 September 1940, the eve of the Tripartite Pact. A handful of the machines were built and distributed under conditions of unparalleled secrecy. One went to MacArthur, several more to the British, one of which was “lost” on its way to Singapore, under circumstances never explained. The US Army and Navy each received two.47 In the 1930s Japanese naval planners had favored a strategy called “Ambush and Decrease,” by which they would initially deal with a US fleet sailing west by picking off individual ships along the way, followed by a “decisive engagement” near Japan. Yamamoto, however, could not abide leaving the Philippines in the middle of the north–south road between Japan and its putative conquests. Believing that Japan could not ultimately prevail without smashing the American fleet, he rejected “Ambush and Decrease” in favor of a surprise attack on Hawaii. A veteran of the Russo-Japanese War, he knew the value of surprise. He knew about what Yarnell had done, and before that, Ryunosuke Kusaka had proposed to bomb the American fleet at Pearl Harbor if – as might happen – the US could not be lured into a decisive engagement in the western Pacific. Even before Kusaka, Yamamoto had qualified as an air-power “visionary”: in 1915, when asked by an American what he considered the warship of the future, he replied: “A ship to carry airplanes.”48 Yamamoto did not believe in the myth of spiritual power outlasting industrial might. He had met with Hector Bywater several times and, unlike many colleagues in the Imperial Navy, had heeded Bywater’s warnings.49 The son of a penurious samurai, he had been a beneficiary of the Imperial Navy’s program of teaching its best young officers what they should know about Japan’s likeliest enemy by posting them to the US. Although formally enrolled as a language student at Harvard, instead of attending classes he traveled widely, studying in particular the American oil and automotive industries.50 He also spent two years (1926–28) as a naval attaché in Washington, where he regularly played bridge, poker, chess, and billiards, as 28

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well as an oriental game, mah-jongg, that had recently taken Jazz-Age America by storm. With substantial experience behind him, he warned that the Americans would not be fazed by early reversals and that in a protracted conflict, Japan would be the first to run out of resources.51 He told Konoe that if Japan opted for war and his plan to attack Hawaii was approved, he would “run wild” for a while but could promise nothing once the US organized the vast industrial capability Yamamoto had personally observed.52 In February 1941, Yamamoto assigned to Lieutenant-Commander Minoru Genda of the 1st Air Squadron the task of detailing an aerial attack on Pearl Harbor. The sudden deaths the previous summer of Hector Bywater and Bywater’s Tokyo source, Reuters correspondent Melville Cox, suggested to Bywater’s biographer that Yamamoto may have had them both killed, since Bywater (not just a journalist but a member of the British Secret Service) had always shown an extraordinary ability to ferret out naval facts.53 That the Hawaiian attack was feasible was underscored in November 1940, when the British launched twenty-one outdated biplanes from the outdated carrier Illustrious, torpedoing several Italian battleships and cruisers in the harbor at Taranto. Knox had told Stimson that the Taranto raid “suggests that precautionary measures be taken immediately to protect Pearl Harbor against a surprise attack,” the “greatest danger” being “from the aerial torpedo.” Taranto had stimulated international interest; the Japanese sent specialists there to gather the facts, which were reviewed by both Genda and Capt. Mitsuo Fuchida, who would ultimately lead Japan’s aerial attack against Hawaii.54 When torpedoes are dropped from aircraft, they at first “porpoise” to several dozen feet before rising to their calibrated level on the way to the target. In February 1941 Stark informed Husband E. Kimmel, commanderin-chief of the US Fleet and the Pacific Fleet, that an enemy could not use aerial torpedoes in the shoal-infested Pearl Harbor, since in places it was only 30 feet deep. RAdm. Claude Bloch, commander of the naval district that included Hawaii, with a memo in hand stating that aerial torpedoes required a depth of 120 feet, saw no need for such basic defenses as torpedo nets, “baffles,” within the harbor.55 Stark believed that the British had eliminated the problem of torpedoes “porpoising” to great depth by attaching vanes, but also believed that the Taranto harbor was 84 feet deep.56 Thus, the Amerians could take comfort that what the British did at Taranto would not work at Pearl Harbor. On 24 January 1941, while Yamamoto was discussing his attack plan with a small coterie of senior officers, US Navy secretary Frank Knox wrote to Stimson: “If war eventuates with Japan, it is believed easily possible that hostilities would be initiated by surprise attack on the fleet or the naval base at Pearl Harbor.”57 A copy was sent to Admiral Kimmel, stationed in Hawaii. Peru’s minister to Japan, meanwhile, seeing one of Ambassador Grew’s assistants on line at a Tokyo bank, pulled him aside to say the town was 29

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buzzing with talk of a possible raid on Pearl Harbor if Japanese–American diplomacy failed. Grew informed Hull, the message reaching Kimmel with the comment that ONI “places no credence in these rumors.”58 Kimmel nevertheless wrote to Stark that he was “taking immediate steps” to “minimize the damage” from a “surprise attack.”59 Army chief-of-staff George Marshall, installing Lt.-Gen. Walter C. Short in command of the 42,000 ground and air forces of the Hawaiian Department, advised his appointee that the “real perils [are] the risk of sabotage and the risk of surprise attack by Air [from] Japanese carrier-based pursuit plane[s].” In March the Army published a “Plan for Protective Measures for the Civilian Population of Oahu in Case of Bombardment.” On the 31st, Kimmel’s and Short’s subordinates in charge of patrol planes, RAdm. Patrick N.L. Bellinger and Maj.-Gen. F.L. Martin, warned: “In a dawn air attack there is a high probability that it could be delivered as a complete surprise in spite of any patrols we might be using.” Ellis Zacharias, an intelligence expert specializing in Japanese strategy, reportedly told Kimmel that the most probable moment for a surprise attack was a Sunday morning, a warning reiterated by Stark.60 It has been suggested that Roosevelt and Churchill, perhaps in their Newfoundland meeting in mid-August 1941, struck a deal whereby Churchill gave up substantial Lend-Lease entitlements in exchange for Roosevelt’s sending B-17s to the Philippines in order to protect not just that US outpost but also Singapore, which lay only 1,292 miles from Manila. On 15 November, Marshall told seven senior journalists that the US was organizing “an offensive war against Japan,” with thirty-five B-17s already in the Philippines, another twenty arriving in December, and sixty more due in January. A map shown in the meeting illustrated that although neither B-17s nor Consolidated’s new B-24 Liberators could achieve the 3,200-mile roundtrip necessary to bomb Tokyo from Luzon, Tokyo was well within US bombing range because of its proximity (only 575 miles) from Soviet airstrips at Vladivostok. “If war with the Japanese does come,” he asserted, “we’ll fight mercilessly. Flying fortresses will be dispatched immediately to set the paper cities of Japan on fire. There won’t be any hesitation about bombing civilians – it will be all-out.” While Marshall had sworn this select group to secrecy, presumably he had assembled them and “confided” in them because he wanted this threat of unrestricted Armageddon to be leaked and read in Tokyo.61 MacArthur, more bullish even than Marshall, told a disbelieving Admiral Thomas C. Hart, commander of the small US Asiatic Fleet then based at Manila, that the Japanese were unlikely to attack before the spring, by which time he would have 256 bombers and 195 new fighters, a very sizeable air force. But the threat of bombing Japan from Luzon was hollow, since Japan would treat any landing of American planes and airmen on Soviet soil as a warlike act by the Soviets, in violation of their 30

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April neutrality pact, to be countered with a Japanese invasion of Mongolia and/or Siberia. Thus, the Soviets, although major beneficiaries of US LendLease largesse, refused the Americans the use of their airfields.62

A modus vivendi After the fall of Konoe’s cabinet in October 1941, Japan’s new prime minister, Hideki To¯jo¯, former chief-of-staff of Japan’s semi-autonomous Kwantung Army in Manchuria, headed a government of fourteen, half of them military. Although many observers thought To¯jo¯’s ascendancy meant war, he at first followed Konoe’s precedent by working for a diplomatic resolution.63 For months this had also been the heartfelt wish of ambassador Nomura, who had served as naval attaché in Washington during World War I, there befriending the assistant-secretary of the Navy, Franklin Roosevelt. Nomura was said to have received the crucial Washington ambassadorship at the urging of the Imperial Navy, in that his friendship with Roosevelt might be of value. In August 1940 Nomura had told Admiral Zengo Yoshida, minister of the Imperial Navy, that since any war with the US would be long and Japan was already “exhausted” by years of fighting in China, “[t]here is . . . a limit to the hard attitude Japan can adopt toward the United States.” Twice had Nomura declined the American posting, until finally convinced by the Emperor himself in November 1940 that Tokyo did not intend war and that he was thus not going to be used as a mere front-man.64 In the months since Nomura’s arrival in March 1941, he and Hull met steadily, as many as sixty times, although Hull insisted that the meetings take place not in his office but in the comparative informality of his hotel suite, since the parties were too far apart to be engaging in “negotiations,” only “conversations.”65 Nomura’s old friendship with Roosevelt proved worthless, and Hull abided these desultory “conversations” only because the US itself needed time to build up MacArthur’s capabilities.66 Nomura sensed that Hull did not trust him, and when in late October 1941 Konoe’s government collapsed, he told Japan’s new foreign minister, Shigenori To¯go¯, that he wanted to be relieved, feeling like “the skeleton of a dead horse.” To¯go¯ instead decided to appoint a career diplomat to assist Nomura. Mamoru Shigemitsu, Japan’s ambassador in London, was considered but rejected, the Japanese military finding him insufficiently hard-line.67 The man chosen, Saburo¯ Kurusu, had told an American years before that Japan intended to be the “boss” of Asia, irrespective of whatever non-aggression treaties it had signed.68 And he had been Japan’s ambassador to Germany, where he negotiated the infamous Tripartite Pact. Although he spoke English colloquially, having married an American woman while serving in Japan’s Chicago consulate back in 1914, he fulfilled physically the American stereotype of the Oriental deceiver, being short, with prominent teeth and horn-rimmed spectacles.69 31

WHY JAPAN GAMBLED

At Japan’s request, the Pan-American clipper was held for two days in Hong Kong to accommodate this VIP. He and his secretary checked only 77 pounds of luggage, suggesting a short stay. After the clipper’s layover in Manila, MacArthur noted that Kurusu’s posting to Washington must be in pursuit of “some dirty job.” And Nomura’s American advisor later recounted that when Kurusu arrived in Washington on 16 November he brought with him a bellicose message: Either the US lifts its economic blockade or Japan will break it (Figure 2.1).70 Tokyo had put together two proposals, instructing Nomura first to offer the harsh one, “A,” and – upon its inevitable rejection – to present the softer “B.” In fact neither proposal could conceivably be acceptable to the US, since each gave Japan a free hand in China, something the US would not abide.71 Meanwhile, Joseph Ballantine and other officers of Hull’s State Department, and Harry Dexter White and other officers of Henry Morgenthau, Jr.’s Treasury Department, had been drafting versions of a fresh approach, a ninety-day standstill for peace talks between Japan and China, during which Japan would withdraw from southern Indochina in exchange for a partial lifting of the US oil embargo.72 (White’s version including such sweeteners as a suggested repeal of the National Origins Act of 1924.) This so-called “modus vivendi” proposal, while it did not assure a

Figure 2.1 Ambassador Kichisaburo¯ Nomura and special envoy Saburo¯ Kurusu meet reporters in Washington, November 1941.

32

WHY JAPAN GAMBLED

diplomatic solution, gave the US time to supply MacArthur with a substantial number of B-17s. Stimson, Stark and (in Marshall’s absence) Brig.-Gen. L.T. Gerow, chief of the War Department’s War Plans Division, had all been encouraged by the modus vivendi proposal, as were the Australian and Dutch ministers, Richard Casey and Alexander Loudon.73 Meanwhile, Marshall asked Kimmel to send two carriers west to ferry two squadrons of Marine planes to the Pan-American fields on Midway and Wake, to protect these as relay stations for the delivery of B-17s to Luzon. The 4th Marines, “China Marines” a/k/a “Old China Hands” who had been stationed in Shanghai since the early 1920s to protect American interests in China, now left China to join MacArthur’s motley but quickly expanding defense force on Luzon.74 Roosevelt described the modus vivendi to Churchill as “a fair proposition for the Japanese,” while adding: “I am not very hopeful and we must all be prepared for real trouble, possibly soon.”75 It was “a fair proposition” because it offered Japan a graceful way to leave China. While Japan boasted 1.7 million combat troops and a labor pool of 10.5 million more men to draw from, China had long since become a sinkhole, a less dramatic version of what Russia would be for the Germans. By November 1941, Japanese casualties in China had totaled 180,000 dead and 425,000 sick or wounded. Unable to win militarily, Japan was also unable to withdraw diplomatically, there being no one in Tokyo capable of admitting a strategic/military error of such magnitude. Although the Imperial Army would reject outright any demand by the US to pull back, if Japan could get a standstill, it might itself find a way to backtrack without losing face.76 China’s ambassador in Washington, Hu Shih, insisted that Japan leave Indochina to a small local garrison, then reported Chiang’s view that any lifting of the oil embargo, even if solely to supply Japan’s domestic, nonmilitary use, would injure Chinese morale.77 The morale of an ally’s troops was a classically “soft” issue, and Roosevelt might simply disregard it.78 China had two resources in superabundance: land upon which to retreat, and cannon fodder, Chiang’s chief-of-staff commenting that Chinese casualties would be of no concern until they exceeded 50 million.79 On the other hand, disregarding Chiang could be damaging to Roosevelt in the US, since public opinion was entirely pro-Chinese and anti-Japanese. Although, decades earlier, the Japanese had tried to make Americans respect them by differentiating themselves from “Orientals” and “Mongolians,” more recently Japan had repeatedly shown contempt for American public opinion. In September 1937 Japanese airmen, seeing US flags flying over a missionary hospital in China’s Kwangtung Province, nevertheless bombed it.80 Three months later, the US gunboat Panay, escorting US commercial vessels up the Yangtze River, with US flags painted on her awnings and topside as well as flying from her masts, was attacked by fourteen Japanese dive-bombers and nine fighters, the first US vessel ever sunk by aircraft. The 33

WHY JAPAN GAMBLED

sinking, followed by machine-gun strafing of the water and shoreline, yielded three dead and forty-eight wounded. Although Japan, following an investigation headed by Yamamoto, apologized and paid an indemnity of $2.2 million, the act seemed to be a deliberate attempt to belittle the US in the eyes of the Chinese.81 And although two large American flags and two white crosses could be seen at the Catholic mission at Kiangsi, in November 1940 a Japanese dive-bomber attacked, returning later to pepper the rubble with its machine guns.82 Japan’s notable disregard for human life played out on a far grander scale against the Chinese. In the so-called Rape of Nanking of December 1937 and January 1938, the victorious Japanese general, Iwane Matsui, let his men go on a spree of pillage, yielding a huge civilian death toll. “We do not do this because we hate them,” Matsui declared, “but . . . because we love them too much,” as when the older brother must chastise the younger to make him behave.83 Through the courageous efforts of US missionaries, aided by the fact that the soldiers took souvenir photographs of their atrocities and had them developed in local shops, the carnage showed up in the US media. Historian Barbara Tuchman suggested that Chiang let the whole thing happen to dramatize China’s situation to the world.84 One of the headlines following the Japanese attack on Canton read: “CHILDREN HUNT KIN IN CHINESE RUINS.”85 No American could forget the abject photograph of a Chinese baby, badly burned and crying, sitting alone in the ruins of Shanghai’s South Railway Station. Such reports drove home what Roosevelt had said in his “Quarantine” speech in Chicago in October 1937: If those things come to pass in other parts of the world, let no one imagine that America will escape, that America may expect mercy, that this Western Hemisphere will not be attacked and that it will continue . . . peacefully to carry on the ethics and the arts of civilization. While the US had once treated Japan as a protégé, its paternalistic feelings for China were on a different scale, with thousands of missionaries having been vocal advocates for the peasant virtues they observed.86 Roosevelt had been assistant-secretary of the Navy at a time when Americans, having repeatedly insulted Japan, could legitimize such conduct by tending to depict China as Japan’s innocent victim, in need of a big brother but not itself a threat because it had no navy and its emigrants were already barred from the US.87 The core issue between the US and Japan – Thomas Millard had written in 1909 – is whether China will develop under “the institutions and ethical standards of East or West.”88 In 1928 Chiang’s Nationalists had prevailed upon the US to recognize them as China’s legitimate government, and it did.89 Chiang, a convert to Methodism, and his wife, a vivacious member of Wellesley College’s class of 34

WHY JAPAN GAMBLED

1917 whose father had been a Methodist missionary, had always enjoyed extensive positive coverage for themselves in the US press, seeming to personify an Americanized, Christianized China which the average US citizen could admire.90 In the autumn of 1941 the US gave China $75 million in aid, Roosevelt understanding that so long as Chiang continued fighting, Japan’s army in China would be unavailable for adventures in the East Indies and Australasia. Nor was Roosevelt completely dispassionate. His mother had lived in China, the Delanos having opened China’s first telegraph service and initiated the first steamship line on the Yangtze.91 Chiang’s agents in the US, including his brother, H.H. Kung (Oberlin 1906) and Madame Chiang’s brother, T.V. Soong (Harvard 1915), through Knox and Stimson, two prominent Republicans in Roosevelt’s cabinet, made clear that to allow Japan any oil or any garrisons in China or even any face-saving delays in withdrawal, would expose Roosevelt to charges of having “sold China down the river” to avoid war with Japan. Such a charge would be a domestic political liability no less damaging for being ironic, given that FDR’s only serious foreign-policy opponents, the isolationists, had for some time been accusing him not of avoiding war but rather of inviting it.92 Meanwhile, as his agents worked to mold opinion in Washington, Chiang complained about the modus vivendi to Winston Churchill, who then in a confidential telegram to Roosevelt said that while he was not opposed to the plan, it comprised “a very thin diet” for China, whose defeat would free up Japanese forces to take Britain’s Far East holdings. This was not the first time Churchill fretted about a third party’s welfare, having faced since June the prospect that if Russia fell, most German forces there would be sent west to invade England.93 On 24 November 1941 Stark informed Kimmel: CHANCES OF FAVORABLE OUTCOME OF NEGOTIATIONS WITH JAPAN VERY DOUBTFUL. THIS SITUATION COUPLED WITH STATEMENTS OF JAPANESE

GOVERNMENT

AND

MILITARY FORCES INDICATE

MOVEMENTS

. . .

THEIR

NAVAL

AND

THAT A SURPRISE AGGRESSIVE

MOVEMENT IN ANY DIRECTION INCLUDING ATTACK ON PHILIPPINES OR GUAM IS A POSSIBILITY.94

The next day Roosevelt told Marshall, Knox, Hull, Stark and Stimson: “we [are] likely to be attacked perhaps (as soon as) next Monday [1 December] for the Japanese are notorious for making an attack without warning.”95 In 1904 Japan had ended diplomatic relations with Russia on 5 February, made a surprise torpedo-boat attack on the Russian Fleet at Port Arthur on the night of 8–9 February, then declared war on 10 February. Similarly, a decade earlier, in July 1894, Japan had attacked the Chinese, then waited four days before issuing a declaration. Both of those surprise maneuvers contravened the traditional warrior 35

WHY JAPAN GAMBLED

code, bushido¯, which forbad sneak attacks. In 1907 Japan signed the Third Hague Convention, Article I of which barred the commencement of hostilities “without previous and explicit warning, in the form either of a reasoned declaration of war or an ultimatum with conditional declaration of war.” The Convention neither prescribed particular language for fulfilling this warning requirement, nor specified any period of time as comprising appropriate advance notice. Although in August 1914 Japan initiated a siege of the German garrison at Tsingtao, China without declaring war, it had first served a formal ultimatum to the Germans to leave or face the consequences.96 Despite Japan’s compliance with the Hague Convention at Tsingtao, in the closing days of November 1941 everyone in Washington expected a “surprise” attack – somewhere. The Imperial Navy’s communications, while not decipherable, showed an unusual pattern, with a flood of unnecessary repetition and changes in call signals. Meanwhile, VAdm. Chu¯ichi Nagumo’s First Air Fleet (ko¯ku¯kantai), six carriers and twenty-five other ships, had been maintaining radio silence since 16 November, making its whereabouts a mystery. “Do you mean to say,” Kimmel joked to his intelligence officer, Edwin T. Layton, on 2 December, “that they could be rounding Diamond Head and you wouldn’t know it?” One could risk such jokes, since the Japanese carriers had disappeared from radio traffic many times before.97 Purple intercepts showed that Japan had set for Nomura and Kurusu an absolute negotiating deadline of 29 November, after which “things are automatically going to happen.”98 To accompany the modus vivendi, the Americans had put together a ten-point statement of the Administration’s long-term position, in effect an outline of what it would be negotiating to get during any three-month truce. Hull, rejecting the idea of a three-months’ truce, now put the modus vivendi aside and instead handed to Nomura the ten-point statement (the “Hull Note”), demanding: ● ● ●

●

Japan’s withdrawal from Indochina and China, recognition of Chiang as China’s legitimate leader, a promise not to attack the East Indies, the Philippines, Thailand and Russia, and a renunciation of the Tripartite Pact,

in return for which, the US would resume oil deliveries and normalize US– Japanese trade.99 A United Press reporter privy to the Hull Note described it as “blunt,” Stimson in his diary calling it “drastic.”100 Bailey’s introductory text on diplomacy would deem it “one of the most fateful documents in American history.”101 The British ambassador, Viscount Halifax, upon being told that Hull had put aside the modus vivendi and presented instead the hard-line Hull Note, told Welles that he could not understand this sudden reversal of US policy, 36

WHY JAPAN GAMBLED

particularly since he had already told Hull that the British government fully supported the modus vivendi idea.102 Although Welles replied that Churchill had not voiced support, in fact Churchill had expressly left the decision to Roosevelt.103 Churchill saw his job as doing anything and everything he could to make the Americans join the war, later praising the Hull Note as going “beyond anything we had ventured to ask” – which it certainly did.104 Since the modus vivendi would have kept the US out of the war for at least three months, Churchill was now in the favorable position of having stood by as it was whisked off the negotiating table at the request of another party, China.105 The Australian minister, Casey, also called on Hull. Like Halifax, he was shocked at this quick shift, asking whether the modus vivendi could be revived and whether the Chinese might be prevailed upon to soften their opposition. But Hull replied that the die was cast.106 Sir Robert Craigie, the British ambassador in Tokyo, upon hearing that Hull had submitted a plan demanding that Japan pull out of China, thought the change reckless. Former president Herbert Hoover noted that he and “many others of some experience” saw the Hull Note as an “ultimatum,” one that “sooner or later . . . meant war.”107 Kurusu read it as “tantamount to meaning the end” and asked Hull and Roosevelt to withdraw it so he and Nomura would not have to forward it to Tokyo. Hull refused, telling them: “we have reached a stage when the [US] public has lost its perspective and . . . it was therefore necessary to draw up a document which would present a complete picture of our position.” While Nomura must have been disturbed to hear that ten months of painful work had ended with what amounted to a self-serving press release for domestic consumption, clearly Hull was again alluding (whether consciously or otherwise) to the Administration’s decision to avoid charges of appeasement by declaring itself firmly behind Chiang.108 Hull and Stimson later spread the word that it had been Hull, acting alone, who had so precipitously decided to end negotiations, to “kick the whole thing over” to the military.109 His decision could be described as rash, fatalistic, even irrational, even influenced by the illness that had kept him out of the office a few months before.110 But he had not acted without Roosevelt.111 Later, those who accused FDR of “coercing” or “manipulating” Japan into a fight, saw this as the document that “touched the button that started the war.” Japanese scholar Jun Tsunoda wrote in the 1960s: “if by delivering the Hull Note Roosevelt and Hull aimed to propel Japanese–American relations” from diplomacy into war, “they certainly hit the bull’s eye.”112 If Roosevelt believed that no diplomatic resolution was possible by 29 November and that war was both unavoidable and imminent, he may have reasoned that handing Japan the modus vivendi proposal would have been a useless gesture whose only effect would be to offend Chiang. Whatever FDR’s private thoughts, it has been suggested by Edwin Layton, aided by naval historians Roger Pineau and John Costello, that the record has been 37

WHY JAPAN GAMBLED

papered over in order to justify Roosevelt’s decision to let Hull “kick over” negotiations. On 25 November Stimson received and forwarded to Roosevelt intelligence indicating a convoy of ten to thirty Japanese transports having loaded near Shanghai for deployment to the south.113 Stimson later recorded that upon receiving the information, the president fairly blew up – jumped up into the air, so to speak, and said . . . that that changed the whole situation because it was an evidence of bad faith on the part of the Japanese that while they were negotiating for an entire truce – an entire withdrawal . . . – they should be sending this expedition down there to Indochina.114 But Roosevelt had already collected numerous instances of bad faith by Japan, and would shortly see an intercept in which Tokyo told Nomura to string the US along. Moreover, Stimson’s memo to Roosevelt characterized the Japanese convoy as “more or less a normal movement, that is, a logical follow-up” to a previous announcement by Vichy that the number of Japanese troops in Indochina would be increased from 40,000 to 90,000. It was thus not the kind of information to produce moral outrage in as shrewd a negotiator as Roosevelt. Layton et al. argue that this anecdote about Roosevelt “blowing up” over “normal” troop movements was a post-hoc fabrication, that it was some other communication – not yet revealed – which prompted Roosevelt to cut off negotiations.115 Whatever happened, this was not the time to be kicking over negotiations if there was any chance of stretching them out, the strategy having been to stall as long as possible, until well into 1942, when MacArthur would have his air force. For months, MacArthur had been much too optimistic about his military capability, Roosevelt later voicing the wisdom of hindsight by asserting: “If I had known the true situation, I could have babied the Japanese along quite a while longer.”116 But he did have before him ample evidence of the true situation. On 27 November he was fully aware of advice by Marshall and Stark to “gain time” and avoid “precipitance of military action.”117 Perhaps Roosevelt was thinking more in the long term, believing that if the US was going to land troops in Europe in time to help save the Soviets, the public should be utterly committed to war immediately, and the way to get started was to allow Japan to make a “mistake.” Thus, whether by miscalculation, frustration and poor internal communications, or by Roosevelt’s unseen strategic hand, the US presented Japan with a truculent, take-it-or-leave-it demand to get out of China. Meanwhile, on 27 November, senior Far East expert Stanley Hornbeck, who four months earlier had failed to make a correct call on Japan’s reaction to an oil embargo, now confidently proclaimed that there was only a one-in-five chance of the US and Japan being at war by 15 December, and only a 50/50 chance of war by 1 March 1942.118 38

WHY JAPAN GAMBLED

War Warning On 27 November Hull advised Grew to establish procedures for closing the embassy.119 On the same day Stimson and Hull, though in the name of “MARSHALL,” sent to Short the following message: NEGOTIATIONS WITH JAPAN APPEAR TO BE TERMINATED TO ALL PRACTICAL PURPOSES WITH ONLY THE BAREST POSSIBILITIES THAT THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT MIGHT COME BACK AND OFFER TO CONTINUE.

. . .

JAPANESE FUTURE ACTION UNPREDICTABLE BUT

HOSTILE ACTION POSSIBLE AT ANY MOMENT. CANNOT

...

. . .

IF HOSTILITIES

BE AVOIDED THE UNITED STATES DESIRES THAT JAPAN

COMMIT THE FIRST OVERT ACT.

. . . THIS POLICY SHOULD NOT . . . BE

CONSTRUED AS RESTRICTING YOU TO A COURSE OF ACTION THAT MIGHT JEOPARDIZE YOUR DEFENSE.

. . . PRIOR TO HOSTILE JAPANESE

ACTION YOU ARE DIRECTED TO UNDERTAKE SUCH RECONNAISSANCE AND OTHER MEASURES AS YOU DEEM NECESSARY BUT THESE

. . . TO ALARM CIVIL . . . REPORT MEASURES TAKEN. . . .

MEASURES SHOULD BE CARRIED OUT SO AS NOT POPULATION OR DISCLOSE INTENT.

SHOULD HOSTILITIES OCCUR YOU WILL CARRY OUT THE TASKS ASSIGNED IN RAINBOW FIVE.120

This was ambiguous, even bureaucratic, barring the recipient from choosing a full alert, while immunizing the sender from post-hoc charges of understating the crisis.121 Later investigators accurately characterized it as a “Do-Don’t” message. Also on 27 November Turner and/or RAdm. Royall Ingersoll, assistant chief of naval operations, generated and Stark approved a message to Kimmel: THIS DISPATCH IS TO BE CONSIDERED A WAR WARNING. NEGOTIATIONS

WITH

JAPAN

LOOKING

TOWARD

STABILIZATION

OF

CONDITIONS IN THE PACIFIC HAVE CEASED AND AN AGGRESSIVE MOVE BY JAPAN IS EXPECTED WITHIN THE NEXT FEW DAYS. THE NUMBER AND EQUIPMENT OF JAP TROOPS AND THE ORGANIZATION OF NAVAL TASK FORCES INDICATES AN AMPHIBIOUS EXPEDITION AGAINST EITHER THE PHILIPPINES THAI OR KRA [i.e., Thai/Malay] PENINSULA

OR

POSSIBLY

BORNEO.

EXECUTE

AN

APPROPRIATE

DEFENSIVE DEPLOYMENT PREPARATORY TO CARRYING OUT THE TASKS ASSIGNED IN WPL46 [i.e., Rainbow-5].

. . . INFORM DISTRICT AND

ARMY AUTHORITIES. A SIMILAR WARNING IS BEING SENT BY WAR DEPARTMENT.

The next day Stark also forwarded to Kimmel a copy of the MARSHALL memo to Short, adding, among other things: 39

WHY JAPAN GAMBLED UNDERTAKE NO OFFENSIVE ACTION UNTIL JAPAN HAS COMMITTED AN OVERT ACT.122

Kimmel was an officer of substantial experience and achievement, a 1904 Annapolis graduate who had sailed in Theodore Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet and had worked for Franklin Roosevelt when the latter was undersecretary of the Navy. The message he received, less ambiguous than the Army’s, would cause any reasonably prudent commander in Hawaii to believe that the Japanese were about to attack, but somewhere else. That belief would be reinforced by knowledge that half the Army’s pursuit planes in Hawaii were being transferred to the isolated and under-defended western outposts of Midway and Wake.123 One of the Mahanian doctrines supposedly embraced by Japan was that of never splitting up one’s fleet. Nevertheless, on 28 November Hull told Halifax that Japan may move suddenly and with every possible element of surprise and spread out over considerable areas . . . on the theory that the Japanese recognize that their course of unlimited conquest . . . probably is a desperate gamble and requires the utmost boldness and risk.124 In Tokyo, Grew witnessed the extremely negative reaction to the Hull Note.125 In Washington, Tokyo’s radiogram to Nomura and Kurusu was intercepted and decrypted: Well, you two Ambassadors have exerted superhuman efforts but, in spite of this, the United States has gone ahead and presented this humiliating proposal. This was quite unexpected and extremely regrettable. The Imperial Government can by no means use it as a basis for negotiations. Therefore, with a report of the views of the Imperial Government on this American proposal which I will send you in two or three days, the negotiations will be de facto ruptured. This is inevitable.126 To “humiliating,” foreign minister Shigenori To¯go¯ on 1 December added: “utterly intolerable.”127 Another high official in the ministry, Toshikazu Kase, said it played into the hands of the militarists, who “jeered” at ministry personnel for having believed a negotiated solution possible.128 Prime minister To¯jo¯ declared: The fact that Chiang Kai-shek is dancing to the tune of Britain, America, and communism at the expense of able-bodied and promising young men in his futile resistance against Japan is only 40

WHY JAPAN GAMBLED

due to the desire of Britain and the United States to fish in the troubled waters of East Asia by [pitting] the East Asiatic peoples against each other and to grasp the hegemony of East Asia. This is a stock in trade of Britain and the United States.129 Roosevelt and Churchill both saw the decrypted intercept of Tokyo’s 30 November instruction to Japan’s Berlin embassy: Say very secretly to [Hitler and Ribbentrop] that there is extreme danger that war may suddenly break out between the Anglo-Saxon nations and Japan through some clash of arms, and add that the time of the breaking out of this war may come quicker than anyone dreams.130 Roosevelt spent Thanksgiving at Warm Springs, Georgia. On Thanksgiving Day, 27 November, Marshall and Stark told him: After consultation with each other, United States, British, and Dutch military authorities in the Far East agreed that joint military counteraction against Japan should be undertaken only in case Japan attacks or directly threatens the territory or mandated territory of the United States, the British Commonwealth, or the East Indies, or should the Japanese move forces into [the Kra Isthmus], Portuguese Timor, New Caledonia, or the Loyalty Islands. Obviously Marshall and Stark could not initiate such military cooperation on their own authority. Neither, for that matter, could Roosevelt, fretting that if Japan did not fire the first shot, Congress could not be convinced to declare war. Britain, meanwhile, knew that the Germans had obtained and undoubtedly shared with the Japanese the minutes of a British cabinet meeting indicating that Britain had insufficient resources to defend British Malaya. While Churchill believed Japan would not attack British or US holdings until 1942, he did think it was about to attack “neutral” Thailand, which might welcome a Japanese occupation in return for Japan’s helping this “independent” country expand its borders into British Malaya, French Indochina and/or British Burma.131 Britain’s “MATADOR” plan involved British troops crossing into Thailand to oppose any Japanese landing on the Kra Isthmus, on the presumption that Japan would use that beachhead as a base for aggressive operations against Malaya to the south or Burma to the north. Churchill informed Australian prime minister John Curtin and New Zealand prime minister Peter Fraser: Our military Advisers fear that [such an] operation might lead to a clash which might involve us in war and they have always emphasized 41

WHY JAPAN GAMBLED

that unless our vital interests were immediately threatened this should be avoided so long as we have no certainty of United States support. In view however of [the] United States Government’s constitutional difficulties [i.e., only Congress can declare war] any prior guarantee of such support is most unlikely. Churchill proceeded to tell them what Halifax would be saying to the Americans, that while Britain wanted to forestall the Pacific war as long as possible, a Japanese landing would perforce trigger a British military response, since to do nothing would simply whet Japan’s appetite while demonstrating to the world that Britain was not ready to defend its imperial holdings. Thus, Britain might need to “fire the first shot” before Japanese troops landed in British territory, and in circumstances few American congressmen would find compelling. Roosevelt was now asked whether it was time for the US, either alone or with Britain, to tell Japan that one more aggressive act would lead to war. A proposed text was forwarded to Roosevelt.132 Despite his concern about Congress, Roosevelt on 1 December told Halifax that if the Japanese attacked either British or Dutch colonies, “we should obviously all be together,” a statement which constituted neither a treaty of alliance nor a formal US undertaking. Roosevelt asked Knox, Stimson and Hull to draft versions of a speech to Congress asserting that an attack on British or Dutch holdings should constitute a sufficient basis for US intervention.133 Gwen Harold Terasaki, Tennessee-born wife of the Japanese embassy’s first secretary, later wrote that her husband, overworked and exhausted, told Kurusu: Ambassador, why don’t you become a national traitor? Why don’t you go ahead and say to the Americans, “we will get out of China”? We can’t remain in China for long anyway. The war party knows that. They will have to leave China but they would prefer war with the United States as an excuse for leaving to admitting they have made such a mistake. You may be executed but they may honor the treaty. It will give them a way out and we may get some concessions in exchange. According to Mrs. Terasaki, Kurusu replied that he would consider it. On 2 December, Kurusu sent word to Roosevelt confidant Bernard Baruch that he wanted to meet with FDR, but without Hull present, whom Kurusu found obstructionist. Roosevelt refused, but told Baruch to find out what Kurusu had in mind. On 3 December, at the Mayflower Hotel, Kurusu told Baruch that although the militarists in Tokyo were ready to start a war, he and the Emperor both wanted peace, and that FDR could immobilize the militarists by reaching out directly to the Emperor with an offer to broker a resolution 42

WHY JAPAN GAMBLED

between Japan and China.134 In far-off Indochina, a dead-drunk Japanese aircraft technician sat in a bar and, with no reason to know that by chance the young man he was offering a drink to was in the Royal Air Force (RAF), drew a line on a map from a place in northern Japan he called “Hittocappu” to Hawaii, intoning: “Purhabba. Wugh!”135 In Newfoundland in August, Roosevelt had promised Churchill to look for an “incident” which might justify US entry in the war.136 On 4 December 1941 the most virulent of the anti-Roosevelt forces, Robert McCormick, owner of the Chicago Tribune, published the text of the top-secret Rainbow5, revealing to all – including Hitler – the huge putative war commitments of the statutorily neutral US. Historian Thomas Fleming has suggested that Roosevelt himself had engineered getting a copy into McCormick’s hands, since its publication might provoke Germany to declare war on the US.137 Regarding Japan, Roosevelt, with a politician’s love of intrigue and an amateur navalist’s love of tactics, had previously asked Stimson “how we should maneuver [Japan] into . . . firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.”138 On 2 December Roosevelt answered his own question by ordering Admiral Hart to charter several small vessels, to equip each with at least one gun and one machine gun, with a Filipino crew commanded by a US Navy officer, and to station them at different spots off Indochina.139 These were to be bait, that is, three chances for the Japanese to “fire the first shot” as they steamed south, so that, “without allowing too much danger to ourselves” (the officers and crews excepted), Roosevelt could tell Congress that Japan had attacked a “US warship” and Philippines president Quezon would have to admit that his forces too had been fired upon.140 But no “incidents” took place. A Purple decrypt, meanwhile, suggested that Japan – despite its reputation for surprise – was itself waiting for the Allies to perform the first aggressive act.141

43

3 THE LAST CLEAR CHANCE

Kimmel had demanded to be “immediately informed of all important developments as they occur and by the quickest secure means available.” Washington assured him and his intelligence officer, Edwin Layton, that they would be.1 In late September, Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent to its Honolulu consul-general, Nagao Kita, the first of several so-called “bomb plot” messages: Henceforth we would like to have you make reports concerning vessels along the following lines insofar as possible: 1. The waters of Pearl harbor are to be divided into five subareas .... Area A. Waters between Ford Island and the Arsenal. Area B. Waters adjacent to the Island south and west of Ford Island. . . . Area C. East Loch. Area D. Middle Loch. Area E. West Loch and the communicating water routes. 2. With regard to warships and aircraft carriers, we would like to have you report on those at anchor, (these are not so important) tied up at wharves, buoys and in docks. (Designate types and classes briefly. If possible, we would like to have you make mention of the fact when there are two or more vessels along side the same wharf.)2 This extraordinary message was intercepted by a US Army monitoring station near Fort Shafter, just a few miles from Pearl Harbor, although the station had no decrypting capability, its sole function being to record and forward to Washington whatever it intercepted. Because the next PanAmerican flight heading east was cancelled due to bad weather, the message, in Japan’s TSU consular code, “J19,” instead went by ship.3 When it arrived in Washington two weeks later and was decrypted and translated, it raised no alarm. RAdm. Turner later denied having seen it.4 Whatever its 44

THE LAST CLEAR CHANCE

actual fate in Washington, its contents were never sent back to Hawaii for the perusal of Kimmel and Short. A similar Japanese message was picked up on 15 November: As relations between Japan and the United States are most critical make your “ship in harbor report” irregular but at a rate of twice a week. Although you are no doubt aware, please take extra care to maintain secrecy. This did not reach Washington until 3 December. Again, Kimmel and Short were not informed.5 There was another on 20 November, yet another on 29 November, none of them flagged by Turner as significant, none of them returned to Hawaii. While these and sixteen other “bomb plot” messages about Pearl Harbor might have had a significant impact on Kimmel and Short, their impact in Washington was blunted considerably by the fact that the US also intercepted fifty-nine similar messages regarding the Philippines, with others concerning San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle and the Panama Canal.6 Thus, as far as Washington was concerned, there was nothing special about Pearl Harbor. On 19 November Japan sent in its J19 consular code a message stating that when any Japanese radio news program recited the expression higashi no kaze ame, “east wind rain,” all embassies should destroy confidential material and code machines because relations with the US were being broken off and/or the two nations would shortly be at war.7 Because J19 decryptions had a lower priority than Purple, US analysts did not read this so-called “winds” message for a week.8 Once they did, “east wind rain,” the so-called “winds execute” message, became the sought-after, talismanic prize of every US listening post. An inquiry instituted by Marshall in 1944 concluded that if indeed “east wind rain” was ever broadcast, it was intercepted neither by the Army nor by the Federal Communications Commission.9 A Navy court of inquiry, also convened in 1944, concluded that on 4 December 1941, two US outposts informed ONI that they had picked up “east wind rain.”10 The court added, however, “This message cannot now be located in the Navy Department,” implying that relevant evidence had been purged.11 The court noted that while Stark denied knowing about “east wind rain,” Turner “was familiar with it” and presumed (incorrectly) that Kimmel had been as well. In 1955 Kimmel, in a book published to help salvage his reputation, relied upon the “east wind rain” controversy to support his argument that he had been denied significant intelligence data. Later researchers would devote substantial attention to “east wind rain,” some concluding that it was never sent, others that several such messages were broadcast but were inauthentic. In 1960 the man who had been Japan’s head spy at Pearl Harbor wrote that not 45

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until he and Consul-General Kita heard bombs falling in Honolulu on Sunday morning did Radio Tokyo broadcast “east wind rain.”12 The US Navy’s destruction of many of its intercepts in the two years following Pearl Harbor, and Japan’s own destruction of most of its coded messages prior to Japan’s surrender in 1945, make any further information unlikely, until Britain releases its relevant intercepts – decades hence. But if “east wind rain” was broadcast, it did not specify whether Japan had chosen war or only the end of diplomatic relations, nor did it specify either a time or place for the commencement of hostilities. Thus, it would have added nothing.13 By late November no one could reasonably doubt that a Pacific war was only days or hours away. American newspapers picked up the 28 November (Tokyo date) release by the Japanese news agency Do¯mei Tsu¯shinisha indicating there was “little hope of bridging the gap between the opinions of Japan and the United States.” American headlines blared that 30,000 Japanese troops were sailing south from China.14 On 30 November the Honolulu Sunday Advertiser carried above its masthead the headline “Japanese May Strike Over Weekend!,” then below: “Kurusu BLUNTLY WARNED NATION READY FOR BATTLE.” On 2 December, two days before “east wind rain” was allegedly broadcast, the Navy Department decrypted Purple messages from Tokyo to its key embassies worldwide ordering the destruction of codes and ciphers. By noon on 3 December, Army Intelligence, operating in Washington’s old Munitions Building, was in no doubt that this meant war – and imminently.15 That day the gist was summarized for Kimmel: CATEGORIC AND URGENT INSTRUCTIONS WERE SENT YESTERDAY TO JAPANESE DIPLOMATIC AND CONSULAR POSTS AT HONGKONG, SINGAPORE, BATAVIA, MANILA, WASHINGTON AND LONDON TO DESTROY MOST OF THEIR CODES AND CIPHERS AT ONCE AND TO BURN ALL OTHER IMPORTANT

. . . DOCUMENTS.

A second message went further, stating that all Japanese consulates were told to destroy their code machines. This comprised unequivocal notice not only that diplomacy was at an end but also that the presumed sanctity of Japanese consular offices might soon be violated by the British, Dutch and US governments, a notion consistent only with open hostilities. As originally written, the memo to Kimmel included another sentence: FROM THE FOREGOING INFER THAT ORANGE PLANS EARLY ACTION IN SOUTHEAST ASIA.

Before sending it, Stark and/or Turner deleted these words, thus avoiding any inference of just where the Japanese might strike.16 Starting back in March 1941, naval intelligence officer Takeo Yoshikawa, 46

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in the guise of vice-consul in Japan’s Honolulu consulate, took leisurely strolls to places with good views of Pearl Harbor, such as Aiea Heights, where Yoshikawa, atop the Shuncho-ro teahouse, looked out the window to the harbor and talked to the geishas about what US sailors might have let slip.17 He also rented old biplanes to take aerial photos, feigning a carefree frivolity by bringing women along.18 On the morning of 6 December the Honolulu Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) intercepted a telephone conversation between the wife of a Honolulu dentist and a newsman in Tokyo, the talk ranging from flowers to flying conditions.19

Measures taken While the defense of Pearl Harbor was primarily Short’s responsibility, Kimmel was responsible for the Fleet. One obvious defensive maneuver against aerial bombing is to disburse one’s ships by leaving the harbor. On Saturday Kimmel considered taking the battleships to sea, but then thought better of it. Among other things, once outside the harbor they could not simply lie at anchor, which would render them obvious targets for submarines. Nor, alternatively could they steam around the ocean indefinitely, since Oahu had inadequate oil storage facilities to keep them fueled. Since, moreover, on this particular weekend all the carriers happened to be away, the battleships could be out at sea only if air cover was provided by landbased planes, a joint operation which the Army and Navy had not sufficiently drilled.20 Since Kimmel’s primary fear was submarines, the safest place for his battleships was at their berths. So long as the several nets covering the harbor mouth were kept closed, no enemy submarine could fire a torpedo into the harbor, while sonar and intense patrolling assured that no submarine would attempt to rip through the net.21 Although the most convenient approach to Hawaii would be from the Mandates, Japan rejected this as the direction in which Hawaii was most likely to be concentrating its reconnaissance. An alternative was to sail all the way from Japan itself. To avoid discovery, such a force would need to maintain radio silence and proceed well north of the sea lanes, through areas of the Pacific notorious for their winter gales, making refueling problematic. At 0600 on 26 November (local time), VAdm. Nagumo’s force left Hitokappu Bay on Etorofu Island in the Kuriles, on its way to Hawaii. The northern route chosen, directly east at 40º latitude, refueling at 170º longitude, then turning southeast at 180º longitude, was thought to be devoid of other shipping, having been successfully tested by a Japanese liner in October.22 The textbook carrier approach was to stay as far away as possible during the daylight hours, then speed overnight to a launch point at or before dawn. To counter such an approach from any direction, aerial reconnaissance to 700 or 800 miles would require 16-hour flights by 84 patrol planes at a time, 47

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entailing a total of 250 aircraft. As of 7 December, Hawaii had twelve B-17s, six to eight of them operational at any given moment. With a ferrying range of 2,900 miles, they could patrol a suitable perimeter for many hours, but only a fraction of 360 degrees. There were also twenty-one Douglas B-18 “Bolo” and six Douglas A-20 “Havoc” bombers. Although RAdm. Bellinger had asked for 170 to 200 Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina patrol bombers, with a radius of 750 miles, Great Britain desperately needed planes to patrol for the German submarines which were then devastating Lend-Lease convoys, and it had priority. Nevertheless, Bellinger did have eighty-one PBYs, a force sufficient for 240 degrees, that is, daily coverage of the likely approaches from the Mandates and from Japan. But forty-nine of them had been designated to defend the outstations at Midway and Wake, once their novice crews were trained. As Bellinger later testified, if these PBYs were instead employed for reconnaissance around Hawaii, their novice crews could not be trained and the planes would begin to break down, thus disabling them from fulfilling their designated assignments at Midway and Wake. Northwest aerial reconnaissance to 400 miles had been employed earlier in the week, to watch for submarines stalking the surface forces delivering planes to Midway and Wake.23 But on the morning of 7 December, the long-range reconnaissance station at Kaneohe Bay near Honolulu had only three PBYs on patrol.24 While four of nine available submarines were on picket duty off Midway, dozens of surface vessels could have been sent to patrol likely approaches, but were not ordered to do so. In the few days between the “War Warning” and the attack, Kimmel and Short failed to discuss how the few planes available for reconnaissance might be most advantageously deployed. Kimmel did not know that Short’s Army garrison had not gone on full alert, nor did he know what Short had or had not done with radar, a new technology which had arrived that summer. Later, when Washington got to the finger-pointing stage, rumors spread that the two men had not consulted because they did not “get along,” a neat and simple explanation which any tabloid could describe as a recipe for disaster. Later hearings would include pitiable defensive testimony to the effect that Kimmel and Short liked each other, that in fact their fortnightly golf date was set for that Sunday morning, 7 December.25 Back on 28 November, Short had responded to the “REPORT MEASURES TAKEN” instruction in the 27 November memo by telling Washington he would initiate procedures to prevent sabotage. He was worried because Hawaii was home to 166,000 people of Japanese ancestry, 40 percent of the islands’ population, with 35,000–40,000 of them still subjects of the Emperor. How to deal with local sabotage and espionage had been discussed for years, as exemplified by Lt.-Col. George S. Patton, Jr.’s “Plan: Initial Seizure of Orange Nationals,” issued in 1937.26 While defense against an air attack requires a commander to disburse his planes as widely as possible, to avoid sabotage he clusters them in groups, or lines them up wingtip to wingtip. 48

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For the 138 fighters at Wheeler Field, Short ordered that second arrangement. The same was done with the 43 Marine fighters and dive-bombers at Ewa Field, and the Douglas B-18 bombers at the Army Air Base at Hickam Field, east of the channel leading to Pearl Harbor. Just how high an alert Short was invoking was unclear, since he had reportedly failed to update Washington with his current alert protocols.27 In any event, no one in Washington countermanded his anti-sabotage defense or suggested it was not the most appropriate local procedure. Of 33 PBYs on the ground at Kaneohe Bay, 27 were destroyed and 6 damaged. In all, 180 US land-based aircraft were destroyed and 128 damaged, with only 43 remaining operational.

“Nicely drafted form” On 2 December, Yamamoto radioed Nagumo: “NIITAKA YAMA NOBORE “Climb Mount Niitaka 1208,” meaning that he should proceed with the attack on 8 December (7 December in Hawaii). This message, unequivocally stating the date but not the place of the attack, was not deciphered by the Allies because it was in a code not yet solved, called JN-25B.28 Japan’s carriers could not be found. However, on Saturday, 7 December (West Longitude), an Australian Lockheed Hudson and later a PBY of the Royal Air Force spotted a substantial force of transports, cruisers and destroyers sailing south along the coast of Indochina and nearing Pointe de Ca Mau, from where they would sail north into the Gulf of Siam, perhaps on their way to Malaya or Thailand.29 Earlier, at 0656 on Saturday in Washington, Japan’s embassy received from foreign minister Shigenori To¯go¯ the following: ICHI-NI-REI-HACHI,”

(1) THE GOVERNMENT HAS DELIBERATED DEEPLY ON THE AMERICAN PROPOSAL OF THE 26TH OF NOVEMBER AND AS A RESULT WE HAVE DRAWN UP A MEMORANDUM FOR THE UNITED STATES

. . . (IN

ENGLISH).

(2) THIS SEPARATE MESSAGE IS A VERY LONG ONE. I WILL SEND IT IN 14 PARTS AND I IMAGINE YOU WILL RECEIVE IT TOMORROW. HOWEVER, I AM NOT SURE. THE SITUATION IS EXTREMELY DELICATE, AND WHEN YOU RECEIVE IT I WANT YOU TO PLEASE KEEP IT SECRET FOR THE TIME BEING.

(3) CONCERNING THE TIME OF PRESENTING THE 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.30

49

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The US Navy intercepted it, deciphered it with the Purple machine, and translated it into English.31 To¯go¯ did not wait until Sunday to forward the first thirteen parts of Tokyo’s response to the Hull Note. Dispatched from Tokyo’s Central Telegraph Office on the radio-telephone frequency To¯go¯ used for contacts with the Washington embassy, the communication was intercepted by Station SAIL, the US Navy’s station on Bainbridge Island in Puget Sound, which then forwarded it to Washington over telephone lines. To avoid any possibility that Japanese spies inside the US might come upon a domestic teletyped message in Japan’s own proprietary code, Bainbridge reencrypted the data into a US code before committing it to a teletype tape, which it then fed into the telephone system via a transmitter. Although Saturday was the Army’s day for Purple decryption, inadequate staffing caused this job to revert to the Navy. Between 1149 and 1451, the data arrived at the cryptanalytic section of the Navy’s cryptology department, in Room 1649 of the Navy Department building on Constitution Avenue. The thirteen-part message, decrypted first from Bainbridge’s American code, then spewed out of the Navy’s Purple machine in the occasionally tortured English in which it had been drafted in Tokyo, comprised about eleven pages of prolix text. By 2030 the Navy’s Communications Security Group had typed out a readable version. This was immediately hand-carried to Roosevelt, who had broken away from a White House dinner party to read it. His reaction was: “This means war,” essentially the same reaction Japan had to the Hull Note to which this was a response.32 Japan’s Honolulu consulate had destroyed all codebooks except the elementary PA-K2. At 1801 on Saturday (Hawaiian time), it had the RCA (Radio Corporation of America) office in Honolulu send to Tokyo an encoded telegram stating that the Americans were mounting no air reconnaissance, that Pearl Harbor contained nine battleships, three light cruisers, and seventeen destroyers, and that the “heavy cruisers and carriers have all left.”33 Station HYPO, Lt.-Cmdr. Joseph J. Rochefort’s radio monitoring post in the basement of a Navy administration building on Oahu, had long since cracked the low-level PA-K2, but did not at the time decrypt this. Although Roosevelt had rejected Kurusu’s suggestion of a personal offer of mediation with the Emperor, he did opt for an out-of-channels, personal telegram to Hirohito. The text, drafted by Hull and reworked by FDR on Saturday afternoon, stated that so many Japanese troops were now in southern Indochina that it was impossible to accept Japan’s assertion that they were there to protect Japan’s flank in China, and thus the US wanted assurances that these troops would not be used to attack the Philippines, the East Indies, Malaya or Thailand. After handing it to a subordinate for transmission, he wittily told a White House visitor: “This son of man has just sent his final message to the Son of God.” Why he called it his 50

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“final” message he did not say. It was sent about 2100 Washington time, 1100 Tokyo time.34 The White House had told the press about Roosevelt’s message. Hours later, Max Hill, AP’s Tokyo bureau chief, telephoned Grew at home for more information. Grew replied: “There’s nothing I can say,” the experienced journalist sensing that this was in fact the first Grew had heard of Roosevelt’s new initiative. Grew, turning on his short-wave radio, heard on the news from San Francisco’s KGEI both that FDR had sent a telegram to Hirohito and that he – Grew – would be delivering it personally to the Emperor. But Grew had heard nothing from Washington, the Imperial Army’s General Staff having instituted a rule that all foreign cables be quarantined for up to ten hours. Thus a telegram from the President of the United States to the Emperor of Japan, marked “Triple Priority,” had languished in Tokyo’s Central Telegraph Office – like any other missive. During their later war crimes trial, ex-premier To¯jo¯ commented to exforeign minister To¯go¯: “It’s a good thing [Roosevelt’s] telegram arrived late. If it had come a day or two earlier we would have had more of a to-do,” that is, moderates within the Japanese government might have suggested that further negotiations might be fruitful.35 FDR’s telegram was finally delivered to Grew at 2230 Tokyo time. Exercising an ambassadorial prerogative, Grew met with the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, Marquis Ko¯ichi Kido, who around 0310 Tokyo time (about 0540 on Sunday in Hawaii) brought him to the Imperial Palace. But the Emperor’s reaction was that Roosevelt’s message added nothing to all that had already been said.36 Near Oahu, Japanese aircraft were ready to launch. Just when the fourteenth and final part of Japan’s answer to the Hull Note was first read by US leaders is unsettled. One investigator said that it arrived in Washington around midnight on Saturday night. Other accounts are to the effect that it was not intercepted by Station SAIL until after 0300 (Washington time).37 The message was in the Navy Department and decrypted before 0800. It read, in part: THE EARNEST HOPE OF THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT TO ADJUST JAPANESE-AMERICAN RELATIONS AND TO PRESERVE AND PROMOTE THE PEACE OF THE PACIFIC THROUGH COOPERATION WITH THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT HAS FINALLY BEEN LOST. THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT REGRETS TO HAVE TO NOTIFY HEREBY THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT THAT IN VIEW OF THE ATTITUDE OF THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT IT CANNOT BUT CONSIDER THAT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO REACH AN AGREEMENT THROUGH FURTHER NEGOTIATIONS.38

By 1000 it was in the hands of Roosevelt, Knox, Hull and Stimson. At 0437 (Washington time), Station SAIL had also picked up and forwarded a 51

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separate, short message. Received in Washington before 0700, decrypted and then translated into English as the sun rose, it instructed Nomura to deliver all fourteen parts “at 1:00 p.m. on the 7th, your time.” Someone noted that 1 P.M. in Washington would be nighttime in the Far East, dawn in Hawaii.39 The smooth functioning of the US Navy in intercepting, decrypting and reading Japan’s fourteen-part message and accompanying “1 P.M.” note was not replicated in the Japanese embassy. On Saturday evening much of its staff attended a going-away party at the Mayflower Hotel for Taro Terasaki, Japan’s espionage chief for the western hemisphere, who was being reposted to Rio de Janeiro.40 Some staffers returned to the Massachusetts Avenue embassy at 2130, and by midnight had finished deciphering the thirteen parts. Clearly this was the most important document these men would ever deal with. Nevertheless, they apparently ignored To¯go¯’s instruction from earlier in the day to “put it in nicely drafted form,” contacted neither Nomura nor Kurusu regarding its contents, and went home to bed. The staff did honor To¯go¯’s instruction not to involve stenographers in the transcription process. Thus, as staffers straggled in after 0900 on Sunday, there was no clean copy for Nomura and Kurusu to read. Katsuzo Okumura, minimally adept at the hunt-and-peck method, found himself swamped in the process of composing something presentable from the various paragraphs now before him, which had been out-of-order when sent from Tokyo, and of course were still in Tokyo’s agonizingly stilted English.41 With so much still to be done on the original thirteen parts that should have been completed on Saturday night, the fourteenth part and the brief instruction to deliver the document at 1300 both lay unattended; not until 1130 did clerk Juichi Yoshida run the note through the one cipher machine the embassy had not yet destroyed.42 Now Nomura at least knew when he was supposed to deliver the long message, which he still had not read. At about 1200 he had someone telephone Hull asking if he and Kurusu could come over at 1300. Later, with a presentable copy of the fourteen parts still not ready, the embassy had to call Hull again, asking that the meeting be postponed until 1345. Secretary Hull cancelled a luncheon date and said he would await their arrival. On 5 December, the British War Office had sent a telegram to its commander in the Far East, Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, stating: “We have now received assurance of American armed support” if Britain must cross the Malay–Thai border to fight off a Japanese landing, or if Japan attacked any Dutch holding and Britain intervened, and thus that Brooke-Popham could initiate MATADOR upon sighting any Japanese force approaching Thailand.43 That assurance undoubtedly derived from personal conversations between Roosevelt and Halifax, as firm a commitment of support as a 52

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US president could provide without actually obtaining a congressional declaration.44 That weekend Churchill was entertaining US ambassador John Winant, US envoy Averell Harriman, and Harriman’s daughter Kathleen, at Chequers, 40 miles northwest of London. Before sitting down to Sunday lunch, Churchill, “[w]ith unusual vehemence,” asked Winant whether the US would declare war if Japan attacked a British holding. Winant’s reply was something Churchill already knew: that only Congress can declare war. At 1740 Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), the War Office received news of a Japanese landing near the British airfield outside Kota Bharu, a town of 20,000 on the east coast of Malaya.45 At 1825 GMT, Churchill, unaware of that landing, wrote to General Sir Claude Auchinleck, Commander-inChief, Middle East: Most Secret – for yourself alone. President has now definitely said that United States will regard it as hostile act if Japanese invade [Thailand], Malaya, Burma or East Indies, and he is warning Japan this week, probably Wednesday. We and the Dutch are conforming. This is an immense relief, as I had long dreaded being at war with Japan without or before United States. Now I think it is all right. At 2030 on Sunday night, Churchill, still unaware of the Japanese assault, drafted a telegram to Halifax: From your recent telegrams we understand we can rely on armed support of United States if we become involved in hostilities with Japan in the following circumstances:(a) Japanese invasion of Malaya or East Indies. (b) Action on our part in the Kra Isthmus to forestall or repel Japanese landing . . . (c) Action on our part in Kra Isthmus in event of Japanese encroachment on Thailand by force or threat of force.46 By 1030 Sunday morning in Washington (0500 in Honolulu), Stark had seen all fourteen parts of Tokyo’s message as well as the cover note. Marshall had been out riding near the construction site of the huge new five-sided military edifice on the Virginia side of the Potomac. When he arrived home the phone rang and he headed for his office, where by 1130 (0600 in Hawaii), he began to read.47 After moving through the fourteen parts he turned to the 1 P.M. note, whose potentially ominous import he immediately grasped. While military procedure required commanders to dispatch exigent messages by all available means, neither Stark nor Marshall availed himself of the nearby scrambler telephone, Marshall later suggesting that if the Japanese were tapping the line, they might treat his ordering preparations 53

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for a 1 P.M. deadline as a warlike act which might then form a pretext for a Japanese attack.48 Marshall instead scribbled a message to be sent by secure radio to Army facilities at San Francisco, Manila, the Panama Canal Zone, and Oahu: JAPANESE ARE PRESENTING AT ONE PM EASTERN STANDARD TIME TODAY WHAT AMOUNTS TO AN ULTIMATUM ALSO THEY ARE UNDER ORDERS TO DESTROY THEIR CODE MACHINE IMMEDIATELY.

...

JUST

WHAT SIGNIFICANCE THE HOUR SET MAY HAVE WE DO NOT KNOW BUT BE ON ALERT ACCORDINGLY.49

In fact Japan’s fourteen-point memo was not an “ultimatum,” since it contained no “or else” language of the kind Japan delivered to the German garrison at Tsingtao in 1914, language implying time for a reply. And Marshall’s “BE ON ALERT ACCORDINGLY” language, like the “Do-Don’t” language of the 27 November memo, would leave any reasonably prudent recipient unclear as to just what to do. Marshall telephoned Stark to ask if he should also tell Short to alert Kimmel. Stark, who had accomplished nothing since first reading the “1 P.M.” language at 1030, replied that Kimmel had already received enough warnings. He then changed his mind, called Marshall back, and had him add: INFORM NAVAL AUTHORITIES OF THIS COMMUNICATION.50

Stark offered the services of Navy radio. Marshall declined. The FBI had a suitably powerful transmitter, which neither man asked to use. At 1201 (0631 in Hawaii, five minutes after sunrise), Marshall gave his handwritten message to Col. Edward French of the War Department’s Signal Center, who upon inquiry said the message would be received within thirty minutes.51 Whether in Hawaii an adequate staff would be on duty before 0700 on a Sunday morning to decrypt the message, how much time decryption might take, whether people would be available to go directly to Short’s home at that hour, whether Short would be home and – if so – what means he should use to contact Kimmel with this news, were issues neither raised by Marshall and Stark nor interjected by French. Solar storms had sent substantial interference into the ether, and the War Department’s 10-kilowatt radio could not reach Hawaii. French decided the most expeditious alternative delivery method, one he had employed before, was to send the message commercially as an encoded telegram to the Western Union office in San Francisco, which would forward it to a 50kilowatt transmitter in nearby Belmont, operated by the local RCA radio affiliate. The message went out at 1217, the radiogram arriving at RCA’s telegraph office in Honolulu at 0647 local time.52 Neither Marshall nor Stark telephoned Hawaii to indicate that a radiogram had just been sent. French 54

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did not report to Marshall the delays he had incurred or the alternative delivery method he had chosen, which of course had introduced several intermediate, contingent and time-consuming steps. A new teletype system connected Honolulu with Short’s headquarters at Fort Shafter, 8 miles distant, but it was turned off. At 0733 a part-time messenger at RCA’s telegraph office, Tadao Fuchikami (he happened to be of Japanese ancestry), saw the message. Since nothing on the envelope indicated that it was a high-priority item, he started out on his Indian Scout motorcycle with it and other telegrams he would be delivering in the Kalihi district, where Fort Shafter was located.53 Four hours earlier, at 0342, the converted minesweeper Condor had spotted what looked like a periscope, and blinkered the destroyer Ward, which searched in vain for two hours. Then a PBY of Patrol Squadron 14 spotted either this or another submarine as it tried to enter Pearl Harbor by trailing after the supply ship Antares as it passed through the open anti-torpedo nets.54 The Catalina dropped smoke pots to mark the spot, and at 0653 Ward sounded General Quarters and opened fire, its gunners reporting a direct hit just below the sub’s conning tower. It then dropped depth charges, a crewman on Antares later recalling having seen bodies in the water.55 Although several of the radio communications issued during the incident had been received onshore, Cmdr. Logan Ramsey of Patrol Wing Two on Ford Island would not forward them until authenticated, thinking they might be “a mistake.” Moments after the encounter, Ward sent an encrypted message: “We have attacked[,] fired upon and dropped depth charges upon submarine operating in defensive sea area.”56 By 0712 Ward’s message was decrypted for the duty officer’s perusal, although no protocol mandated a wider alert. District-commander Bloch was informed, but thought the incident merited no further action. Kimmel, at home preparing for his golf game with Short, received word about 0730, “but because we had had so many fake contact reports” in the past, he decided to wait for an “amplifying report” from Ward before taking any action. Before any such report came, bombs started falling from the sky.57 The Japanese had launched five Type-A midget subs, 79 feet long, 6½ feet in diameter, capable of 19 knots submerged, carrying two-man crews and two Type-97, 1,000-pound torpedoes.58 They had been lashed to the afterdecks of five of the twenty-seven 320-foot I-class subs now lurking beyond the harbor, having been dispatched from Japan back in the second week of November. The destroyer Helm opened fire on one midget sub at the entrance of the harbor at 0817 and again at 0819, but apparently did not hit it. At 0830 the minesweeper Zane saw one inside the harbor. At 0836 the seaplane tender Curtiss scored two hits on a conning tower just west of Ford Island, as the sub fired a torpedo toward the berthed ships (which missed). At 0843 the destroyer Monaghan rammed this sub at high speed, but not 55

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before it released its other torpedo (which exploded on the shoreline). This sub, covered with dimples from the impact of depth charges, was later recovered and used as landfill in the building of a new pier, the Navy seeing no reason to extract its dead crewmen first.59 Another of the midget subs, Ha-19, had been so close to shore before dawn that its pilot, Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki, and its crewman, Petty Officer Kiyoshi Inagaki, had heard music. But they had a gyroscope malfunction and could not enter the harbor. After suffering depth charges which destroyed its periscope, Ha-19 hit several reefs, damaging both its torpedoes. With its crew overcome by toxic fumes from waterlogged batteries, it drifted for hours, then stuck fast on a reef 700 feet off Waimanalo Beach. They set an explosive charge and swam for shore. The charge never went off. Inagaki drowned on the way to shore but Sakamaki survived, bringing shame to his family by becoming the first Japanese prisoner-of-war (POW). The sub later broke free from the reef and washed up on the beach, a search revealing a detailed map of Pearl Harbor (Map 2).60 In 1960 a third sub was located not far from the harbor mouth and, as a sign of American–Japanese friendship, was sent to be displayed at the Japanese naval academy.61 While for decades doubt hung over Ward’s claim of having sunk the fourth midget sub, in August 2002 its prey was found in 1,200 feet of water 4 miles off Pearl Harbor. Both torpedoes remained in their tubes, and possibly both crewmen were still inside. It had a hole at the base of the conning tower, just where Ward personnel said they had hit it. The Americans would later find in the harbor mud an unexploded torpedo with a 1,000-pound charge. The last of the subs may have gotten into the harbor and may have fired its torpedoes at Oklahoma and West Virginia. Its final resting place is unknown.62

“I had no way of knowing . . .” North of the Hawaiian Islands, the watch officer aboard the carrier Akagi listened to Honolulu’s radio station KGMB, construing its music to mean that the element of surprise had not been lost.63 At the launch point, 275 miles north of Pearl Harbor, at about 0600, four Aichi E13A1 “Jake” float planes were catapulted to reconnoiter the intended target area. These were followed by 135 dive-bombers, 104 horizontal bombers, 81 fighters and 40 torpedo-bombers. To guide them to Honolulu, the lead planes homed in on KGMB. While Kimmel and Short had neither dispatched ships for picket duty nor utilized the available planes for reconnaissance, they also had at their disposal a new technology, radar, which was arguably better than either planes or ships, since it could function at night and through clouds. The task of setting up appropriate radar stations was assigned to the Aircraft Warning Service of the Hawaiian Interceptor Command, a unit under 56

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Map 2 Chart of Pearl Harbor found in captured Japanese midget submarine.

Short’s command. Although three stationary SCR-271 radar sets, built by RCA, had arrived in Hawaii that summer, they had not been deployed, due to federal red tape, followed by a lackadaisical construction schedule by civilian contractors, inadequate supervision by the Corps of Engineers, and the intrinsic difficulties of getting heavy and delicate equipment to isolated areas underserved by roads. However, six portable radar sets, SCR-270-Bs, could be set up more easily and without extensive prior approvals from Washington. In a mini-war-game exercise held on the morning of 27 September, the carrier Enterprise had launched its “hostile” planes 85 miles from one of these sets, which appeared on its radar screen approaching from 57

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224º. A “defending” force of planes was dispatched, intercepting the “hostile” force while still 25 miles from Pearl Harbor. Everything worked perfectly. General Short either was not informed or took no interest. By Thanksgiving, there were five radar sets in operation.64 On the morning of 7 December, the SCR-270-B set at Opana, a hillock west of Kahuku Point at the northern tip of Oahu, was manned by Private Joseph L. Lockard, a radar operator, and Private George E. Elliott, Jr., a radar trainee. The formation of Japanese planes had assembled above the carriers and started the approach at 0615 at 125 miles an hour. Between 0645 and 0700 Elliott logged nine sightings from the 5-inch cathode-ray tube, possibly repeated images of one of the “Jake” float planes. Lockard and Elliott had a direct telephone link to the Aircraft Warning Service’s Information Center near Fort Shafter, and at 0654 the duty officer telephoned with instructions to shut down, so as to extend the life of their portable generator.65 The two would be relieved at 0800, their job until then being simply to guard the station. Elliott, however, eager to learn, kept the unit running.66 At around 0700 the oscilloscope showed a large collective blip 137 miles out at 2º True. About to call in the new data to the Information Center, Lockard told him: “Don’t be crazy! Our problem ended at seven o’clock.” But Elliott insisted. All of the plotters at the Information Center had now gone to breakfast and the telephone operator, Private Joseph McDonald, said there was no one around to whom such information could be reported. Elliott again insisted. Although both Opana and the Information Center had been functioning since the time of the “War Warning,” both functioned solely for training. Since in this training mode the Information Center did not receive information from the Army, Navy or Marines regarding what planes they had in the air, blips could not be identified as friendly or hostile, rendering the radar network useless for purposes of defense.67 At 0720 Lt. Kermit A. Tyler, the only officer on duty, a fighter pilot for whom this was the second day of training in intelligence work, returned their call. Lockard told him: “I have never seen anything like this in my experience,” a large number of planes at 132 miles out. In a statement dated 20 December 1941, Tyler wrote: “Thinking it must be a returning naval patrol, a flight of Hickam [Field] bombing planes, or possibly a flight of B-17 planes from the [California] coast, I dismissed it as nothing unusual.”68 Tyler, who did not himself have any experience upon which to evaluate what Lockard was saying or to make a reasoned determination of what was or was not “unusual,” did partake of what he called the “common knowledge” that whenever a flight of US planes was coming from California, station KGMB would ignore its normal midnight shutdown and play music all night, in order to give the incoming planes a homing beacon.69 Just before going on duty at 0400 Tyler had heard the music, and so inferred that a flight of US planes must be due. 58

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Tyler happened to be right. On Saturday afternoon Marshall himself, pursuant to his new conviction that B-17s were the key to containing Japan, had ordered aloft a squadron of B-17s from Hamilton Field in Marin County, California, to pass through Oahu en route to Manila.70 Many years later Tyler told a newspaper that his reaction to what Lockard said was that because of its size, it must be the flight of B-17s from San Francisco. I told [Lockard] something to the effect, “It’s all right, there’s nothing further for you to do.” I didn’t tell him to track it on in. . . . I had no way of knowing these were enemy aircraft. But Tyler was perhaps confusing what he knew as he was speaking to Lockard and what he subsequently learned. When speaking to Lockard he knew nothing about the relative size of the approaching force Lockard was describing, nor had he been informed of any particular squadron or squadrons of B-17s on their way from California. Tyler had merely heard the music and thus inferred – correctly – an incoming flight of B-17s. Lockard, for his part, without being asked to describe what he was seeing, had no reason to volunteer the information, since he had no reason to know that he was talking to someone who knew next to nothing about radar blips. In fact Lockard had seen an image representing over fifty planes, a multiple of those that would be registered by the twelve B-17s.71 Sixty years later, Tyler rued that he “didn’t take the opportunity to talk at greater length to Lockard about . . . what made him think this was anything important.” One or more of the plotters might have had enough experience to ask Lockard the right questions, to find out how many B-17s were expected, and to draw a conclusion about what Lockard was seeing. But since Short had not put the Center on high alert, the plotters were all at breakfast. It had been some time since Ward had attacked a Japanese submarine, but this had not itself triggered a general alert. Nor did Tyler, having heard the music and having a belief as to what that meant, see a need to seek higher or at least more expert authority. In a deposition signed two days later, McDonald testified that because the two men at Opana “stressed the fact that it was a very large number of planes and they seemed excited,” he suggested to Tyler that the plotters should be asked to return. Tyler “said that it was not necessary to call the plotters or get in touch with anyone.”72 Some say the approaching B-17s maintained radio silence, others that they signaled the Hickam Field tower well in advance although static made substantive conversation impossible. By extraordinary happenstance, they were only five minutes behind the first wave of 183 Japanese planes and only 3 degrees off their approach. Thus, if the Army had set up a liaison with the Center and had informed it of the incoming B-17 flight, that is, if the system had been functioning at a minimum level of competence, Tyler would have given Lockard exactly the same advice and the morning would have 59

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unfolded just as it did. Only by being able to differentiate the radar signature of 183 fighters and dive-bombers from that of a squadron of 12 heavy bombers, and to invoke an appropriate alert based on that judgment, would the results have been other than they were. Elliott proceeded to track the approach until 0739 when, only 22 miles distant, the image disappeared in the background interference of Oahu’s terrain. The typical weather pattern in mid-winter Hawaii includes clouds north of Oahu, a condition previously exploited by Yarnell. Typically those clouds do not pass beyond the northern mountains, thus affording clear skies at Honolulu. On this morning the Japanese came in from the north at 10,000 feet, above a 6,000-foot cloudbank. The first wave’s flight path was directly over Opana as the northern cloud cover broke, revealing to Capt. Mitsuo Fuchida, commanding the attack from the second seat of an attack bomber, a line of breakers hitting Kahuku Point. Based on weather reported by KGMH, he decided on an approach along Oahu’s western coast. Reaching Waialua Bay to the southwest, the planes split up into different attack patterns. Because of confusion among the dive-bombers and torpedo planes over the meaning of signal flares fired by Fuchida, the bombers attacked first.73 At 0753, as the first wave of Japanese planes passed the lighthouse at Barber’s Point, Fuchida radioed to the carrier Akagi: “Tora! Tora! Tora!” (“Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!”), indicating that surprise had been achieved. Somehow, his message was picked up all the way back in Japan. Yamamoto had said that the first bomb should be dropped at 0800 local time, thirty minutes after the Japanese embassy was going to deliver a statement to Hull in Washington. The first aerial 550-pound bomb hit the base of the seaplane ramp on Ford Island at 0755 (1325 in Washington). A sailor on Arizona saw the pilot who dropped it, with his canopy back, his goggles up, and his arm nonchalantly hanging outside the cockpit.74 At 0758 Lt.-Cmdr. Logan Ramsey sent a radio signal: “AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR X THIS IS NO DRILL.” The Mare Island naval station near San Francisco picked it up and forwarded it to Washington, the Department of the Navy receiving it at 1350 Washington time, almost an hour after Nomura was to have met with Hull. The news was handed to Knox, at that moment in conversation with Turner and Stark. He said: “My God, this can’t be true! This must mean the Philippines.”75 Of 353 Japanese planes launched, 154 were assigned to attack ships. (Figure 3.1) Berthing at Pearl Harbor was so inadequate that ships were moored in pairs, making them clustered, stationary targets for aerial bombing. The Aichi D3A2 Navy Type 99 dive-bombers (which the Americans would later called “Vals”), derived from the Junkers Ju-87 “Stuka” that had defined terror in the Spanish Civil War, carried one conventional 551-pound and two 132-pound bombs, while forty-nine Nakajima B5N2 Navy Type 97-3 carrier attack-bombers, one of the variants Americans would later call 60

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Figure 3.1 Photo taken from Japanese plane at about 0800 on 7 December, showing, from left: Nevada, Arizona (inboard) and Vestal (outboard), Tennessee (inboard) and West Virginia (outboard); Maryland (inboard) and Oklahoma (outboard), Neosho. Splashes from dropped torpedoes, torpedo running tracks, impact reverberations and spilled oil are visible, as is listing of West Virginia.

“Kates,” carried 16-inch, 1,764-pound armor-piercing naval artillery shells, modified for aerial use with bomb-fins.76 The other Kates carried torpedoes. In Kagoshima Bay on Kyu¯shu¯, where the Japanese Navy had been formed in the sixteenth century, pilots had been trained to reach extremely low altitudes at extremely slow speeds, further to minimize the porpoising effect that would otherwise send the torpedoes harmlessly into the harbor bottom. Some Kates were equipped with the Type 91, Mod. 2 “Thunderfish” aerial torpedo, carrying 452 pounds of explosive. Typically, when dropped from even a low altitude and at slow speed, the Type 91 would porpoise down to a depth of 100 feet before rising to the calibrated depth (say, 12 feet) for the journey to the targeted vessel. But Genda, to solve the shoals issue, had added vanes as stabilizers. Thus customized, a Type 91 dropped from a slow, low-flying plane would sink to only 35 feet before ascending to the appropriate impact depth. The torpedoequipped Kates approached at 40 to 100 feet from the surface. Of thirty-six torpedoes reported to have been dropped that morning, twenty-five exploded 61

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on targets. When, weeks later, salvage teams raised a number of the ships, inside they found remnants of Genda’s wooden vanes.77 At 0744 the truck delivered to Opana the men who would be guarding the radar station for the rest of the day, and took Elliott and Lockard to their billet at nearby Kawailoa for breakfast. On the way some minutes later they could see black, oily smoke rising from Pearl Harbor, Lockard thinking perhaps there had been “some sort of accident or a fire.” The B-17s from California, with skeleton crews, without ammunition, and with their guns still coated in Cosmoline from the factory, reached Hickam Field at 0800. They saw ack-ack, then plumes of black smoke, which one crew member thought to be burning sugar cane. Bullets from a Japanese fighter set off one B-17’s magnesium flares, although the plane did manage to land. The other planes too landed safely, although two chose to vacate the vicinity, one reaching a distant airfield, another a golf course.78 Of nine battleships in the Pacific Fleet, by the afternoon of 7 December the US had only one, Colorado, being overhauled at Bremerton, Washington. Arizona and California (both displacing 33,000 tons), Oklahoma (29,000 tons) and West Virginia (31,800 tons) were sunk. Four others, Maryland (31,500 tons), Nevada (29,000 tons), Pennsylvania (33,100 tons) and Tennessee (32,300 tons), sustained damage. At 0840 Nevada cleared berth F-8 and steamed through the channel, its band adding new luster to the lyrics of “The Star-Spangled Banner” by completing the performance despite a torpedo explosion and two strafing runs. Ordered by Kimmel not to exit the harbor, then hit by three dive-bombers, Nevada ran aground at 0910, Capt. Francis Scanland thus not only saving it but also avoiding its becoming an obstruction in the narrow channel between Pearl Harbor and the sea. The raid also put out of action three cruisers and three destroyers.79 Several of the Vals’ 16-inch, armor-piercing shells cut right through their targets and buried themselves in the mud. Two exploded within Maryland, although luckily without the catastrophic damage they often delivered when exploding in the guts of a ship. Maryland and her crew were also spared because of the presence of her berth-mate, Oklahoma, moored outboard, which took five torpedoes and capsized in eight minutes. West Virginia took several torpedoes and two armor-piercing shells and would have capsized but for deft counter-flooding of its magazines.80 With West Virginia outboard to Tennessee, the latter took only bomb hits and survived, although it was wedged between West Virginia and a concrete dock, which had to be destroyed to free her. Nomura was finally handed what he was to take to Hull. At 1405, as he and Kurusu were arriving, Hull received a call from Roosevelt indicating that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. Hull made Nomura and Kurusu sit in his outer offices as he pondered this news, then decided to admit them. Nomura told Hull 62

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that he had been instructed to deliver at 1:00 p.m. the document which he handed the Secretary, but that he was sorry that he had been delayed owing to the need of more time to decode the message. The Secretary asked why he had specified one o’clock. The Ambassador replied that he did not know.81 They now handed Hull the fourteen-part message, unaware of course that Hull had read it three hours before they had. A careful first reading would have taken up to twenty minutes. That is, if it had been delivered on schedule at 1300, Hull would have been completing it just as the first bomb dropped. But Hull now merely glanced through it. The obvious solecisms in Tokyo’s English, and the failure of the embassy’s fluent English-speakers “nicely” to redraft it as instructed, would in a context less grave have rendered the document laughable. However, given the circumstances, the writing seems simply grotesque: Ever since 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 and it has consistently exerted its best efforts to prevent the extention of warlike disturbances. It was also to that end that in September last year Japan concluded the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy. Further, The American Government, obsessed with its own views and opinions, may be said to be scheming for the extension of the war. While it seeks, on the one hand, to secure its rear by stabilizing the Pacific Area, it is engaged, on the other hand, in aiding Great Britain and preparing to attack, in the name of self-defense, Germany and Italy, two powers that are striving to establish a new order in Europe. When Hull and Nomura had begun their talks months before, Nomura had apparently declared himself “only a plain sailor” who was “not the sort of a man to tell a lie.” Hull now addressed him: I must say that in all my conversations with you during the last nine months I have never uttered one word of untruth. This is borne out absolutely by the record. In all my fifty years of public service I have never seen a document that was more crowded with 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.82 63

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Back on Oahu, Tadao Fuchikama, the RCA courier bearing General Marshall’s message to General Short as well as the various other messages to be delivered along his route, heard bombs dropping and saw Japanese planes. While this did not keep Fuchikama from the completion of his appointed rounds, he was detained by National Guardsmen who suspected him of being a Japanese paratrooper. Military wives, meanwhile, spotted him and handed him money and telegrams to be sent to the Mainland, informing loved ones that they were safe. He arrived at Fort Shafter’s signal office at 1145 Honolulu time, almost two hours after the last wave of twentyseven Japanese dive-bombers had left. With the press of more immediate business, decryption was put aside until 1500. When, still later, Marshall’s message was forwarded to Kimmel, he read it and threw it away. At some point during the morning, Kimmel had been hit by a ricocheting, tumbling machine-gun bullet from a Japanese plane, but it apparently had already spent its power and thus did not break the skin when it hit his chest. He reportedly commented that he wished it had killed him.83 Japan had a golden opportunity to attack the target-rich environment of the base: surface tank farms surrounding the Southeast Loch, dry-docks, machine shops, and the Quarry Point submarine base built by Chester Nimitz two decades before. With no carrier in port, these assets, more than the battleships, comprised the high-quality objectives of any well-conceived attack, their destruction yielding exactly what Yamamoto desired: a substantial delay in US naval capability.84 But Nagumo, with only twentynine planes lost all morning, and with Oahu’s aerial defense decimated, nevertheless foolishly neglected the infrastructure, choosing to be (a fellow officer later scoffed) “a robber fleeing the scene, happy with small booty.”85 While the survival of these facilities would have been immaterial if the US no longer had ships to maintain, seventy-eight vessels survived the raid. The submarines proceeded almost immediately into the western Pacific, where they began the process of eliminating Japan’s merchant ships, already numerically inadequate for the war it had now initiated.86 There is no positive correlation, Michael Handel has written, between a successful strategic surprise and the outcome of a war.87

In the same boat The news of the attack came across the wire services in New York at 1422. At 1426 the first to hear were listeners to a professional football game on Mutual’s WOR between the New York Giants and a team from Brooklyn affiliated with baseball’s Dodgers franchise. At 1429 the news broke on NBC’s Red and the Blue networks, and at 1431 it was the lead item on John Daly’s World Today news broadcast on CBS. Up at New Haven, someone told Yale students rehearsing a play, but none of them knew where Pearl Harbor was.88 64

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Although Churchill thought Roosevelt would ask Congress for a declaration of war if Japan attacked British or Dutch holdings, and although he had confided to Auchinleck at 1825 GMT that he felt “relief,” at dinner Churchill seemed depressed and distracted, Harriman thought. Later, Churchill turned on the radio (a gift from Roosevelt aide Harry Hopkins) to listen to the BBC’s 9 o’clock news. As the vacuum tubes heated up, Churchill, Harriman and Winant heard part of a report indicating that Pearl Harbor had been attacked.89 This was affirmed by Churchill’s valet, Sawyers, who had been listening to his own set below stairs. Winant proceeded to telephone Roosevelt, who declared: “We are all in the same boat now.”90 This was what Churchill had hoped for: [N]ow . . . the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all! . . . [A]fter seventeen months of lonely fighting and nineteen months of my responsibility in dire stress, we had won the war. England would live . . . the Empire would live. How long the war would last or in what fashion it would end, no man could tell, nor did I at this moment care. . . . Hitler’s fate was sealed. . . . As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder. All the rest was merely the proper application of overwhelming force. . . . Silly people – and there were many, not only in enemy countries – said [the Americans] were soft . . . They would never stand the blood-letting. Their democracy and system of recurrent elections would paralyze their war effort. But I had studied the American Civil War, fought out to the last desperate inch. American blood flowed in my veins. . . . Being saturated and satiated with emotion and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful.91 At an emergency cabinet meeting that night, Roosevelt was “having actual physical difficulty in getting out the words that put him on record as knowing that the Navy was caught unawares. . . . It was obvious to me,” Labor Secretary Frances Perkins later wrote, “that Roosevelt was having a dreadful time just accepting the idea.” Mixed with this, though, were facial signs of relief from the long tension of wondering what they would do and when they would do it, and would we have to go to the defense of Singapore without an apparent attack upon ourselves . . . all these conflicts which had so harassed him for so many weeks or months, were ended.92 Churchill, once past his understandable euphoria, worried that, the clear 65

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Germany-First language of both ABC-1 and Rainbow-5 notwithstanding, the Americans’ desire for immediate revenge against Japan might sap their commitments to Europe and Russia. Churchill wanted to meet with Roosevelt immediately to lock him in, but Roosevelt – no fool – said he was too busy to see him.93 Although the US was not yet at war with Germany, Roosevelt was shown a Magic intercept indicating that Hitler would imminently declare war.94 The declaration came on 11 December, Hitler noting that Roosevelt, pushed by the Jews, had sought this conflict in order to draw attention away from his failed domestic policies.95 Perhaps Hitler, who theretofore had wished to avoid American enmity, believed that his declaration would cost Germany nothing, since the US would focus its entire effort on Japan.96 If so, he was mistaken. Now the British and Americans really were in the same boat.97 Churchill arrived in Washington and stayed at the White House for two weeks, essentially as a member of the family. On Christmas Eve 1941, at the ARCADIA Conference held between American military planners and the eighty-eight top British military officials Churchill had brought with him, the Americans promised to abide by the GermanyFirst commitment, ARCADIA concluding with an agreement to shelve any counter-offensive against Japan until 1944 – at the earliest.98 Japan had gambled everything on a delay in the US response to its aggressions, and a delay was what the Americans and British had now agreed upon. Thus the strategy behind ARCADIA, ABC-1 and Rainbow-5 all unwittingly tended to vindicate Japan’s decision to attack. The US Naval War College taught: You cannot know what your opponent intends, but you can determine his capabilities.99 The US, while projecting great confidence in its own technology and skills, had grossly underestimated Japan’s. Although in April 1937 a civilian prototype of the Mitsubishi Type 97 reconnaissance plane (later codenamed “Babs”) had set a world record by flying 8,292 miles from Tokyo to London in 94 hours, many American military “experts” remained unwilling to view the Japanese as aerially capable. Racial stereotypes of bad eyesight, mixed with anecdotes about cheap and flimsy export goods, took the place of appropriate investigations into whether Japan had the resources, skills and systems necessary to move a stealthy carrier force across thousands of miles of ocean and launch a surprise attack. The US knew it could be done – but by Americans. British intelligence reported that Japan had a shortage of the precision instruments and skilled mechanics necessary to build an air force. In the summer and fall of 1940, Zero fighters proved lethal against Chinese fighters, and in October, Chennault passed to Washington and London the Zero’s specifications, derived from a plane captured by the Chinese. At an air exhibit in Tokyo in January 1941 the Japanese, in a gross security breach, let the US assistant naval attaché examine a Zero, ask questions, and even sit 66

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in the cockpit. But the value of such information was lost on US Navy technicians, who refused to believe it. The author of an article in the September 1941 number of Aviation magazine, totally unaware of the Zero’s existence, disparaged Japanese aeronautics as “backward.” Marine pilots, on their way to Wake in late November 1941, were informed by intelligence officers that Japan’s aerial armamentarium was composed of old seaplanes and flying boats. The Japanese military, meanwhile, were now pleased to let the US grossly underestimate them. So secret were the specifications of Japan’s new Yamato-class leviathans that at the Naval Academy at Eta Jima, the bore of their 18.1-inch guns was consistently understated by over 2 inches.100 Thus, the notion of a raid on Hawaii could be dismissed because the Japanese were deemed incapable of accomplishing it. Nor was such a raid necessary, since, as Admiral Richardson had noted, Japan’s leaders knew that the US Fleet was unprepared to fight. Japan could have had its way in the South Pacific, and it would have been “suicidal” for the US to try to intervene without first returning to the Mainland. A third reason to discount a raid on Hawaii was that it would be strategically unsound. At 0800 on Saturday, 6 December, in an interview with Joseph C. Harsch of the Christian Science Monitor, Kimmel observed that because the Germans had failed to take Moscow, Japan would not launch an attack against the US and thus expose itself to an attack by Russia. The Japanese, Kimmel concluded, “are too intelligent to fight a two-front war.”101 Yet another reason to dismiss the idea is the human propensity for worrying about only one thing at a time. In all Orange plans, the Philippines had been Japan’s putative target. Since for some years planners had spoken openly about letting the Philippines go, Hawaii remained in their mental picture. But in July 1941 Marshall, swayed by glowing reports about the B-17 and by overly optimistic accounts by MacArthur concerning his progress in building a local force, abruptly decided that the Philippines could and should be defended.102 Sudden, radical shifts in strategy are intrinsically dangerous, since concerns historically recognized as legitimate may suddenly get lost in the shuffle. While in the first half of 1941 there had been ample talk about a possible attack on Hawaii, once the Philippines were thought worth preparing for a likely Japanese attack, Hawaii, 4,600 miles closer to the US Mainland, was forgotten.103 Just as no defensive strategist may ignore the protection of one likely target (Hawaii) by focusing on another (Manila), the strategist may not ignore the amorphous issue of what the enemy might be “feeling” as well as “thinking.” Japan had excused some of its predations in China by saying that the Chinese embargo on Japanese goods was the equivalent of an act of war. Now the US, it seemed, intended to stifle Japan into submission by depriving it of oil. To the Japanese, this embargo not only was the equivalent of war, but also culminated decades of high-handedness which many took not only 67

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as a real threat that must be dealt with somehow, but also as a challenge to national dignity. In Japan’s warrior tradition, death was clearly preferable to dishonor, and a mystical spirit counted for more than material advantage. But in contemplating why the Japanese leadership accepted Yamamoto’s demand to destroy the US Pacific Fleet, one should not underestimate the power of repressed emotion. Ellis Zacharias later complained that in the congressional inquiry of 1945–46, no witnesses were asked whether, in the weeks prior to 7 December, they had sought the advice “of those who were best qualified to state what the Japanese might do.” Two men qualified to opine on the Japanese leaders’ mood and collective psyche were the British and American ambassadors in Tokyo, Sir Robert Craigie and Joseph Grew. Craigie’s various warnings were heeded neither by the Foreign Office nor by Churchill. On 3 November 1941, Grew ominously warned Washington against “any possible misunderstanding of the ability or readiness of [Japan] to plunge into a suicidal war with the United States.” Although such action, he wrote, “would be contrary to dictates of national reason . . . our standards of reason cannot be applied to the Japanese.” Further, in view of the Japanese “temperament and character . . . progressive measures of economic pressure” (exactly the ratcheting strategy Roosevelt had invoked) comprised “a perilously unsure basis upon which to predicate” US policy. A few days later, foreign minister Shigenori To¯go¯ told Grew to inform Washington that Japan considered the embargo to be stronger than military pressure, that the Japanese people, given the Japanese immigration issue and other disputes, would not let the present state of tensions continue, and that “[f]or the United States to insist that Japan disregard the sacrifices she is making in China is tantamount to telling us to commit suicide.”104 On the day after Pearl Harbor, Asahi Shimbun editorialized: “There is a limit to prudence and patience.” Thus, even if the odds of a satisfactory outcome to war were worse than Yamamoto and several other senior planners believed, some in Japan’s junta viscerally desired to strike at the US and perhaps repeat the brilliant, against-all-odds result achieved against Russia. “If we had been afraid of mathematical figures,” one of the regimecontrolled newspapers later bragged, “the war would not have started.” On 9 December, historian Ikujiro¯ Watanabe wrote in Tokyo’s prestigious NichiNichi Shimbun: [T]here is something more dreadful than war. That is a mind which seeks a temporizing peace and lull. This will lead to a country’s ruin. Prior to the Russo-Japanese War, the Czarist court believed no country would dare declare war on Russia. The United States is likened to this. A Mukden Battle and a Battle of Tsushima, which decided the destiny of the Russo-Japanese War, will not be too

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distant. The US apparently has been self-conceited in its wealth and strength, though the latter cannot be vouched. In his war crimes trial, Hideki To¯jo¯ would best capture the mythic and mystical conception: “rather than await extinction it were better to face death by breaking through the encircling ring to find a way for existence.”105 On Sunday afternoon, Hull issued an angry press release referring to Japan’s “treacherous and utterly unprovoked attack,” taking place “[a]t the very moment when representatives of the Japanese Government were discussing with representatives of this Government, at the request of the former, principles . . . of peace,” an odd and inaccurate characterization of Japan’s fourteen-point memo. In the first draft of the speech he would be giving to Congress on Monday in support of his request for a declaration of war, Roosevelt called 7 December “a date which shall live in world history.”106 Undoubtedly seeing that as unintentionally complimentary to the Japanese, he changed it. Hull had accused the Japanese of being “infamously false and fraudulent” by projecting peaceful intentions on the eve of the attack, and in redrafting his speech, Roosevelt referred to 7 December as “a date which will live in infamy,” a phrase which would attain a granite-like permanence Churchill himself might envy. The gist of Roosevelt’s speech, like Hull’s press release, was that Japan “deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.” The emotional key was the “surprise” attack, the success of which was now to be ascribed not to a lack of preparedness but to dastardliness, as if the US had not defended itself because it was putting its faith in Nomura and Kurusu. No honest person, today or a thousand years hence [Roosevelt urged], will be able to suppress a sense of indignation and horror at the treachery committed by the military dictators of Japan, under the very shadow of the flag of peace borne by their special envoys in our midst.107 In his radio address of 9 December, as if summoning up some shared, hyperexacting code of revenge, Roosevelt remarked that “the shame of Japanese treachery [must] be wiped out,” while his “infamy” speech similarly proclaims: Always will our whole Nation remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory . . . so help us God.

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Invoking the name of God in the context of vanquishing an enemy was no small matter to many constituents, but this was not deemed a breach of the Third Commandment, rather a solemn oath, righteously sworn and fully justified. Since the public had no idea that the Administration had in fact expected that Japan would commence hostilities at any moment, but merely got the place wrong, these charges of bad faith resonated powerfully. A collection of anti-Japanese cartoons in the 22 December issue of Life featured a Japanese tail-coated diplomat smiling at Uncle Sam as he asks: “Please appoint commission to make peace yes?,” while a Japanese soldier is about to hit Uncle Sam in the back of the head with a rifle butt. Time’s 22 December cover featured Arthur Szyk’s bizarre caricature of Yamamoto as a thoughtful simian.

Nomura and Kurusu VAdm. Seiichi Ito¯, vice-chief of the Naval General Staff, later testified that he had originally wanted Japan to attack Pearl Harbor without issuing any reply at all to the Hull Note. Then he and Nagano set 1230 as the time to deliver the fourteen-point letter, which theoretically would precede the first bomb by an hour, the Emperor having reportedly urged that the war should not be commenced with a deception. Later, Ito¯ and the vice-chief of the Army General Staff, Lt.-Gen. Moritake Tanabe, changed this to 1 P.M. After the attack, Ito¯ admitted to ex-foreign minister To¯go¯ that “we cut it too fine.” When Hirohito retained Tokyo’s International Law Society to draft a scholarly justification for an attack without a declaration of war, it could come up with nothing more persuasive than to call the Hague Convention’s notice requirement “childish.”108 Yamamoto, upon being told that Nomura had not delivered Tokyo’s message to Hull until after the attack had begun, reportedly observed: “One should not cut the sleeping throat.” The expression, although unpleasantly gnomic by western standards, demonstrated a prophetic understanding of how the American public would react. More central even than the British endowment of “fair play” (Japan had attacked Kota Bharu without notice) was the US’s inveterate sense of its own “innocence” in matters of Realpolitik, a sense ingrained in George Washington’s Farewell Address, in the pronouncements of the astringently Presbyterian Woodrow Wilson, in the stream of censoriousness issued by Hornbeck (the son of a Methodist minister), and in the thinking of a “guileless” moralist like Cordell Hull, born in a log cabin in Pickett County, Tennessee. Some months later, trusted news commentator H.V. Kaltenborn commented that “[a]n enemy that uses peace talks to conceal a long-planned treacherous attack neither deserves nor understands chivalrous treatment.”109 Kurusu, when on his way from Tokyo to Washington in November 1941, 70

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had a stopover at Wake, one of the links in Pan-American’s pioneering air service between the US and the Far East. John Farrow’s film Wake Island, released in September 1942, portrays Kurusu as the stereotypically bucktoothed, near-sighted Japanese diplomat, who charms the Marines stationed on the island by raising a toast to President Roosevelt and stating his mission to be that of declaring the Emperor’s desire for peace. The film ends with the fall of the Wake garrison in the third week of December, including the death of many of the men to whom Kurusu had made his ingratiating promises just a few weeks before. The fade-out offers the prophecy that 140 million Americans “will exact a just and terrible vengeance.” In 1938 Orson Welles’ famous War of the Worlds radio program, despite voice-overs clearly identifying the program as fiction, terrified many people who believed that Martians had invaded New Jersey. In the years that followed, both the gullible and those who had scoffed were now acclimatized to believe that news of any domestic attack was a hoax. On the afternoon of 7 December 1941, even a military man at a social gathering had this reaction to the news from Hawaii. In Delmer Daves’ film Pride of the Marines (1945), when everyone sitting down to Sunday dinner hears on the radio that the Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor, John Garfield, playing a young factory worker, is incredulous: “It’s one of those ‘Man from Mars’ programs; the Japs just got through telling Roosevelt they love us.” Lloyd Bacon’s film The Fighting Sullivans (1944), similarly, shows a typical American family listening to the radio that Sunday. The father, played by stalwart character actor Thomas Mitchell, decries the treachery of the Japanese diplomats, who “have been in Washington for a week hand-shaking the President, pretending all they wanted was peace.” The audience is invited to internalize the sentiment of one of the sons – himself destined for martyrdom in the conflict – when he reacts to the news by vowing: “Those Japs will be sorry they were born.” Pilot Ted Lawson was exiting from a late breakfast with his wife at the Pig’n Whistle on Hollywood Boulevard, as people gathered around a radio at a nearby newsstand. “The Japs!,” Lawson exclaimed. “What about that Peace Envoy – what’s his name?”110 Ex-foreign minister Shigenori To¯go¯ later dismissed as “mere nonsense” US charges that he had sent Kurusu to Washington as “camouflage” for Japan’s real plans, asserting that in Tokyo the only people who knew about Pearl Harbor were seven Navy officers, five Army officers, and a few staffers. Only on 1 December 1941, To¯go¯ insisted, did General Hajime Sugiyama, the Imperial Army’s chief-of-staff, tell him that the war would begin “around next Sunday” with “a surprise attack.” What that meant, and where – To¯go¯ maintained – no Japanese civilian official (excepting, of course, Hirohito) knew. To¯go¯ went so far as to claim that the first time prime minister Hideki To¯jo¯ knew that Nagumo’s carrier force had departed the Kurile Islands on 26 November was during the postwar trial in which he was the primary defendant.111 71

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Whatever the truth of such self-serving postwar declarations, obviously the secrecy of the attack and the projected “good faith” of Nomura and Kurusu in the negotiating process were best preserved – someone in Tokyo had decided – by telling them only to feign the possibility of further talks, “to prevent the United States from becoming unduly suspicious.” This of course did not mean that either Nomura or Kurusu knew what Tokyo planned, any more than the US (which of course had decrypted the message) knew. Diplomacy had no role in Yamamoto’s plan and none of the diplomatic messages decrypted by Purple provided any hint of an attack on Hawaii. Marshall and others sensed such an attack on 7 December because of the “1 P.M.” language, but there is no indication that Nomura or Kurusu came up with the same intuition, and of course they had less time than Stark and Marshall to ponder the question. That afternoon, Nomura, dejected after a severe reprimand from Hull and the morning’s frustrating decryption problems, got back to the Japanese embassy, to be told that someone had been listening to the radio and heard that his beloved Imperial Navy had bombed Hawaii. When upon his repatriation to Tokyo many months later Nomura was congratulated for stalling the negotiations long enough for Nagumo’s force to strike, he denied having had any such intention. Although US media throughout the war would harp on the “treachery” of Japan’s negotiating in bad faith, Hull, who personally disliked both Nomura and Kurusu, would nevertheless exonerate them of knowing anything.112 Kurusu, although he wore spectacles and had prominent teeth, was not the double-dealing stereotype the Americans depicted. Nor was Nomura, 64 years old, despite his own spectacles and squinting. He was 6 feet tall. He had been foreign minister and had advised the Emperor, accepting the Washington job only when satisfied that Japan was bona fide looking for a peaceful solution. As a young sailor he had been pulled from the icy waters off Port Arthur after his ship went down during the Russo-Japanese War. Having lost several fingers in that incident, he also limped, was blind in one eye and partially deaf, following the detonation of a bomb in Shanghai in 1932. He was honorable, even winsome. When the conversations with Hull went badly (as they often did), he would ask his own American advisor, Frederick Moore, to take him for drives in the Virginia countryside, where they would stop for ice cream and talk to the locals. One such junket took them so far they had to stay overnight at a hotel, where the clerk was overheard to remark: “He must be a diplomat.”113 Although Nomura commented to an associate that he could understand Roosevelt perfectly, his dispatches to Tokyo, intercepted and reported back to Hull, demonstrated that he was by no means a perfect medium for communication between the two governments, despite the fact that he and Hull always had interpreters present. His earnestness was of no value in his discussions with Hull, since Hull always knew more about Tokyo’s intentions than Nomura did.

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To¯go¯ awoke Joseph Grew at 0700 Tokyo time (1130 Honolulu time) to inform him of the Emperor’s negative answer to Roosevelt’s telegram. This did not distress Grew, since he had repeatedly seen negotiations blocked, only to find a way to restart. To¯go¯ said nothing about Pearl Harbor. At 1100 Tokyo time, the Emperor’s Declaration of War was issued, reprising the Orwellian language found in the fourteen-points memo: More than four years have passed since China, failing to comprehend the true intentions of our Empire, and recklessly courting trouble, disturbed the peace of East Asia and compelled our Empire to take up arms. . . . [T]he regime which has survived at Chungking, relying upon United States and British protection, still continues its fratricidal opposition. Eager for the realization of their inordinate ambition to dominate the Orient, both the United States and Britain, giving support to the Chungking regime, have aggravated the disturbances in East Asia.114 The US would for a time intern both Nomura and Kurusu, later to be exchanged for Grew and other officials in the Tokyo embassy. The establishment of concentration camps for US citizens of Japanese descent, meanwhile, betokened that they were the designated scapegoats, that they should personify locally to their paranoid Anglo neighbors the “treachery” of Japan’s “sneak” attack, much as they had personified the “Yellow Peril” with San Francisco’s school board several decades before. Assistantsecretary of war John J. McCloy noted that when it comes to balancing the nation’s safety against individual rights, “the Constitution is just a scrap of paper.” Some observers thought these citizens might be better off locked away than at the mercy of the worst elements among the whites. A man was arrested trying to hack down the Japanese cherry trees bordering Washington’s Reflecting Pool.115

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In January 1942 the Army commander on the US west coast noted: “The fact that nothing has happened so far is . . . ominous,” that is, the absence of isolated outbreaks of sabotage suggested to him that a more significant incident was being planned. A British official opined that Japanese carriers could get within striking distance of California. On 23 February a Japanese submarine surfaced a half mile off Santa Barbara and fired a number of rounds from its deck gun at the Bankline Oil Refinery, while a Japanese plane, launched from a submarine, tried to start a fire in an Oregon forest, and a B-25 sank a Japanese submarine off the mouth of the Columbia River.1 Many indulged the fantasy that any nisei one saw on the street could be a fifth-columnist. John Huston’s film Across the Pacific, released in September 1942, concerns a Japanese attempt to sabotage the Panama Canal, the attack to coincide with the bombing of Pearl Harbor.2 In the film a young nisei wears hipster two-tone shoes and talks all the latest jive talk with not a hint of a Japanese accent, as if he were as innocently westernized as Charlie Chan’s son. While the white characters in the film do not doubt his sincerity, Huston provides the audience with some ironic distance by having the young man wear thick glasses. His terrible eyesight, so at odds with the rest of his Yankee presentation, comprises our tip-off that he is a traitor. In Hawaii, rumors of sabotage and espionage (such as nisei making arrowshaped cuts in Oahu’s sugar-cane fields to direct Japan’s planes) proved to be unfounded. Since a round-up of Hawaii’s 120,000 residents of Japanese ancestry and their transport to Mainland internment camps would have tied up shipping and resulted in the entire Hawaiian infrastructure collapsing, Roosevelt’s internment order was not carried out.3 John Ford’s and Gregg Toland’s quasi-documentary December 7th (1943) includes a scene of a Japanese restaurateur in Honolulu changing the name of his establishment from “Banzai Café” to “Keep ’Em Flying Café.” The local children happily filing into newly dug trenches during an air-raid drill happen to be ethnically Japanese. In the US, where the “sovereign” was the public itself and where the Constitution bifurcated the public’s civil and spiritual commitments by 74

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separating Church and State, even sophisticated leaders remained as willfully blind to the Japanese sense of things as they were to the psychological impact of decades of racial insult. That being so, among the “reasonable” reactions to 7 December was that it was simply crazy. Rep. Hamilton Fish (R-NY) turned to Longfellow’s recapitulation of ancient wisdom: “Whom the Gods would destroy they first make mad.” Churchill told the US Congress that what Japan had done was “irrational,” incompatible “with prudence or even sanity.” Eden’s private secretary thought Japan, by opening hostilities against both the US and Britain, “must have gone mad,” as if fulfilling Knox’s comment to Winant in November that for Japan to fight both Britain and the US was “tantamount to committing suicide.” David Lawrence, founder of what would become U.S. News & World Report, wrote: “Some day the Japanese will look back on what happened on December 7 and they will recognize it as the greatest blunder they possibly could have made.” Historian Samuel Eliot Morison would call the raid strategically “idiotic.”4 If Japan had landed in independent, neutral Thailand and spread south to Malaya and/or north to Burma, Roosevelt might have been unable to extract from Congress a declaration of war. But if he did get one, the Japanese would need to deal with the US Pacific Fleet somehow, and they had earlier achieved success by a surprise attack on Russia’s fleet at anchor. In that strategic/tactical respect, the raid made sense, even if its execution was deeply marred by failing to destroy the base’s infrastructure assets. But the raid was “idiotic” in Japan’s gross failure to understand the hatred it would engender. After the war, Admiral Chu¯ ichi Hara said of the Hawaiian raid: “Roosevelt should have pinned medals on us.” That is, Japan did for the US (as Edward Luttwak has succinctly put it) what the US could not do for itself: resolve its internal disagreements and make it fight. For decades afterward, and even now, some Japanese, like some Americans, believe Roosevelt tricked Japan into being the catalyst for an active American role in the European war.5 The intercultural miscalculation which approved the Hawaiian attack, never discussed except among a very small inner circle in the Japanese military, exemplifies how an insular, martial administration, subject to no popular franchise and making decisions in an atmosphere in which anyone voicing a contrary view invited assassination, can position itself into throwing the dice and taking its people to the brink of doom. The Japanese junta, following decades of cultural and racial insult, and indulging itself in the conceit that the Americans were decadent, did no actual assessment of Japan’s chances of winning a war against the US, blithely disregarded a “shadow cabinet” study showing Japan could not win such a war, then grossly misperceived how the US would react to being bombed by Japan. Hugh Byas, an American who had served as Tokyo correspondent for both the New York Times and the Times of London, wrote in 1942 that the Japanese 75

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have never understood Anglo-Saxon psychology. They think democracies are constitutionally “soft.” That a nation can be pleasure-loving, extravagant, for ever running after novelties . . . loathing war; that an unbridled press, radio, and cinema may ceaselessly reflect and magnify all these things; and yet that such a nation may be revengeful and “tough” is something the narrow Japanese military mind does not comprehend.6 In the end, the most significant result of the attack was to assure not only the congressional declaration of war Roosevelt and Churchill had sought, but also a fierce and total anti-Japanese enmity on the part of the American public, exploited, developed, maintained and expanded by a collection of US popular media which was in its way as formidable as the nation’s steel or automotive industries. Japan’s leaders, with their own seething hatred of the Americans, exposed in their enemy a depth of hatred never exhibited against Japan’s two Axis partners, the US having more or less integrated those European peoples into American life, while refusing such integration to the disprized “Orientals.” Throughout World War II, the worst that was commonly said of the Germans and Italians (most of whom could trace some sort of family connection in the US) was that they were led by “thugs” and “gangsters.” All allusions to the Japanese, on the other hand, were in terms of subhuman animals such as “monkeys” and “rats.”

The Pearl Harbor investigations In the five years following 7 December, Pearl Harbor would be investigated officially eight times. On 18 December 1941, FDR by Executive Order convened Supreme Court associate justice Owen Roberts and a panel of two generals and two admirals to find whether there were any “derelictions of duty or errors of judgment” by any Army or Navy officers. Their report, compiled quickly and issued 24 January 1942, expressly exonerated Hull, Stimson, Knox, Stark and Marshall, while holding that Kimmel and Short had failed to coordinate their defenses appropriately and to take the measures reasonably required in light of the warnings they were given.7 The next day the first words of the New York Times’ six-column headline read: ROBERTS BOARD BLAMES KIMMEL AND SHORT.

Both were now hounded by death threats. In February, Ernest J. King, whom Roosevelt had summoned to replace Kimmel, comforted his predecessor by saying that Roberts had ignored much germane material and that the disaster – far from being the responsibility of two local commanders – was “premised on the attitude here in Washington as to the realities of the case – not only as to ‘ways and means’ placed at your disposal but as to the 76

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several progressive steps which led to the break with Japan.” The man Roosevelt had fired and Kimmel had replaced, Admiral Richardson, was substantially more forthright: A more disgraceful spectacle has never been presented to this country during my lifetime than the failure of the civilian officials of the Government to show any willingness to take their share of responsibility. . . . It is my firm belief that, when the President realized the extent of the damage . . . he lost his nerve and lost his head, and ordered the convening of the Roberts commission, believing that he could best protect his own position by focusing public attention on Pearl Harbor. A plenary court-martial would have provided Kimmel and Short with all relevant documents and with the opportunity to cross-examine witnesses. But none took place. On 7 December 1943 the two-year statute of limitations for filing dereliction charges was extended, although Senator Homer Ferguson (R-MI) failed in his effort to get a court-martial to start just prior to the November 1944 presidential election.8 Central to the question of allocating blame was the issue of decrypted Japanese messages. Roberts’ quick investigation failed to deal with the issue, Roberts himself making the unlawyerlike comment that if any decrypted messages had been shown to him he would have refused to read them. As John Costello has said, Roberts left the impression that everything Washington knew was also known to Kimmel and Short, a palpable falsehood. Pitiably, neither Kimmel nor Short at this point knew anything about withheld documents.9 Throughout the war, the fact that the Allies could decrypt Japanese messages of course remained Top Secret. In 1944 an in camera inquiry headed by Admiral Hart for the first time adduced some evidence on the subject. That summer a three-man Naval Court of Inquiry excoriated Stark for not showing Kimmel key Japanese intercepts and for not immediately contacting Kimmel on the morning of 7 December, once the 1 P.M. language indicated a possible dawn raid on Hawaii. It also excused Kimmel’s decision not to use available aircraft for reconnaissance.10 In November 1944 King passed the Court’s confidential record up to Navy secretary James Forrestal, in a cover memo noting that Kimmel, despite having been denied key intercepts, exercised “faulty” judgment by “not fully appreciat[ing] the implications” of the information he did receive. A few days later Forrestal, apparently unhappy with the Court’s conclusions, repudiated its findings, then asked Richardson to conduct another investigation.11 Richardson declined, noting that since he already believed that Pearl Harbor was Roosevelt’s fault, he could not be impartial. 77

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The Army, meanwhile, held its own inquiries. In the summer of 1944 a three-man Army Pearl Harbor Board of Investigation excoriated Marshall and his staff for not giving Short all decrypted intercepts, for not countermanding Short when he invoked an anti-sabotage defense, and for not contacting Short immediately regarding Japan’s fourteen-part memo.12 As to the concern about the Japanese tapping the scrambler telephone, the Board commonsensically concluded that if the actual information could not be forwarded to Short, then at least the War Department should have told Short “to go on an all-out alert instead of a sabotage alert.” The Army’s Judge-Advocate General, Maj-Gen. Myron Cramer, had appended to the Army Board’s reports three memoranda to Stimson criticizing several of the Board’s conclusions. Stimson also asked a litigator who had already done substantial work on the Army Board’s inquiry, Major Henry Clausen, to reinvestigate what the Board had covered. With several witnesses reversing the testimony they had given to the Board, Clausen blamed Short and exonerated Marshall, noting later that two members of the Board may have held anti-Marshall grudges.13 Meanwhile, an investigator in Marshall’s employ, Colonel Carter Clarke, was assigned the role of setting forth what the Army knew about the “Winds Execute” message and the circumstances of Marshall’s first hearing about the final, fourteen-part Japanese message. Like Roberts and Clausen, he exonerated Marshall. King, sensing an Army “whitewash,” later noted that he could not understand why Marshall was deemed less culpable than Stark.14 Admiral H.K. Hewitt presided over Forrestal’s new Navy hearing, held in the months just prior to Japan’s surrender in August 1945. Hewitt concluded, among other things, that the messages provided to Kimmel, particularly the 27 November War Warning, “indicated in unmistakable language that the diplomatic negotiations had ceased, that war with Japan was imminent, and that Japanese attacks might occur at any moment.” Thus Kimmel had “sufficient information in his possession to indicate the situation was unusually serious, and that important developments with respect to the outbreak of war were imminent.” Nevertheless, Hewitt also found that Stark “did not communicate . . . important information” to Kimmel “which would have aided him materially in fully evaluating the seriousness of the situation.” Most significantly, he failed to insure that Kimmel knew about “1 P.M.” Meanwhile, President Harry Truman released to the public the Army and Navy investigations and the negative endorsements by Stimson and Forrestal. Stark’s reputation was left in ruins, while the cloud over Marshall had been lifted.15 Since neither Short nor Kimmel received Marshall’s “1 P.M.” message on time, the fact that its language was insufficiently urgent became immaterial, except insofar as its inadequacy as a warning comprises further evidence of Marshall’s and Stark’s failure to grasp the emergent circumstances facing them. Stark had been dead wrong to do nothing in the greater time available 78

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to him, and to see nothing in the 1 P.M. deadline requiring exigent action. While Marshall correctly intuited something ominous about 1 P.M., if he or Stark had actually grasped that the timing might mean a strike against Hawaii, one or both of them would surely have picked up the telephone. In doing so, they would have risked the possibility that Japanese agents had tapped the line and could unscramble the voice data.16 Although any allusion to “1 P.M.” would clearly show the Japanese that the Americans had broken their code, if Marshall or Stark had actually believed that Hawaii was at risk, they would of course have made the call anyway. And, as the Army Pearl Harbor Board of Investigation had said, they could have minimized the risk by providing Hawaii with no information, simply ordering the military there immediately to go on high alert. But not even their tardy, ambiguous radiogram did that.

Respondeat superior By war’s end, many felt that the several government inquiries, mutually inconsistent, undercut by numerous negative “endorsements,” and notable for shifts in testimony, failed recall, and withheld or missing documents, had raised more questions than they had answered. Meanwhile, Kimmel’s lawyer, Charles Rugg, former assistant attorney-general in the Hoover Administration, urged fellow Republican Homer Ferguson to open a congressional investigation mediated not by military officials who had been answerable to Roosevelt himself, but by the give-and-take of the political arena. Anti-Roosevelt Republicans saw a chance to destroy him posthumously and thus begin the process of shifting the nation away from what was now a generation of New Deal thinking.17 Some saw in Roosevelt’s handling of the diplomatic crisis a naive, amateurish involvement which had unwittingly courted disaster. Many still despised Roosevelt’s radical use of executive power, exemplified in his earlier scheme to terminate the Supreme Court’s role as a coequal branch of government. Others found errors of judgment so numerous and key pieces of testimony so dubious as to support an inference not just of incompetence but of a criminal conspiracy. That is, Murphy’s Law operated so flawlessly, and every fail-safe was ignored so absolutely up and down the chain of command, that some thought the president must have choreographed the whole thing, including even manipulating Japan into making the “mistake” of attacking. In September 1945 Congress, still controlled by the Democrats, formed a joint committee of six Democrats and four Republicans to investigate Pearl Harbor once more. Between November 1945 and May 1946 it heard seventy days’ testimony and gathered thousands of pages of documents. By the time questioning began, Roosevelt, Knox and Roosevelt’s brilliant aide Harry Hopkins were all dead, while the illnesses of the aging Hull and Stimson foreclosed cross-examination. Meanwhile, President Truman curtailed 79

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meaningful inquiry into matters of decrypted messages, citing considerations of national security.18 The result was another “victory” for the Roosevelt Administration, the majority report singling out no Washington official for criticism, while concluding that Kimmel and Short engaged in errors of judgment but not derelictions of duty. It was signed not just by all six Democrats but by two Republicans, although one of them, Rep. Frank Keefe (R-WI), appended significant caveats. The minority report by Sen. Homer Ferguson (R-MI) and Rep. Ralph Owen Brewster (R-ME), while identifying no “smoking guns,” noted that since Roosevelt had known for months that war was likely, all of Japan’s naval and consular messages should have been decrypted and analyzed on a timely basis. Commenting that the gathering of evidence had been far from complete, Ferguson and Brewster nevertheless believed they had seen and heard enough to hold Roosevelt accountable, if only on some sort of technical, respondeat superior theory.19

The insiders Still unresolved was the matter of just what happened on Saturday, 6 December. It would be reasonable to assume that when senior US officials were first told that Tokyo would be sending a long memo responding to the Hull Note, each would have been tracked down and instructed to make himself available all weekend. As historian Gordon Prange notes, the telephone records of Roosevelt, Hull, Stimson, Knox and Stark “reveal calls flying back and forth” that day.20 And on Saturday evening, given the contents of the thirteen-part Japanese message and Roosevelt’s apparently spontaneous reaction (“This means war”), an emergency meeting would have been in order. Nevertheless, just what happened remains shrouded in mystery, due to a combination of conflicting and changed testimony, protestations of failed memory, and documents either doctored or gone missing. Roosevelt, Hopkins, Knox and Hull all saw the thirteen parts. Who else did remains unsettled. Stark and Marshall both claimed failed memories regarding where they were that night. Evidence was adduced that Roosevelt declined contacting Stark, since Stark was attending The Student Prince at the National Theater and his sudden departure might be noted by the audience. Stark would need to have his recollection refreshed before admitting that later that night he received a telephone call from the White House, and even then he did not recall what was said. Marshall’s recall was muddled as to whether he was at a social event (a newspaper the next day noted his participation) or at home with his wife. The social event Marshall reportedly attended was quite near the White House.21 During his extensive investigation in 1944-45, Clausen concluded that the fourteenth part came in as early as midnight on Saturday, but that neither it nor even the first thirteen parts were seen by Marshall or any other senior 80

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Army officer that night, a senior courier having failed to deliver them as ordered, deciding on his own authority not to wake anyone up. Earlier, the Army Pearl Harbor Board of Investigation had noted that from the moment the first thirteen parts were decrypted and delivered to that courier, he had (using a term from tort law) “the last clear chance” to raise an appropriate alarm.22 Clausen concluded that the Navy, upon decrypting the fourteenth part, failed to deliver it to several of its senior people, although it did manage to deliver the first thirteen parts not just to Roosevelt but to Knox, Stark and others.23 In 1975 a former Navy intelligence officer wrote that Knox, a close friend, confided in him regarding a meeting Roosevelt convened late on Saturday night, which resulted in the issuance of an additional warning to Kimmel. Corroboration comes from Knox’s naval aide and from Kimmel, both of whom recalled Knox insisting in mid-December 1941 that on Saturday night the Navy Department had issued Kimmel an additional warning (although in fact Kimmel never received it).24 Historians Edward L. Beach and John Costello have each proposed that a meeting of Roosevelt’s “war cabinet” took place on Saturday night, Beach suggesting that it lasted until 0400, when the group finally gave up on waiting for the fourteenth part. Since such a meeting, if a matter of record, would cause Japan to infer that Roosevelt must have known an important message was on its way from Japan, and since the only way Roosevelt could know that would be by having cracked Japan’s diplomatic code, the meeting would have been – Beach argues – hushed up, with all White House Secret Service, housekeeping, gate and telephone records purged.25 Another scholar, Jon Bridgeman, takes a different approach, alleging that since there is no record of Roosevelt’s meeting with his senior advisors, “[o]ne cannot help but be struck by the fact that Roosevelt handled the crisis by himself.”26 That is, Roosevelt, whom Richardson and others accused of tending to keep his own counsel at times when he should instead have sought the advice of experts, may simply have looked at the thirteen parts, orally reaffirmed his prior view that war was imminent, and decided to let everything play out, passively awaiting a Japanese attack, probably against Thailand and/or Malaya, upon which to premise a request for a congressional declaration of war. If Clausen was right that both the Army and the Navy couriers failed to deliver the Japanese response that night, this would have dovetailed neatly into a Roosevelt strategy of letting the chips fall where they may, while letting his advisors get what might be their last good night’s sleep.

Conspiracy theories None of the eight inquiries either proved a conspiracy or put the conspiracy theories to rest. Among the books espousing such theories just after the war was one by noted historian Charles A. Beard, bearing the imprimatur of the 81

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Yale University Press, and one by George Morgenstern, a former reporter on the rabidly anti-Roosevelt Chicago Tribune, alleging that Roosevelt had started the war by choosing negotiating postures that would assure armed conflict, that Kimmel and Short were scapegoats, and that the congressional investigation was just a Democratic whitewash. Relying primarily upon evidence adduced at the several inquiries, Morgenstern asserted that Roosevelt’s Administration took extraordinary pains to cause several officers involved in decryption to change their testimony, so as to minimize Washington’s knowledge of Japanese intentions.27 Innumerable Republicans of a certain temperament told their children, then their grandchildren, that Roosevelt had engineered the attack. Some said he was out to save the British, others that he was jump-starting the economy out of the Depression, his own radical domestic policies having failed to do so. Those making the latter argument tended to forget that its most famous advocate had been Adolf Hitler. It was during the Navy and Army investigations in 1944 that Kimmel for the first time saw many of the Japanese messages that Washington had decrypted in the months prior to 7 December. RAdm. Robert Theobald, two years behind Kimmel at Annapolis and in command of the destroyers in Pearl Harbor, assisted Kimmel in the Roberts Commission investigation (to no avail, apparently) and later examined the thirty-nine volumes of testimony, documents and analysis generated by all eight investigations. In 1954 these researches yielded a book, prefaced by a grateful Kimmel, which was on the New York Times bestsellers list for eight weeks. Theobald, much like a creative defense lawyer in a criminal trial, heartily embraced the conspiracy theory, arguing that in the three weeks before 7 December, Roosevelt and high Navy officials engaged in a “wholesale denial of information” to Kimmel, “contrary to the accepted tenets of the art of war” and wholly “incomprehensible” unless Roosevelt “wanted the Japanese surprise attack upon Pearl Harbor.” Kimmel’s 1904 classmate, Admiral William F. Halsey, whose “outspoken loyalty,” Kimmel later wrote, “sustained me” through difficult years, authored a foreword, assuring readers that if Kimmel had been provided with all of the relevant intercepts, he would have instituted 360-degree air reconnaissance (albeit Kimmel’s position was that he had an insufficient number of planes with which to do it).28 Theobald’s book had been a stalking horse for Kimmel’s own account, appearing in 1955. Of the warning sent to him by Stark on 27 November 1941, Kimmel now commented ruefully: “The phrase ‘war warning’ cannot be made a catch-all for all the contingencies hindsight may suggest.” Yet the many pieces of data which Washington had denied him now allowed Kimmel to indulge in innumerable speculations, all the while drawing attention away from the question of what he should have done with the information he had been given. If, he now asserted, he had been shown the so-called “bomb plot” messages asking for the layout of ships in Pearl Harbor, he would have 82

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“rejected the Navy Department’s suggestion to send carriers to Wake and Midway,” and would also have “ordered the third carrier, the ‘Saratoga,’ back from the West Coast. I would have gone to sea with the fleet and endeavored to keep it in an intercepting position at sea.”29 Long-range aerial reconnaissance, if it was in operation in the waning light of Saturday afternoon or the early light of 7 December and had found Nagumo’s carrier force, would have provided substantial notice. Nagumo was under orders to turn back if spotted within two days of the attack (and aerial reconnaissance could not reach that far), and to make his own decision if spotted within one day. Other than this, the Japanese had no plan to cancel the attack merely because the Americans had discovered them and were at their battle stations ready to fight. What Kimmel and Short would have done to get men to their stations with the three hours’ notice Stark could have provided upon seeing the “1 P.M.” message, or the one hour’s notice Ward’s submarine encounter should have provided if Kimmel and Short had set an appropriate protocol, or the half-hour’s notice the Opana radar sighting might have afforded under appropriate orders from Short and an appropriate analysis of the blips on the oscilloscope, were additional subjects for speculation. As things were, of 31 Army anti-aircraft batteries installed, not one was ready to fire. While the Navy had no shore batteries, there were 780 anti-aircraft batteries on the ships, only 150 of which were manned. While these accounted for most of the 15 dive-bombers, 5 torpedo-bombers and 9 Zeros (and, tragically, several American planes) shot down that day, this minimal defense would have been more effective if much of the ammunition had not been stored at a distance or kept under lock and key. It was well known that the Japanese were likely to choose a Sunday, not just because the ships would be in port, but because it was a day of rest. In fact, more than a third of the officers had not returned from shore leave. While they might have made a difference if all had been at their battle stations, as things were their absence arguably saved many of their lives. With the Navy already understaffed, these men, as well as the survivors who were onboard, could quickly be reassigned to viable ships, providing some degree of continuity. This was one of the serendipitous “bright sides” of this utter lack of preparedness on the day of the week likeliest for an attack. For decades, all those alive on 7 December could recite where they were and what they were doing when the news came. Each anniversary would provide an opportunity to put a wreath on Arizona’s sunken hulk (which would later be reached by a memorial walkway), to engage in appropriate solemnities, and to readjust bitter-sweet perspectives as one prepared for yet another set of year-end holidays. Recognition of the date among newspapers became mandatory, thus affording Kimmel a once-a-year opportunity to press his case, to assert that if only I had been given data A, B or C, I would have done X, Y or Z. In the 7 December 1956 Honolulu Advertiser he alluded to the 83

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“1 P.M.” message: “[T]he Navy [thus] had time to warn me,” he wrote, “so that I could have moved the light forces out of the harbor and prepared for the attack.” But in late 1941 Kimmel’s primary concern was submarines outside Pearl Harbor, and in fact twenty-eight Japanese submarines were lurking in three separate groups outside the harbor, poised to exploit just such a move.30 As things were, the light forces suffered only minimal damage by remaining berthed, since the Japanese had concentrated on the battleships. The significant inference of Kimmel’s 1956 statement is that he would have left the battleships where they were. Certainly, if he had received the “1 P.M.” message, and if he had construed it as a sign of imminent attack, he could have had many more anti-aircraft personnel at their stations and they would have shot down more planes. Possibly they would have shot down the plane that destroyed Arizona, thus saving that ship and halving the day’s death toll. Beyond all this, Kimmel could at least have said that he had initiated action, that he had not been caught flat-footed. In that context, he might not have been blamed but congratulated for leaving the battleships at their berths. On 7 December 1958, this time using as his platform the ever-obliging Chicago Tribune, Kimmel alleged that Roosevelt not only wanted the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor so he could solidify public support for US intervention in Europe, and knew from intercepts that Japan was going to attack, but also “feared” that if Kimmel and Short undertook defensive actions, the Japanese would be deterred from attacking. Kimmel, that is, rather than pursue persuasive and logical arguments about gross errors of judgment in Washington, had now committed himself to the rabidly antiRoosevelt, conspiratorial line which eight official investigations had failed to uncover. Other relevant persons could also use the anniversary to voice their perspectives. On 7 December 1958, the same day Kimmel said Roosevelt “feared” a successful defense of Hawaii, Kimmel’s replacement in the Pacific, Chester Nimitz, published an article with an ironically upbeat title which the disgraced Kimmel could never have used: “Our Good Luck at Pearl Harbor.” Nimitz argued that if Kimmel had had advance warning, he would have sallied not just his “light” forces but his battleships as well, maneuvering them “to intercept the attacking force and striving to bring about a fleet action.” To Nimitz, this would have spelled disaster, since the older US battleships, “slower by at least two knots” than their Japanese counterparts, “could never have closed to ranges where we might have exploited our skill in gunnery.”31 In a speech four years later to the San Francisco Bar Association at the St. Francis Hotel, Nimitz took advantage of the passage of time by assaying rhetoric even more daring, saying it was “God’s Mercy” that Japan chose a sneak attack. Thus, if Kimmel had been forewarned, he would have gone 84

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against the Imperial Fleet, although only one carrier, Enterprise, was close enough to join the battle. “Imagine what would have happened to our slower battleships in such an action,” Nimitz declared, “with the aircraft of six carriers working on them.” In sum, “if the blow fell anywhere but inside the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor,” he asserted, the ships would have been “picked off, one by one,” with the consequent loss of “every officer and man in the Pacific Fleet.” Thus, a surprise attack upon an unprepared fleet berthed in the shallows, with many men still on shore leave, caused substantially less damage and death than if that fleet had been warned and went out to get through a gauntlet of enemy submarines in order to face a faster and superior force in open water. Nimitz’s conception of the substantial but containable damage actually incurred, versus the catastrophe that might have happened if Kimmel had been adequately warned, comprised the unwitting answer to the question Roosevelt had posed to Stimson in late November 1941: How might the US “maneuver” the Japanese into “firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.” Kimmel retired to Groton, Connecticut, unmoved by the saving grace articulated by Nimitz. In 1962, at 84, Kimmel told a reporter: “My principal occupation – what’s kept me alive – is to expose the entire Pearl Harbor affair,” reiterating what he had said in his book: I cannot excuse those in authority in Washington for what they did. And I do not believe that thousands of mothers and fathers whose sons perished on that tragic seventh day . . . will excuse them. . . . [T]hey must answer on the Day of Judgment like any other criminal. While he had forthrightly told Joseph C. Harsch on 6 December 1941 that Japan would not open a Pacific front until Germany beat Russia, he seemed now to be convinced, Lear-like, that the information Washington had – but withheld from him – made the target obvious: All the logic pointed to an attack at Pearl Harbor. Washington was obsessed by the idea that the Japs didn’t have the logistics support to make [the] attack. . . . That was wrong. I was fooled to some extent by that. . . . [No] one knew where the [Japanese] carriers were. I was very much concerned about the carriers, and I tried to keep track of them. I didn’t have the benefit of knowing that something was going to happen. Anyone in Washington with the benefit of what was available and with the power of analysis must have known that the objective had to be Pearl Harbor.32 Before his death in 1968, Kimmel had told his biographer: “I think most of the incriminating records have been destroyed . . . I doubt if the truth will ever emerge.”33 In subsequent years, conspiracy theorists have concentrated 85

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primarily on the possibility of finding some scrap of paper indicating that the US or Britain was aware of a Japanese carrier force sailing east. No satisfactory evidence has been adduced, with Japanese participants asserting that Nagumo’s kido¯ butai (mobile striking force) maintained strict radio silence, removing fuses on communications equipment and putting pieces of paper between telegraph keys and their contact points.34 With the technology of the time, the only way to find a naval force under radio silence, other than by sighting it visually, was by decrypting messages sent to it which would show its location or destination, and of these no credible evidence has emerged.35 Kaigun D Ango Sho, Code Book D, the Imperial Navy’s General Purpose Code, which Allied cryptanalysts variously referred to as 5-Numeral, 5-Digit, AN-1 and JN-25, used two discrete layers of encryption by including a so-called additive list of random numbers, rendering it unbreakable, even with the aid of the International Business Machines tabulators US cryptanalysts were using, but for its popularity. Its successive versions had been generating data since June 1939, much of it gathered and stored by the limited number of US cryptanalysts assigned to it, in the hope eventually of finding some pattern. And when Japanese encrypters became lazy and started using the same page of an encoding book whose pages they should have been using randomly, such patterns began slowly to emerge. The version of JN-25 operative between 1 December 1940 and the end of May 1942 was denominated JN-25B, the subvariant operative in May through November 1941 being JN-25B7. The Japanese thoughtlessly provided a partial Rosetta Stone by transitioning from the old encipherment to the new over a period of two months. Nevertheless, in 1999 Stephen Budiansky referred to newly discovered documents showing that as of 1 December 1941, US analysts could decrypt almost none of JN-25. As Budiansky points out, that perhaps 10 to 15 percent of JN-25B7 was decipherable in the months prior to Pearl Harbor did not of course mean that one could read 10 to 15 percent of the messages, or even 10 to 15 percent of any particular message.36 Then, just prior to 7 December, a new variant, JN-25B8, was introduced. In the mid-1990s Edward Beach and John Costello independently asserted that Washington’s preoccupation with messages in the diplomatic Purple cipher meant that no one mounted the effort necessary to crack the ever-evolving JN-25, although the brainpower and tabulating machines were available if that priority had been set. Beach, whose credentials included graduating second in the Annapolis class of 1939, winning the Navy Cross, serving as President Eisenhower’s naval aide, and writing the novel Run Silent, Run Deep (1955), noted that many of these pre-Pearl Harbor JN-25 messages were stored away for the duration of the war, not decrypted until 1945–46, then (astoundingly, in his view) were squirreled away again until 1990. By one count, 26,581 JN-25 intercepts from the period 86

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1 September to 7 December 1941 are publicly available at the National Archives. Beach and Costello suggest that 188 of these, if they had been cracked as they might have been prior to 7 December, would have revealed more than enough to show a carrier force moving toward Hawaii. It was Turner who decided who could see the diplomatic Purple decrypts. A later investigator noted that perhaps the reason Hawaii did not have its own Purple decryption machine was that no one ever asked Turner for anything, staying clear of him being the only way to avoid his ferocious temper.37 Beach and Costello both blame Turner for the failure to crack JN-25B, Beach saying Turner lacked the imagination to buck the White House’s fascination with diplomatic messages by taking cryptanalysts off Purple and assigning them to JN-25B, Costello and/or co-authors Edwin Layton and Roger Pineau suggesting that Rochefort’s people at station HYPO on Oahu might have solved JN-25B if they had only been assigned to do it.38 When – as a result of Pearl Harbor – more people were assigned, JN-25B was partially solved, leading ultimately to the brilliant US victory at Midway in June 1942. Conspiracy theories based upon alleged documents, allegedly destroyed, require some kind of competent proof, and this is hard to come by. Many people were involved in some way with JN-25, yet no one has ever come forward with any satisfactory evidence – direct or circumstantial – of the JN-25 cipher having been solved prior to 7 December, much less that JN-25 decrypts indicating an attack on Pearl Harbor attack were forwarded either to Roosevelt or Churchill. In 1991 retired Australian linguist and cryptanalyst Eric Nave and journalist James Rusbridger, alleging a global coverup, asserted that by the fall of 1941 the US Navy could read JN-25B and that Turner (universally acknowledged as a hoarder of information) kept this fact secret from everyone – including Roosevelt. The authors further allege that after Pearl Harbor, US Navy intelligence purged all these pre-7 December JN-25B decrypts, including messages clearly showing a Japanese force on its way to Hawaii.39 More recently, Robert B. Stinnett has asserted that Nagumo’s force did not maintain radio silence, that the Allies in the fall of 1941 had cracked JN-25B, that Roosevelt, through his naval aide, Capt. Daniel J. Callaghan, “regularly received” JN-25B decrypts, and that all Navy files were thereafter purged to hide Roosevelt’s foreknowledge of the attack.40 Another of the Rusbridger/Nave theories is that the British could read JN-25B and that Churchill, knowing of the sneak attack on Hawaii, withheld the knowledge from Roosevelt in order to insure that the US public would support intervention. Stinnett says much the same.41 While the gradual release of US files under the federal Freedom of Information Act has done little to support the conspiracy theorists’ case, the issue is enlivened somewhat by the fact that Great Britain still has unreleased files.42 Assuming for purposes of argument that any withheld document could support – even indirectly – an inference that Churchill knew about Pearl Harbor but refused to tell Roosevelt, it is difficult to imagine 87

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why Britain would ever acknowledge its existence, much less permit its release. But even if Britain released all of its intercepts tomorrow, the JN25B controversy, like the larger conspiracy issue of which it is now the centerpiece, will not end – human nature being what it is. The conspiracy theory remains, as it always was, a small cottage industry, given new life by the internet, occasionally finding a wider audience through such vehicles as the BBC’s 1989 program, Sacrifice at Pearl Harbor, reprising all the conspiracy theories as if the proof for them were unassailable. Typically, bureaucratic conspiracies tend to suppress not world-altering secrets but merely the bureaucracy’s own mistakes, with no ambition other than to protect the careers of the bureaucrats themselves. Costello has suggested that the US Navy wanted to cover up the mere fact that Pearl Harbor could have been avoided if the Navy had diverted its available manpower from Purple to JN-25. Central Intelligence Agency director William Casey, in a book published after his death in 1987, mentioned en passant that the British did provide the Americans with Japanese messages showing that the Japanese fleet was steaming east toward Hawaii, but that the US military “had confined the priceless intercepts to a handful of people too busy to interpret them.”43 Although Casey, as a member of the Office of Strategic Services, would have been in a position to know about what happened – if even by hearsay – one must conclude that if he had any information beyond what he wrote, he would have provided it.44 It is hard to contemplate in the abstract a scene in which messages intercepted by the British show a Japanese naval force approaching Hawaii, which are then handed over to the Americans without comment, who in turn put them aside because they were too busy with other work. To intercept, record and distribute messages containing relevant information is meaningless in the absence of proof that someone in the loop can decrypt their contents. Clausen, who reviewed decrypted intercepts in England’s famous Bletchley Park establishment in 1944, concluded that the British could not read JN25B, and that whatever they deciphered from other codes they duly forwarded to the Americans.45 And, as stated above, Budiansky has so far established that the Americans too could not decipher this code. The Purple diplomatic intercepts, unlike the JN-25 naval intercepts, were fully revealed. The fascination people perennially have with the world of Purple, Magic and Ultra, a fascination Roosevelt and Churchill shared, is understandable, but should not distract us from thinking objectively about Purple’s actual role in the US’s entry in World War II. In the late 1940s exforeign minister Shigenori To¯go¯, an imprisoned war criminal and not far from death, said he did not believe that the US’s ability to read Japan’s diplomatic code in the autumn of 1941 changed the course of the negotiations, “for there was, I think, already no room for bargaining at that last stage.”46 Although the Americans’ modus vivendi draft (of which To¯go¯ knew nothing) might have caused Japan to lift its 29 November deadline for a 88

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negotiated solution, it is irrelevant because it never was in fact presented to the Japanese. Whatever the chances were for a negotiated solution, they ended with the US’s presentation of the hard-line Hull Note, which hardliners in Tokyo took as a slap across the face. Ultimately, then, the Americans’ ability to read Japan’s diplomatic messages had absolutely no value in avoiding war. Moreover, Roosevelt, who liked puppeteering people generally and the Japanese particularly, undoubtedly derived a false sense of omniscience by being privy to what Japan’s foreign ministry and Washington envoys were saying among themselves. With Japan’s top diplomatic code cracked and available to him, he and his advisors would tend to neglect the notion that the top Imperial Navy code, not cracked and not available to him, might indicate a very different story. Japan was run by the military, not by diplomats. Roosevelt knew everything Nomura and Kurusu knew, but only what they knew. They were out of touch with what their government was really doing, and thus so was he. And if he had had no Purple intercepts on which to rely, perhaps he would have utilized other, more fruitful lines of diplomacy and/or of strategic defense.

Capital ships When RAdm. Chester Nimitz arrived on the rainy Christmas morning of 1941, he surveyed a grisly and depressing scene, with bodies of dead sailors still emerging from the ships and floating to the surface. But 9,000 manhours of salvage work can work wonders. The “sunken” California, which had flooded quickly because six hatches to the double-bottoms had been undogged for morning inspection, was already resurrected, as was the beached Nevada, while Maryland, Pennsylvania and Tennessee were sufficiently patched to be on their way back to the US Mainland for more thorough repairs. Salvagers, overcoming the stench of tons of rotting meat delivered to West Virginia on 6 December, would refloat the ship in May 1942. It would later participate at Leyte Gulf, at Iwo Jima and at Okinawa. Thirty-two men trapped in Oklahoma would be saved by cutting through its hull, the ship’s subsequent resurrection being with a view not to future service but merely to make room. The shallowness of the harbor, which the Japanese saw as a local condition requiring a technical solution, meant that a ship, by being “sunk,” was not also “lost.”47 Arizona, tragically, was a special case, disintegrating in nine minutes, not because of the torpedo that had gone under the outboard repair ship Vestal to reach her at 0805, and not because of the armor-piercing shell, but because that shell ignited 100,000 pounds of blackpowder, an explosion so huge that one witness said it lifted the ship 15 to 20 feet in the air, the concussion even reaching the Japanese. Arizona’s death toll was catastrophic, 1,177, half the total number (2,403) killed in the entire attack that day. After recovering some bodies, the Navy called off further efforts. 89

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Among those who believed in the 1920s that war with Japan was inevitable, Brig.-Gen. William “Billy” Mitchell had argued that in a cost– benefit analysis of lethality, aircraft comprised a better buy, since one could build a thousand of them for the price of one battleship, which could not defend itself against them. Others put forward a contrary analysis: A battleship, with a depreciation schedule of twenty-six years, armed with nine 16-inch guns capable of projecting a collective nine hundred 2,000-pound shells on a target over the course of an hour, cost less to build and maintain than the planes – with a useful life of eight years each – which would be necessary to drop the same tonnage of bombs in the same amount of time. Add the monumental cost of a sufficient number of carriers to launch those planes if no land base was available, and the comparative value of battleships seemed even more dramatic.48 While the exigencies of the Pacific war tended not to reduce themselves to such simple cost–benefit choices, the comparative worth of carriers and battleships in that theater was not hard to deduce. Arizona and Oklahoma, launched in 1913 and 1914, were scheduled to be declared over-age in 1942. While all the battleships except these were eventually refitted, not all would be used, some experts saying off-the-record that Japan had performed some necessary demolition work. In the spring of 1942, when various decrypts showed the Japanese about to launch a major offensive in the South Pacific (it would be the Battle of the Coral Sea), Nimitz sent most of the newly refloated battleships back to the Mainland, too much of a logistics burden to justify their inclusion in engagements not designed around their capabilities. John Lundstrom has written that this decision would probably have been the same even if they had not been damaged on 7 December. In the Battle of Midway in June 1942, although Nimitz knew his force to be grossly outmatched both in tonnage and in total vessels engaged, he nevertheless chose not to bring battleships, there being no task in this epochal engagement for which they were suited.49 The main logistics problem was fuel, the same problem that had haunted the Great White Fleet back in 1907. The seven available fleet oilers could service the carriers and their destroyer screens, or the battleships and their destroyer screens, but not both. Although Pearl Harbor’s oil storage facilities were left intact, they could not store enough oil from the Mainland to keep all available ships under power. When in September 1942 undersecretary of the Navy James Forrestal requested warships for Guadalcanal to go head-to-head with the Japanese battleships and heavy cruisers then shelling the vulnerable American lodgment at will, Nimitz replied that the three battleships he had available were “oil hogs” which could not be replenished often enough to keep them functioning at sea.

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MacArthur’s own Pearl Harbor On 26 July 1941 the US federalized the Army of the Philippines and recalled MacArthur to active duty as commander of United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE). Hart commanded the small Asiatic Fleet, comprised of one heavy cruiser, two light cruisers, twelve old destroyers, twentynine submarines and thirty patrol planes.1 On the ground, MacArthur had a force of 22,000 Americans and 107,000 Filipinos. Budiansky has written that if Pearl Harbor was caught “asleep,” MacArthur’s forces were “comatose.”2 MacArthur received a version of late November’s “WAR WARNING,” but seems to have been no more effective than Kimmel and Short in preparing his command. At 0330 on 8 December (Manila time) MacArthur got word that Hawaii was under attack, yet did not order the commander of his Far East Air Forces, Maj.-Gen. Lewis Brereton, to bomb the Japanese bases on nearby Formosa. Brereton reportedly tried three times to speak with MacArthur that morning, at 0500, at 0715, and again after 0800, but MacArthur would not see him, conveying through his chief-of-staff, Colonel Richard Sutherland, that Brereton should do nothing. In September 1946, shortly after Brereton in a memoir recounted his version of events, MacArthur denied ever hearing Brereton or anyone else recommend to him that the B-17s be used to bomb Formosa.3 If that was so, one wonders what the two men ever talked about. And MacArthur’s refusal to act in those first hours is one of the war’s mysteries. William Manchester suggests that MacArthur was overwhelmed by the enormity of events and simply “froze.”4 Brereton speculated that MacArthur refused to act because he was an officer of two nations, and Japan’s attack on the US did not constitute an attack on the Philippines.5 If such an issue of divided loyalties had been on MacArthur’s mind, one wonders why he had not thought it through and resolved it months earlier. Eisenhower later told a reporter that, according to Quezon, MacArthur believed the Japanese would not attack the Philippines, leaving them neutral. This was a bizarre perspective, given MacArthur’s well-known optimism about defending Luzon from a Japanese invasion.6 91

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MacArthur later told military historian Lewis Morton that if Brereton had asked him for permission to strike Formosa, “I would have unequivocally disapproved” since “it would have been suicidal as well as in direct defiance of my basic directive” from Washington, which was “not to initiate hostilities.”7 An attack on Formosa would be dangerous, especially since MacArthur had previously denied Brereton’s request to reconnoiter the Japanese naval base at Kaohsiung on Formosa’s southwest coast, believing that reconnaissance might itself be deemed a hostile act.8 But as of 0330, MacArthur knew that Japan had engaged in an aggressive act against the US. And if that were not enough to spur a reasonable commander to action, at 0535 MacArthur received a cable: HOSTILITIES BETWEEN JAPAN AND THE UNITED STATES, BRITISH COMMONWEALTH, AND DUTCH HAVE COMMENCED. JAPANESE MADE AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR THIS MORNING. IN RAINBOW FIVE. AND

DUTCH

TO

...

...

CARRY OUT TASKS

IN ADDITION COOPERATE WITH THE BRITISH

THE

UTMOST

WITHOUT

JEOPARDIZING

THE

ACCOMPLISHMENT OF YOUR PRIMARY MISSION OF DEFENSE OF THE PHILIPPINES. YOU ARE AUTHORIZED TO DISPATCH AIR UNITS TO OPERATE TEMPORARILY FROM SUITABLE BASE IN COOPERATION WITH THE BRITISH OR DUTCH. REPORT DAILY MAJOR DISPOSITIONS AND ALL OPERATIONS.

...

MARSHALL 9

Rainbow-5 clearly permitted an attack on Formosa.10 And by 0830 MacArthur knew that some Japanese planes had bombed Luzon’s Davao, Baguio, and Tuguegarao airfields, thus resolving any question about whether the Philippines was itself under attack. Finally, at 1014, MacArthur approved Brereton’s requests to attack Formosa. By this time, however, the B-17s and P-40s were already in the air, unarmed, Brereton having launched them solely to get them away from their aerodromes if Japanese planes attacked. And in fact the Japanese would have arrived by now, but for being grounded in Formosa by fog.11 While radar sets had been shipped to the Philippines, only one had been fully uncrated and placed in the hands of personnel trained to use it. This was at the Iba airstrip, 85 statute miles from Manila on the northwest coast, well positioned to pick up hostile planes approaching from Formosa. The weather cleared shortly after dawn on Formosa and around 1130 two flights of aircraft were identified by Iba radar 140 miles out, albeit Iba’s own P-40s were not scrambled in time and most were destroyed on the ground.12 At 1225 the postmaster at Tarlac, 21 miles north of Clark Field, reported planes overhead. The B-17s and P-40s previously sent aloft from Clark were now all back on the ground, their crews off at lunch, with no sense by anyone that the 92

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Japanese might appear at any minute. Several of the B-17s, refueled and armed, now taxied to the runway, while others continued loading bombs, as fifty-four Japanese bombers appeared. Fragments of the bombs they dropped included identifiable pieces of Singer Sewing Machines and Ford auto parts sold to the Japanese prior to the US embargo on scrap.13 Twelve of Clark’s nineteen B-17 bombers were destroyed, as were forty-five P-40s and other fighters. Five P-40s that had been in the air were dispatched by the Zeros. In all, fifty-six US airmen were killed.14 The attack was well planned, aided by local Japanese espionage, the Americans early in the century having moderated their refusal to admit the Japanese into the US by encouraging them to settle in the Philippines.15 In a Japanese restaurant near Clark Field catering to the American flyers, a radio was found that featured a homing beacon to guide approaching planes. Another was found across Manila Bay, operated by a disloyal American with a Japanese wife.16 By the end of the day there would be only one operable B-17 on Luzon, with sixteen at the new airstrip at the Del Monte pineapple plantation near Butuan on Mindanao, 520 miles to the south.17 Of ninety-two P-40Es, only fifty-eight remained. Six days later Japanese reconnaissance discovered the Del Monte field, making it necessary to keep the remaining B-17s in the air all day just to avoid having them destroyed.18 This destruction of half of MacArthur’s Far East Air Forces comprised a defeat far greater than at Pearl Harbor, in that it deprived the US of the air power required to defend nearby Singapore and to harass Japan’s intended thrust south. Since the incoming Japanese planes had been spotted at Iba and Tarlac, the disaster’s proximate cause was some communication failure.19 But why the planes had not been launched toward Formosa at or before dawn, and why they were caught on the ground at midday, were questions never adequately investigated; MacArthur’s hero status and political connections immunized him from the kind of serious scrutiny that would destroy Kimmel and Short.20 MacArthur himself, as was his habit, issued no recriminations.21

King and Eisenhower Ernest J. King, the son of a railroad worker, graduated fourth of eightyseven in the Annapolis class of 1901, having already seen action in the Spanish-American War (Figure 5.1). Following substantial experience with submarines and destroyers, in 1927, at age 48, he earned his wings and was given several carrier commands. In the war-game called Fleet Problem XIII in 1932, he took the carrier Lexington outside the range of Saratoga’s defensive Combat Air Patrol and then, waiting for the right moment, came within range and successfully launched forty-nine planes, thus “sinking” the “enemy” carrier. A fluent writer, he had edited the prestigious Proceedings of the US Naval Institute. Married with seven children, he was also rumored 93

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Figure 5.1 Adm. Ernest J. King

to be aggressive in the pursuit of other officers’ wives. Not that he was a member of the “social set.” Reportedly he spent substantial energy distancing himself from the affable, well-liked officers who had married strategically and moved in Washington society. These were in his view “fixers,” people who succeeded not by skill and work but by “connections.”22 He was said to be a prodigious drinker. 94

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When late in 1938 a short list was to be sent to FDR to replace the retiring Admiral Leahy as chief of naval operations, King’s name had been excluded, perhaps because of questions about his personal situation. But some thought it a matter of so-called “black-shoe” politics: Of seventy-four US flag officers, only a handful (including King, Halsey, Turner and RAdm. Aubrey Fitch) were qualified aviators. Naval aviation meant change, and the other seventy preferred the traditional, battleship-oriented culture, rooted in Mahanian doctrine and Theodore Roosevelt’s dreadnought Navy. The job went to Leahy’s personal choice and Roosevelt’s friend, Harold R. Stark, who had commanded the battleship West Virginia. King, at 60 years of age, having missed this chance, saw his career as essentially over, his last billet before mandatory retirement destined to be the General Board, a discussion panel for very senior officers as well as “a bourn from which” – the literate King noted to a friend – “no traveler returns.”23 But he instead received a reprieve: command of the understaffed, antiquated Atlantic Squadron. This too might have been a dead-end but for the fact that in January 1941 Roosevelt decided to revivify the Squadron to accompany Lend-Lease convoys. King functioned brilliantly and, just days after 7 December, Roosevelt, who had personally decided all Navy appointments and had replaced Richardson with Kimmel, now thought the service needed a self-declared outsider, a personified wake-up call to a peacetime organization whose inadequacies had let Pearl Harbor occur on its collective watch.24 King was widely quoted as commenting: “They always call on the sons-of-bitches when they’re in trouble,” and although he denied having said it, he added that he would have if he had thought of it. After all, the notion was complimentary; King considered himself a needed son-of-abitch among the fixers.25 King was nothing if not aggressive, one of his six daughters calling him “even-tempered,” that is, “always in a rage,” while the witty Roosevelt said “you shave with a blowtorch” and “cut your toenails with a torpedo net cutter.”26 King’s orders were models of decisiveness and radical simplicity; to cut the amount of paperwork in half, he confiscated half of the typewriters.27 He would not tolerate any subordinate saying that something could not be done because he or his men were not prepared to do it.28 And he was also prone to tinker with projects that interested him even after they were assigned, under the conviction that no one could do anything as well as he could.29 Within days of King’s arrival in Washington came Brig.-Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower (West Point 1915). With an outstanding résumé including first place in the two-year course at Fort Leavenworth’s Command and General Staff School, Eisenhower was now summoned by Marshall to be deputy chief of the War Department’s War Plans Division. As Eisenhower put down his bags, Marshall asked him what he thought about the Pacific. With the self-possession to ask for a couple of hours to think about it, he went 95

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away and came back with his advice: The US cannot abandon the Philippines since its people, as well as the people of China and the Dutch East Indies, will be watching us. They may excuse failure but they will not excuse abandonment. Their trust and friendship are important to us. Our base must be Australia, and we must start at once to expand it and to secure our communications to it. Marshall agreed, as did King, whose first order a few days later was to keep the communications lines open to Australia. On 10 December a nine-ship convoy that had been heading to the Philippines from Pearl Harbor was diverted to Brisbane, where on 22 December a contingent of 4,600 US soldiers set foot on Australian soil.30 ABDACOM

The Japanese, irrespective of Kimmel’s prediction, imitated German audacity by opening additional fronts.31 At 0025 Malaya time, even before the first bomb was dropped on Oahu, Maj.-Gen. Hiroshi Takumi, leading a detachment of Lt.-Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita’s 25th Army, dropped anchor off the heavily fortified island at the mouth of the Kelantan River near Kota Bharu and began an amphibious assault. Fighting was fierce on the illnamed Beach of Passionate Love, the local force of Indian and British troops in the III Corps under Lt.-Gen. Sir Lewis Heath of the Indian Army costing the Japanese 800 casualties before being wiped out. The invaders captured the nearby airfield within a day, then the town, and began their march down the peninsula toward Singapore. The British had been preposterously underprepared for what Antony Best has described as “the temerity” of a Japanese “frontal assault on the Empire.”32 Other detachments of Yamashita’s force landed up the Malay coast, at Singora and Pattani in Thailand, Thai leaders having already negotiated with the Japanese. Even earlier, the Japanese had forced the foreign concessions in Shanghai to acknowledge Japanese rule; at 0300 they boarded and captured an American vessel, the 370-ton gunboat Wake, which they renamed Tatara and used for the duration of the war. Singapore was attacked by air in the early morning, then Guam at 0800, then Hong Kong. In 1938 a congressionally sanctioned fact-finding board headed by RAdm. Arthur Hepburn had recommended that Guam, still “practically defenseless” after four decades of US rule, be heavily fortified.33 There was every reason to act, and quickly: The treaty with Japan mutually banning fortifications had expired, and since the Philippines were slated for independence in 1946, there was little appetite for capital improvements there. But Congress declined, historian Eric Larrabee calling it “the most 96

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dramatically conspicuous” of “the occasions when the United States inflicted future defeats upon itself.”34 As war grew closer there was no time for fortifications, and Marshall had bet all on B-17s for Luzon. As of 10 December 1941, the most substantial weapons on Guam were .45-caliber pistols. A Japanese force of 5,000 quickly overran the 153 Marines, 271 Navy regulars and 300 Guamanian guardsmen, a garrison so preposterously understaffed and underarmed as to constitute criminal recklessness on the part of those who had stationed them there.35 On 11 December the Japanese attacked Wake. There a similarly pitiable 378-man garrison, primarily the Marines’ 1st Defense Battalion, manning 3-inch M3 anti-aircraft guns and 5-inch Mk. 21 Mod. 0 seacoast defense guns, repelled a poorly conceived assault by a 500-man landing force by “playing possum,” that is, by pretending they had been wiped out in the initial shelling and bombing, then waiting until the last minute before returning fire. The destroyer Hayate became the first Japanese vessel sunk by Americans. Twelve F4F-3 Wildcats had recently been ferried there, along with their pilots from Marine Fighting Squadron 211 (VMF-211). While seven planes were destroyed on the ground, five succeeded in sinking the destroyer Kisaragi and heavily damaging the light cruisers Tenryu¯ and Tatsuta, thus forcing RAdm. Sadamichi Kajioka to retire his force to Kwajalein, the only successful defense against an amphibious assault in World War II.36 The Japanese returned on 22 December, this time with more men and two carriers. A US task force under RAdm. Frank Jack Fletcher was dispatched to help, but during the night of 22-23 December those ships, mid-route, were recalled to Hawaii, thereby missing what some thought a great opportunity for an early, morale-building US victory. Having mounted a brilliant defense and inflicted heavy casualties, the garrison of Wake surrendered on 23 December. For some years, Churchill had been telling the Australians that if Japanese aggression seemed likely, he would dispatch a good-sized fleet to Singapore.37 In March 1941 he rescinded that commitment but provided some comfort to Australia’s new prime minister, John Curtin, by sending the new British battleship Prince of Wales (displacing 35,000 tons), which had helped sink Bismarck and was thought competent – in Churchill’s words – to “catch and kill anything.” It was further decided that the old cruiser Repulse should also go, as well as an aircraft carrier, Indomitable. When Indomitable hit a reef on the way, Prince of Wales and Repulse proceeded without air cover. Churchill’s deterrence ploy having been outdated by events at Kota Bharu and Pearl Harbor, the Admiralty sensed that these ships should now “go to sea and vanish among the innumerable islands.”38 But that notion came too late. In Saigon, RAdm. Sadaichi Matsunaga, commander of the 22nd Air Flotilla (Ko¯ku¯sentai), pondered whether, as aerial reconnaissance had reported, these British ships were still at Singapore or instead, as 97

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submarine I-65 had advised, steaming north toward Singora. He accepted the latter report and launched planes to find them. Admiral Sir Tom Phillips, commander of Britain’s Eastern Fleet, had been informed by signal as he left Singapore Harbor: “Regret fighter protection impossible.” Phillips decided to “get on” without air cover, apparently discounting Japan’s ability to mount major air attacks from Saigon, 400 miles northeast of his destination.39 But on 10 December Repulse and Prince of Wales were sunk by eighteen Japanese bombers and twenty-four torpedo planes, 75 miles northeast of Kuantan. The six Brewster Buffalos that had been scrambled from Singapore in response to news of the attack arrived just as Prince of Wales was going down.40 These would be the first capital ships sunk by planes in an open-sea battle, thus proving Billy Mitchell’s argument – vociferously opposed when it was first made in the 1920s – that neither anti-aircraft fire, defensive maneuvering, nor damage-control crews could save a battleship under aerial attack.41 An official in Britain’s Air Intelligence Directorate blandly noted: “Events in the Far East suggest that Japanese naval aircraft may be worthy of closer study than has yet been undertaken.”42 Veteran combat flyer Masatake Okumiya and Jiro¯ Horikoshi, chief designer of the famed Zero fighter, were incredulous that the British had failed to provide aerial support.43 Never again – Douglas MacArthur later observed – would capital ships venture into enemy territory without air cover.44 The Japanese now controlled from the Amur River bordering the Soviet Union, down through the eastern provinces of China including the cities of Beijing, Nanking, Shanghai, Canton and Hong Kong, then down through Indochina. From their initial landings in the Kra/Malay Peninsula they were now moving northwest toward Bangkok and Rangoon and southeast toward Singapore. The Allies began talking about pooling their defenses as early as October 1940, and participants at ARCADIA decided upon a unified AmericanBritish-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDACOM), under Sir Archibald P. Wavell, commander-in-chief of British forces in India, with headquarters set up at Lembang in the mountains of Java. The nations’ various forces, thrown together to protect a vast area, were not insubstantial. As of 1 December 1941, the Allies had eleven battleships versus Japan’s ten; three aircraft carriers as against Japan’s six fleet and four ancillary carriers; fourteen heavy cruisers as against Japan’s eighteen; twenty-two light cruisers as against Japan’s eighteen; one hundred destroyers versus Japan’s one hundred and thirteen, and sixty-nine submarines versus Japan’s sixty-three. But the combined loss of Britain’s two great ships and the losses at Pearl Harbor gave Japan a decided edge in tonnage, integration, and momentum. Even more significantly, while the Allies had ample ground forces – one British division, one Australian, and three Indian, a total 137,000, plus MacArthur’s 112,500 in the Philippines, plus more than 40,000 of the Royal East Indies Army, the KNIL – they had not drilled together, had no common code, had few common methods, and were not truly under Wavell’s command. 98

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Among the defenders of the East Indies were American oil executives and other corporate personnel now sworn in as officers, their various insignias quickly hammered out by local silversmiths.45 The British protectorates of Sarawak and Brunei fell in mid-December. At Christmas, Maj.-Gen. C.M. Maltby surrendered a force of 14,500 at Hong Kong. Tarakan on Borneo and Menado on the northern tip of Celebes fell on 11 January. On 23–24 January, Hart’s Asiatic Fleet, three cruisers, thirteen destroyers and twenty-nine submarines, fought to keep the Japanese from capturing the great oil refinery at Balikpapan on Borneo’s southeast coast. Although the Americans sank four transports, eight managed to unload. When retreating Dutch troops ignored Japan’s ultimatum not to destroy the oil installations, the Japanese rounded up dozens of local civil servants and hospital patients and killed them. They also swamped Rabaul on New Britain, administered by Australia after Germany lost it at Versailles. While many of the 1,400-man 2/22nd Battalion, 8th Division of the Australian Imperial Force had taken to the jungle and continued to fight, they lacked the resources and training to be guerrillas and gradually straggled in. On 4 February at the nearby Tol Plantation, the Japanese summarily massacred 150 of them. Within two weeks, 100 Japanese medium bombers and fighters were stationed at Rabaul’s British-built aerodrome, thus securing a strategic hub well situated for air strikes to the south. The Allies’ situation could be described as “disaster piled on disaster,” Hirohito remarking: “The war is going almost too well!”46 Allied air power had been centered on MacArthur’s B-17s, which no longer comprised a strategic force. The British Royal Air Force had only 181 planes. The Australians had a handful of small, two-engined Lockheed A-28 and A-28A Hudson reconnaissance planes, as well as untested but already obsolescent Brewster F2A-3 Buffalos. Brereton now brought down to the East Indies 14 of the surviving B-17s, as well as 18 of the Army’s obsolete P40s and 52 Douglas SBD Dauntless dive-bombers. In January 1942 the US delivered hundreds of the new P-40E Kittyhawks and 37 more B-17s. Of 120 aircraft forwarded from Australia for use in Java, 84 were lost, some in combat, most on the ground.47 Hart, who had been working wonders with his tiny Asiatic Fleet, criticized what he saw as a timidity in the Dutch. For this political gaffe he was relieved, replaced by the aggressive VAdm. Conrad Helfrich, commanderin-chief of all Dutch naval forces in the East Indies. But so miserably did the substantial ABDA force fail to impede Japan’s toppling of the island dominoes of the East Indies, that on 25 February Wavell’s multinational command was summarily dissolved, with Wavell returning to his post in India, taking with him much of ABDA’s air arm.48 In mid-February an Allied naval force under Dutch RAdm. Karel Doorman failed to stop the Japanese from invading the oil-rich port of Palembang in Sumatra. Japan took the Australian mandate of Bougainville in the 99

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Solomon Islands, then landed on Bali and on Timor, the latter less than 300 miles from Australia, while a Japanese carrier force attacked Darwin. The US Asiatic Fleet, other than its orphaned submarines, was done for. On 27 February the Japanese bombed and sank Langley, the US’s first carrier (although now converted into a seaplane tender), 75 miles south of Tjilatjap on Java, thus ending its desperate attempt to ferry thirty-two P-40s and their pilots to help the Dutch forces. On the night of 27–28 February, in several different engagements broadly and collectively called the Battle of the Java Sea, the heavy cruisers Nachi and Haguro, part of a force under RAdm. Takeo Takagi, sank the Dutch light cruisers De Ruyter and Java, the American heavy cruiser Houston, the Australian light cruiser Perth, and five destroyers. On 1 March the Japanese sank the British heavy cruiser Exeter and destroyer Encounter in the Sunda Strait, then the American destroyer Pope. On 5 March planes under Nagumo’s command sank seventeen Allied ships in Tjilatjap’s harbor. Java surrendered in mid-March, yielding 90,000 prisoners-of-war, including 500 Americans. Japan now held all of the East Indies, thus securing the sought-after oil while placing itself within striking distance of Australia. Three hundred and fifty years of Dutch colonial rule were at an end.49 On 11 and 12 December the Japanese, having marched north from Singora, captured Victoria Point at the extreme southern end of Burma. In late February the 17th Indian Division could not hold the Sittang River, the last natural barrier before Rangoon. In the weeks that followed, the British sabotaged local oil facilities. The march south toward Singapore was similarly successful. MATADOR, the now-outdated British plan to forestall a Japanese invasion of the Kra Isthmus, had depended primarily on air defense, yet Malaya had only 167 aircraft, Churchill having decided that Japan would not strike. Of these, Japan destroyed 92 on the ground in the first 24 hours. On 13 December, units of Lt.-Gen. Takaro Matsui’s 5th Division broke through the Jitra Line, and from there, despite some opposition in southern Malaya by battalions of the 8th Division of the Second Australian Imperial Force, the advance to Singapore was almost unbroken. Reinforcements sent by ABDACOM were totally unready for fighting. By 1 February the Australians and units of the III Corps of the British Indian Army had been pushed all the way down the Malay Peninsula and back across the Johore Strait causeway to Singapore itself, the Commonwealth commanders (S. Woodburn Kirby later wrote) having committed “every conceivable blunder.”50 Thousands of Australian and New Zealand troops had long since gone to Greece, Crete, the Middle East and North Africa. Back on 23 December, Curtin, without first consulting Churchill, had told Roosevelt that this mass exodus of local troops in support of the British effort elsewhere had rendered Australia so vulnerable that it desperately needed American 100

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military assistance, and would “gladly accept an American Commander in the Pacific area” as a condition of such assistance. A week later, Curtin shocked Churchill and Roosevelt, as well as many of his own constituents, with an extraordinary and provocative public statement: The Australian Government regards the Pacific struggle as primarily one in which the United States and Australia must have the fullest say in the direction of the democracies’ fighting plan. Without any inhibitions of any kind, I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom. We know the problems that the United Kingdom faces. We know the constant threat of invasion. We know the dangers of dispersal of strength[,] but we know, too, that Australia can go and Britain can still hold on. We are . . . determined that Australia shall not go, and we shall exert all our energies toward the shaping of a plan, with the United States as its keystone, which will give to our country some confidence of being able to hold out until the tide of battle swings against the enemy. Churchill was furious, telling the secretary-of-state for dominion affairs that he construed Curtin’s statement as relieving the British of the responsibility in pursuance of which they had just sacrificed Repulse and Prince of Wales. But in truth, with the loss of those ships the Royal Navy, Philip Charrier has written, “almost ceased conceptualizing itself as a force with Far Eastern interests and capabilities.”51 On 21 January Churchill candidly broached with his chiefs-of-staff what must have struck some as traitorous: abandoning Singapore, Britain’s imperial symbol in the Far East, in order to concentrate on reinforcing Burma and its overland link supplying China. This proposal found its way to Curtin, who on 23 January sent Churchill an extraordinary radiogram: “After all the assurances we have been given, the evacuation of Singapore would be regarded here and elsewhere as an inexcusable betrayal,” the Australians having considered Singapore the Empire’s stronghold against Japan, flanked by the American presence in Manila. Churchill later admitted that the correct military decision was a strategic pull-out from Singapore but that – with the Americans choosing to stand and fight on the Bataan Peninsula near Manila – the British could not afford politically to “scuttle” their own imperial outpost, regardless of what made sense militarily.52 Singapore, it has been said, was “a relic of the sea-power era,” a fortress against battleships. Its 15-inch, 9.2-inch and 6-inch cannons, locked in place facing out to sea, were useless against an attack across the Johore Strait separating Singapore from Malaya. Churchill later said that neither he nor 101

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his advisors grasped Singapore’s vulnerability from this direction, an extraordinary admission, reflecting negatively on all of them. On 10 February, having rejected the sound strategy of withdrawal as politically inexpedient, Churchill ordered Wavell to sacrifice Singapore, its population, and thousands of Commonwealth troops, in service of a grand political gesture: There must at this stage be no thought of saving the troops or sparing the population. The battle must be fought to the bitter end at all costs. . . . Commanders and senior officers should die with their troops. The honour of the British Empire and of the British Army is at stake. I rely on you to show no mercy to weakness in any form.53 But there was no fight-to-the-death. After a terrifying two weeks of siege that included bombing of civilian areas, on 15 February Lt.-Gen. A.E. Percival, not knowing that Yamashita was almost out of ammunition, surrendered the remaining two brigades of his force to Japan’s elite, 60,000man army. Of a total force of 138,708, comprised of 67,340 Indians, 38,496 British, 18,490 Australians and 14,382 locals, almost all were taken prisoner. There were reports of widespread desertion. Kirby later called it Britain’s “greatest national humiliation . . . since Yorktown,” an understatement. Churchill was more accurate, declaring it “the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history,” a catastrophe comprised of so many errors and failures that no official public inquiry was ever held. It prophesied – among other things – what Churchill simply refused to countenance: a post-colonial Britain.54 Not that the fall of Singapore was in any sense a “liberation” from an “oppressor.” Japan’s subsequent occupation featured, among other atrocities, the summary execution of anyone who might be deemed to oppose Japanese rule, with relevant names gathered from government files the British had failed to destroy.55 In mid-January 1942 Churchill promised Curtin 40,000–50,000 US troops, but this was in prospect. When in February the New Zealand chiefs-of-staff urged that some of their 60,000 servicemen be repatriated, Churchill turned them down, on advice that every man was needed against Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps and that transports could not be committed for a timeconsuming journey from Europe.56 On 15 February, the day Singapore fell, Australians saw themselves as absolutely vulnerable.57 Churchill wrote to Curtin that since on 23 January Curtin had called the proposed evacuation of Singapore “an inexcusable betrayal,” and since the Australian troops at Singapore were now imprisoned by the Japanese, Curtin would have to bear some responsibility for the catastrophe and should not complain if Australian troops bound from North Africa to Australia were now diverted to support Burma. 102

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Churchill asked Roosevelt to assure Curtin that if he consented to the diversion, he would be more than compensated with US forces. Roosevelt complied, but Curtin, having volunteered thousands of Australians to the European war, only to witness an unbroken succession of British capitulations closer to home, refused, believing both that Britain was in no position to come to Australia’s aid, and that the US, although it would later need Australia as a staging area for a counterthrust against Japan, would let it fall if the Germany-First doctrine called for the immediate use of American troops in Europe or North Africa.58 Wendell Willkie wrote of Roosevelt’s tendency to speak of “a first-class war” in Europe and a “second-class war” in Asia.59 Churchill, meanwhile, had already diverted the Australian troop transports toward Rangoon but now – bowing to Curtin’s intransigence – redirected them to Australia. On 8 March the Japanese entered a deserted Rangoon, thus eliminating a key staging area for Allied aid to China. General Sir Harold Alexander, with some 20,000 Commonwealth, Indian and British troops already captured by Lt.-Gen. Sho¯jiro¯ Iida’s 15th Army, ordered a general withdrawal, and in April and May the 1st Burma Corps under Lt.-Gen. William J. Slim accomplished what would be the longest retreat in British history, 900 miles back up to the border of India. By the third week in May all of Burma had fallen. Lt.-Gen. Joseph Stilwell, US advisor to Chiang Kai-shek as well as commanding general of all US forces in the China/Burma/India theatre, with the ragtag remains of two divisions at Ramgarh, India and twelve others in China, proposed that a substitute for the Burma Road be opened from Ledo in India. Chiang, unwilling to wait for this new overland supply-line, asked Chennault to get from Roosevelt a substantial air force and air transport service to supply and defend China.60 On 8 March the Japanese landed at Lae and Salamaua on New Guinea’s north coast. Now only one Australian outpost, Port Moresby on the south coast, lay between the Japanese and Australia itself. On 23 January Yamamoto had introduced a joint Army/Navy plan to take it. Among the options some planners in Japan’s Combined Fleet now thought viable were the capture of Ceylon, Hawaii and Darwin, while the Imperial Navy wanted to take New Caledonia, Fiji and Samoa, thus cutting off the US/Australasian sea lanes. Japan now had the oil it needed, as well as the lion’s share of the world’s rubber and tin. It seemed to the punch-drunk Allies that Japan could exercise and was exercising all its options simultaneously.61 The Japanese were, just as Yamamoto had promised, “running wild.”

Bataan The Japanese landed on Luzon on 10 December, reaching Manila on 2 January. MacArthur decided to save it from destruction by declaring it an open city, then adopted the script of Orange Plan-3 by staging a strategic 103

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retreat into the 400-square-mile Bataan peninsula forming the western side of Manila Bay. His headquarters were set up in transverse tunnels carved in the rock of Corregidor, a fortress-like island at the peninsula’s tip. The Orange plan had called for a huge cache of food and matériel to be stored on Bataan, in preparation for a six-month siege pending arrival of the Pacific Fleet. But because MacArthur in 1941 had optimistically decided he could defend much of Luzon, many of these supplies had been redisbursed around the island and could not now be retrieved.62 The strategic retreat into Bataan was skillfully executed, although also occasioned by good luck, the Japanese failing to bomb the masses of personnel as they crowded the few available roads. MacArthur told Washington that immediate resupply and reinforcements were not only desperately needed but also strategically justified, since he continued to see the Philippines as the linchpin of any Far East strategy. While he well knew the long history of US ambivalence about the Philippines, he stressed that if word now got out that the US thought his force expendable, the entire defensive effort “will collapse over my head.” On 28 December Marshall assured MacArthur that Roosevelt had “personally directed the Navy to make every effort to support you,” while Roosevelt himself publicly announced: “I give to the people of the Philippines my solemn pledge that their freedom will be redeemed. . . . The entire resources, in men and in material, of the United States stand behind that pledge.” Stimson, a Republican, threatened to resign if he sensed the Administration’s commitment to be less than whole-hearted.63 Roosevelt was well advised to leave all public pronouncements ambiguous. By the time Japan – unopposed because of the destruction of MacArthur’s air force – reached Borneo, it had the Philippines surrounded. On 3 January 1942 an Army War Plans Division study concluded that the relief of the Philippines, given the enveloping Japanese blockade, the paucity of available cargo ships, the demands in Europe, the destruction at Pearl Harbor, and everything else going on in the world, was simply not feasible. Roosevelt would dip into a presidential emergency fund for $10 million, airmailing packages containing $500,000 in cash to various US outposts, to be paid to any merchantmen who dared run through what MacArthur called a mere “paper blockade.” There were few takers. A total of three ships got through, and of their collective cargo only 1,100 tons of supplies got as far as Bataan and Corregidor.64 Caches of food and ammunition stored just across the harbor, meanwhile, were pilfered, vandalized, wasted.

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Even more significant than Japan’s unforced error in failing to destroy Oahu’s naval base was its bad luck in finding not one US aircraft carrier in port. As of Friday morning, 5 December 1941, Lexington, displacing 36,000 tons and capable of close to 34 knots, had been moored to the port side of mooring platforms F-9-N and F-9-S at Ford Island, although it then left to deliver Marine fighters to the tiny US garrison at Midway Island, 1,134 miles to the northwest. Saratoga, displacing 33,000 tons and – like Lexington – converted from a battle cruiser hull under the terms of the Washington Naval Limitation Treaty, was steaming for San Diego after a refitting in Bremerton, to receive a complement of planes and pilots before returning to Hawaii. Yorktown had been shifted to Europe months before, to provide air cover for the massive Lend-Lease convoys. While as late as 28 November, Enterprise had been moored on the starboard side of Berth B-3, on the morning of 7 December it was 150-200 miles west of Oahu, returning from delivering a dozen Grumman F4F Wildcat fighters and their Marine pilots to the tiny garrison at Wake, 2,002 miles west of Pearl Harbor.1 Kimmel had ordered this mission within hours of receiving the “War Warning,” telling the squadron commander to discuss it with no one, since secret information was being passed from Hawaii to Tokyo and Japan might seize upon news of the transfer of an aerial squadron to Wake as a provocation justifying an attack. The battleships Arizona, Nevada and Oklahoma had been left at their moorings by Enterprise’s task force commander, Halsey, since they could not keep up with “Big-E’s” 30-knot capability.2 It and its three escorting heavy cruisers and nine destroyers should have been back by 6 December, but heavy seas and a fouled line had delayed their return.3 After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Genda recommended that Nagumo’s force stay to search for the carriers and – given the relative strength of Nagumo’s force – if he had taken Genda’s advice he may well have sunk Enterprise. But Nagumo, a specialist in torpedoes with little air experience, declined the opportunity. Following 7 December, Yorktown, Hornet (displacing 20,000 tons) and Wasp (14,700 tons) were all redeployed to Hawaii. While the US Navy had 105

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almost twenty years’ peacetime experience with carriers, how best to use them remained open to discussion. “The Gun Club,” the fraternity of battleship officers who wielded power in the Navy, had had its collective back up since the parlous days of Billy Mitchell. Halsey, whom admiring journalists would call “Bull,” had been an advocate for carriers, pushing to allow them to abandon the role of providing aerial screens for battleships and to operate independently, protected by surface screens of destroyers and cruisers much as battleships once had been. With Repulse and Prince of Wales the Japanese had just demonstrated the wisdom of Mitchell’s arguments about the vulnerability of battleships, rendering Gun Club theory outdated. With Yorktown, Hornet and Wasp joining Enterprise, Saratoga and Lexington, any US naval strategy in the Pacific would now be planned around carriers.4

King’s private war While the US Constitution mandated civilian control of the military, those at the highest levels of the armed forces straddled the line between developing military strategies to carry out policies formed by the Administration, and the actual formulation of such policies. Despite Eisenhower’s grasping that the US could not cut-and-run in the Pacific, he embraced and sought to carry out the policy-cum-strategy of “Germany-First.” On 22 January he jotted on his desk-pad that to avoid Russia’s collapse, “[w]e’ve got to go to Europe and fight – and we’ve got to quit wasting resources all over the world – and still worse – wasting time.” Since by 8 December Rainbow-5 and all prior Orange scenarios were irrelevant, everyone now felt privileged to propose novel, disconnected or inconsistent ideas. Eisenhower found himself tired of struggling to achieve a consensus when “[e]verybody is too much engaged with small things of his own.”5 King was one of those engaged with a “thing” or agenda of his own, but it was hardly “small.” While ARCADIA had short-changed the Pacific, the Allies did at least agree that Japan should be denied access “to raw materials vital to her continuous war-effort.” Since the primary purpose of Japan’s expansion was the acquisition of raw materials, virtually any opposition to that expansion was theoretically consistent with ARCADIA. Moreover, the US had scribed in that “points of advantage from which an offensive against Japan can eventually be developed must be secured.” The sentence was preposterously ambiguous, and King now urged garrisoning US forces in the island groups nearest Australia and New Zealand, both to protect the sea lanes and to secure bases for a later counterthrust. The process of garrisoning was soon underway, with the 2nd Marine Brigade, part of the new 2nd Marine Division, steaming from San Diego on 6 January to Samoa. Two weeks later, an Army division of 17,000 landed on New Caledonia, followed by arrivals at Palmyra, Christmas and Canton islands, with a substantial 106

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fueling base at Bora Bora and a fighter squadron on Fiji to support the two New Zealand battalions there. March saw a new base on Tongatabu in the Tonga Islands, then on Efate in the New Hebrides.6 As if more ambiguity were needed in formulating the US’s Pacific plan, King on 8 February told Knox that the strategy should be “defensiveoffensive,” that is, “‘hold what you’ve got and hit them when you can,’ the hitting to be done, not only by seizing opportunities but by making them.” This too was colorably consistent with ARCADIA. On 17 February Eisenhower, promoted to chief of the War Plans Division, noted privately: The navy wants to take all the islands in the Pacific, have them held by army troops, to become bases for army pursuit and bombers. Then the navy will have a safe place to sail its vessels. But they will not go farther forward than our air (army) can assure superiority. The amount of air [power] required for this slow, laborious, and indecisive type of warfare is going to be something that will keep us from going to Russia’s aid in time. The next day King urged Marshall to consider an expanded Pacific operation. Marshall’s response, drafted by Eisenhower’s staff, asked King just what he was talking about, that is: “What is the general scheme or concept of operations that the occupations of these additional islands [are] designed to advance? . . . What islands will be involved? . . . What Army troops, particularly Air, will your proposal eventually involve?” Undoubtedly prompted by Eisenhower, Marshall then warned that if King was proposing abandoning Germany-First, “the entire situation must be reconsidered.”7 On 28 February, Eisenhower detailed to Marshall the rationale for Germany-First, then added a warning: “we are being drawn [by King] into a deployment in the Southwest Pacific that far exceeds original planning objectives and which in the absence of powerful air and naval forces . . . is not warranted.”8 King, undeterred, on 2 March proposed using amphibious troops, protected by air and naval forces, not just to protect the sea lanes but also to commence an island-hopping advance to the north: “[S]uch a stepby-step general advance will draw Japanese forces to oppose it[,] thus relieving pressure in other parts of the Pacific.”9 This exceeded both the letter and spirit of ARCADIA. He told the Joint Chiefs: “the general scheme or concept of operations is not only to protect the line of communications with Australia,” but in so doing to make “strong points” of such bases as Efate and Tongatabu. Three days later he told Roosevelt: “You have expressed the view – concurred in by all of your chief military advisers – that we should determine on a very few lines of military endeavor and concentrate our efforts on those lines,” meaning Australia and its “approaches,” including Samoa, Suva, Fiji, Bora Bora and New Caledonia. With these secured, King argued, the US would have bases from which to “drive 107

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northwest from the New Hebrides into the Solomons and the Bismarck Archipelago after the same fashion of step-by-step advances that the Japanese used in the South China Sea.” Reiterating his “offensive/defensive” theme, he now specified that this would relieve pressure in Hawaii and Alaska.10 To execute the plan King urged what most in Washington and London found unthinkable: the diversion of assets from what was now codenamed “BOLERO,” the build-up in Britain for a cross-Channel invasion, either on an emergency basis in 1942 (“SLEDGEHAMMER”) if the Russians were about to capitulate, or a more substantial operation, forty-eight divisions – predominantly American – in 1943 (“ROUNDUP”).11 With Japan on Australia’s doorstep and a huge Commonwealth force now in Japanese prison camps, on 17 February Marshall ordered units of the 41st Infantry Division, totaling 27,000 men, to depart San Francisco in midMarch. Roosevelt told Churchill that this would persuade Australia and New Zealand not to demand the repatriation of all their troops from North Africa and the Middle East. On 4 March, Curtin demanded two US divisions. Roosevelt assigned much of the 32nd Division to Australia, with the 37th to Fiji to protect New Zealand’s flank, both divisions to depart in April. On 14 March, just after the arrival of the “Americal” Division (America/ New Caledonia) outside Nouméa, King convinced the Joint Chiefs to commit the US to stop Japanese expansion, although two days later they prescribed limitations: he would get a reinforced regiment on Efate and Tongatabu, but no further ground troops. One air squadron would be assigned to each of these islands as well as Christmas Island and Canton Island, with about twenty-five medium bombers and eighty fighters to Nouméa, twenty-five bombers and fifty fighters to Fiji. On 29 March US troops landed on Efate. The Pacific had become – Eisenhower thought – “King’s private war.”12

“I shall return” On 19 February Japan sent eighty-one bombers and eighteen fighters against Darwin, one well-traveled mariner analogizing the intensity of the bombing to London’s Blitz.13 Some Japanese planners, enthralled by what would be called sensho¯byo¯, “victory disease,” now argued for a full-scale invasion. The Imperial Army thought the idea “reckless,” requiring a continental occupation force of at least twelve divisions. Conservatives argued instead for a “protective wall” sweeping from the west of Burma, below Sumatra, Java, Bali and Timor, through New Guinea and the Solomons, the Marshalls and Wake, then through Midway and up to Kiska and Attu in the Aleutians.14 The Imperial Army and Navy came to agreement in the form of “OPERATION MO,” a complex program of island-hopping expansion under the command of VAdm. Shigeyoshi Inoue, centered on Port Moresby, a town of 1,800 whites and 2,000 natives on Papua’s southeast coast, just 260 108

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miles across the Coral Sea from Australia. Its capture would mean control of the Torres Strait, thus blocking Allied access to the East Indies and cutting the sea lane linking Townsville with Oahu, while enabling air raids at will against Darwin and Townsville. Although Japanese troops had already landed at Lae and Salamaua on New Guinea’s north coast, between them and Port Moresby stood the towering Owen Stanley Range. On 15 March Japan decided to avoid that overland trek and instead to take the objective by amphibious assault. On 28 March, Rochefort’s HYPO intelligence unit at Pearl Harbor decrypted part of the plan. Any newspaper reader in Australia could intuit enough to be worried. As the American consul in Adelaide noted, “staid businessmen” who theretofore had been “complacent about the menace of the ‘yellow dwarf’” were now “reduced almost to wringing their hands.” A senior Australian officer, having apparently embraced Curtin’s view of things, did not mind admitting to an AP correspondent that “Australia, like the Philippines, is expendable in terms of global strategy.” More significantly, an insider commented that senior ministers, even Curtin himself, were “lacking in fortitude” and had “the jitters.”15 The Australians, a mere 7 million people, half of them in six cities and the rest spread across 3 million square miles, had in place a plan to withdraw from and lay to waste everything in the northern two-thirds of the continent, down to the Darling River and what became known as the “Brisbane Line.” New Zealand, for its part, now had most men below retirement age either in uniform or doing war work.16 MacArthur’s forces, meanwhile, were keeping a substantial Japanese force occupied up at Luzon. On 4 February Marshall, reluctantly concluding that the fate of the Philippines was sealed, asked MacArthur in confidence if he personally wished to evacuate. He replied that not only he but also his wife and little boy would stay on. No reasonable, well-informed person could for a moment doubt MacArthur’s personal courage. He had been, after all, a highly decorated officer in World War I, criticized for his command of a brigade since his audacity rendered the division’s progress lopsided. During the bombing of Corregidor, he refused to take cover or even to wear a helmet. Such a display of quiet courage was often of value to enlisted men. Further, like Teddy Roosevelt at San Juan Hill or the young Churchill in South Africa, or even the young Franklin Roosevelt in Haiti, MacArthur believed that, because he was a Man-of-Destiny, no bullet had his name on it.17 Nor can one doubt the sincerity of MacArthur’s desire to stay, nor the martial drama with which he envisioned his end. One of his own commanders would confidentially refer to him as “Sarah,” after the grandiloquent actress Sarah Bernhardt.18 And one can believe his ego big enough to permit his wife Jean and young son Arthur to die with him, just as one can believe Jean’s being so held in thrall that she would accommodate his wish, much as the wife in some cultures dutifully throws herself on her husband’s funeral 109

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pyre. While perhaps some other commander with a similar ego might have used the prospect of his own capture or death in order to pressure his superiors to do more, MacArthur came to accept that Washington had done all it could. The American public, having been swamped by weeks of unremittingly bad news, now concentrated all its hopes on its image of MacArthur. A Topeka insurance agent – in a gem of confused adulation – called MacArthur “the greatest general since Sergeant York.” Letting MacArthur – much less his wife and son – be captured or killed would be a terrible blow to American morale as well as a black eye for any president who let it happen. The wildest of the Roosevelt-haters might even say FDR wanted the general out of the way, since for years MacArthur had allowed Republicans to bandy his name for the presidency.19 With the British Empire coming a cropper in Asia, the sharp words between Curtin and Churchill betokened a monumental crisis in Anglo-Australian relations. King later observed that the US Joint Chiefs of Staff were themselves “very much concerned” by Britain’s seeming willingness to “let go of the Pacific, at least below the equator,” as a cost of keeping the US lined up to fight Germany rather than Japan.20 Curtin had requested US troops, with an American to lead them. On 20 February, Churchill told Wavell that MacArthur would be going to Australia.21 Two days later Roosevelt ordered MacArthur to do so. Eisenhower noted privately that this was dictated not by “military logic” but by politics.22 Submarines ferried supplies to Corregidor, having removed their ballast and replaced it with ammunition, using gold from Manila’s banks on the return leg. In his 23 February Fireside Chat radio program, Roosevelt hinted to listeners the possibility of tragedy, having already told Churchill. An officer on Bataan poignantly noted in his diary that the president “had – with regret – wiped us off the page and closed the book.” A bit of local doggerel was ascribed to journalist Frank Hewlett: We’re the battling bastards of Bataan: No mama, no papa, no Uncle Sam, No aunts, no uncles, no nephews, no nieces, No pills, no planes, or artillery pieces, And nobody gives a damn.23 Roosevelt, acquiescing in the public adulation toward MacArthur, applauded Congress’s decision to award him the Medal of Honor. Despite the absence of any one act justifying the medal under the relevant statutory criteria, the citation (suggested by MacArthur’s own chief-of-staff, Sutherland) noted MacArthur’s “utter disregard of personal danger under heavy fire and aerial bombardment” as well as “his calm judgment in each crisis” which “inspired his troops.” But MacArthur’s leadership in situ on 110

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Bataan and Corregidor had not been exemplary. He in fact spent but one day at the front, on 10 January, well before conditions deteriorated. Although it would have been difficult to assure his men that help was coming when he knew otherwise, his aloofness there was not atypical, witness his closeting himself after hearing about Pearl Harbor, when other commanders would have been seen publicly barking a hundred orders. Whatever the reasons for MacArthur’s aloofness, it did not go unnoticed by those under his command. As January turned into February, troops were singing, to the tune of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”: Dugout Doug MacArthur lies ashakin’ on the Rock Safe from all the bombers and from any sudden shock Dugout Doug is eating of the best food on Bataan And his troops go starving on. As supplies dwindled and disease spread, some begged their officers to try a breakout, to fight through the Japanese lines toward supplies still to be scrounged around Manila. Given what ultimately happened to the joint US– Filipino force, perhaps that would have been best. But MacArthur gave no such order.24 MacArthur later wrote that, with Roosevelt’s order to go to Australia in hand, he considered resigning his US commission and staying on at Corregidor as a mere volunteer. By mid-March, 25,000 Americans had landed in Australia. A submarine crew let MacArthur’s staff know that Darwin was now “lousy with American soldiers,” so many that the beer had to be rationed. MacArthur later wrote that his officers painted a picture for him of a great gathering of men, ships and planes, waiting for him to lead them in retaking Luzon. MacArthur picked subordinates neither for brilliance nor independence of mind but for personal loyalty, it being once commented that he had not a staff but a court. He now took the advice which his staff – so chosen – offered him, consenting to Roosevelt’s order to leave. (Since he would need an organization, his senior people would of course be leaving with him for Australia, where they would be described as “an exclusive little coterie.”) On 12 March, with three-fourths of the men on Bataan and Corregidor already too sick with malaria, malnutrition, amoebic and bacillary dysentery to keep fighting, MacArthur, his wife, son and staff left.25 One ex-MacArthur subordinate who did not fit the loyalty-above-all profile was Eisenhower. Serving as MacArthur’s aide in 1932, he had looked on in disgust as his boss, assisted by cavalryman George S. Patton, Jr., led an attack which routed a tatty throng of down-and-out veterans of World War I who had come to Washington demanding a disputed recompense. It is an oddity of military culture that two officers leading such a deadly assault 111

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against American veterans, their wives and infants, could avoid permanent obloquy and go on to brilliant military careers and even public adulation. Perhaps this had something to do with MacArthur’s statement to the effect that the mob included outside agitators and was led by communists. As MacArthur exited Corregidor, Eisenhower noted that since the American people had constructed a hero, once MacArthur reached Australia they would be clamoring for him to be adequately supplied, another example of military planning being dictated by politics. If, Eisenhower noted, “we tie up our shipping for the SW Pacific, we’ll lose this war.” MacArthur’s profile appeared on Time’s 30 March cover, against a backdrop of claw-like Japanese hands about to grab Australia. Curtin, although a committed socialist, was a self-made man in the American mold, rather than a member of what passed in Australia as the “upper classes.” He had accomplished an extraordinary geopolitical feat, bucking the Germany-First compact, getting the Americans to come, challenging (even insulting) Churchill, and making the American citizenry the guarantors of Australia’s defense by importing as a local commander a soldier in whom Americans had now invested all their hopes.26 Logistics, “an endless series of difficulties succeeding each other,” seemed to follow Murphy’s Law.27 Typical was the story of fifty-two SBD Dauntless dive-bombers. Originally to have been sent directly from the US to the Philippines, three days after Pearl Harbor they were diverted to Townsville. Inexperienced men assembling them failed to notice that the solenoids, which enabled the firing of the guns, were in boxes nailed to the inside of the packing crates. They burned the crates, then complained to the US that the planes had arrived without solenoids. The desire in Washington to supply MacArthur adequately had been so strong and sincere that the issue of the missing solenoids rose up the chain of command, eventually reaching Stimson, who in his innocence of technical matters thought the planes were missing something that sounded like hemorrhoids.28 By the time the new solenoids arrived, the Japanese had begun their blockade. MacArthur had left Lt.-Gen. Jonathan Wainwright in command of the Luzon Force, using MacArthur’s headquarters in Corregidor. Back on Bataan, Maj.-Gen. Edward King, with the food gone and a bloodbath in prospect, decided to surrender (without explicit authority, apparently) 10,000 American and 66,000 Filipino troops. Having made that agonized decision, he gallantly waited 24 hours until 9 April, the day Lee surrendered at Appomattox. The American public, despite prior hints from Roosevelt about Bataan’s imminent collapse, was shocked. Corregidor held out a while longer. A CBS news report from Washington stated that Wainwright “has full authority from the President to deal with the situation as he sees fit,” implying that MacArthur had divested himself of authority (although that had not been MacArthur’s understanding). On 6 May, with Japanese tanks coming ashore and no anti-tank weapons to repel them, Wainwright 112

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capitulated. The commander of the 4th Marines, instructing his adjutant to burn the regimental colors, noted: “My God . . . I had to be the first Marine officer ever to surrender a regiment.”29 The version of events received by the American public was one of gritty heroism all round, headed by a mythic MacArthur. One hint of the actual situation comes in the film Bataan (1943), where Lloyd Nolan, playing the most hard-bitten and cynical member of a doomed outpost, tells his embattled comrades to abandon hope: “the General’s planes,” he says, are not going to save them, because the General’s planes do not exist. This may have been an allusion to the loss of MacArthur’s air force at Clark, or of the failure to bring planes from Australia. A staffer in Hollywood’s selfcensorship office, in the course of vetting the script of questionable matter, interpreted it as the latter, noting: “Eliminate speech which would be considered . . . negligence by the government in failing to send help to the defenders of Bataan.” In typical war melodramas, predictions of disaster by cynics are always wrong, but here Nolan’s sour assessment proved accurate, and Nolan and the others all die. In fact MacArthur did mount one bombing raid, impressive not for its effectiveness but rather, as described by a journalist on Corregidor, as “really a salute to the dead of Bataan who would have still been living if the United States had not decided that the Pacific was a secondary front.”30 It would of course have been unthinkable for Hollywood to accuse either MacArthur or Roosevelt of failing to do his utmost. Bataan director Tay Garnett, a former Navy aviator, was unlikely to complicate his film by questioning government policy, nor would studio head Louis B. Mayer have tolerated such a thing. A director with very substantial military credentials, John Ford, in They Were Expendable (1945) gives no hint that any of the doomed men who watched MacArthur depart felt betrayed or angry at his leaving. Indeed, by his handling of the scene, Ford would have us believe that an incarnate deity was gliding by, thus recreating the infantile awe MacArthur seemed to generate. “There are times,” Stimson wrote in his diary regarding Bataan, “when men have to die.” Garnett and Ford inculcate the notion that the death of men deemed “expendable” can be in its way glorious, so long as their deaths may be said to mean something. Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” brilliantly captures a commonplace of civilized humanity by urging a communal resolution “that these dead shall not have died in vain.” Listeners to CBS radio wanting news of Bataan on the evening of 9 April 1942 would hear: “For Americans, there remains a fierce pride in a magnificent defense in the best traditions of the American Army, and a fiercer determination that those that fell in that defense shall not have died in vain.” At the end of the film Bataan, with the last of the thirteen doomed men about to die with his machine gun blazing, we move beyond the human drama of one small group, and are told: “Their sacrifice made possible our victories in the Coral and 113

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Bismarck Seas, at Midway, on New Guinea and Guadalcanal.” The words in that stirring finale were true: the Battling Bastards of Bataan delayed Japan’s southerly advance, the victory taking the six divisions of Lt.-Gen. Masaharu Homma’s Fourteenth Imperial Army, a total of 80,000 men, three months longer than he had led his superiors in Tokyo to expect.31 In The Menace of Japan (1917), Frederick McCormick had written that Japan had no right to oust the western powers from the Asian mainland, since they had developed it and planted their cultural institutions there, at a time when Japan’s only goal was to isolate itself. But in fact Japan in the first decade of the twentieth century had allied itself with Britain for the protection of each’s imperial ambitions, an alliance sufficiently threatening to the Americans that they engineered its uncoupling in the naval limitation talks of 1921–22. By May 1942, to those who had lived under British, Dutch and American imperial regimes, Japan was offering Dai To¯a Kyo¯eiken, “the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,” now encompassing 1.4 million square miles of former white possessions, with subject populations totaling 128 million.32 There was reason for everyone, including all the imperial powers and all the indigenes, to see the conflict in racial terms. Despite such self-serving Japanese shibboleths as “Asia for the Asiatics,” the Japanese considered themselves superior to the “Orientals” and equal or superior to the whites. One reason Japan could not quit the sinkhole of China, in pursuance of more valuable targets elsewhere, was that everyone would say that Japan could be defeated by other Asians. Churchill had told Wavell to fight to the death in Singapore to show British imperial discipline, while Roosevelt and Eisenhower had both initially taken the view that MacArthur must die fighting on Bataan to counter imputations that whites were cowards. As Eisenhower had told Marshall in December, the Asians saw all this as a test of white will. King in a 5 March 1942 letter to Roosevelt referred to defending Australia and New Zealand not because they were dominions of America’s British ally, nor because they would later be needed as staging areas for a counterthrust, but because they were “white man’s countries” whose loss to Japan would have repercussions “among the non-white races of the world.”33 On 17 March, with MacArthur en route to Australia, famed radio commentator H.V. Kaltenborn told the US public: “Australia is the first area almost entirely peopled by white men to be attacked by Japan. It is vitally important to the prestige of the white race that Australia be held” since its loss would mean the expulsion of the white race from the Pacific. If that happened, the white man’s power in the Pacific would be lost forever. The United States and Australia are both determined that this shall not happen. 114

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When MacArthur arrived in Australia, the Townsville Bulletin proclaimed that “in sending their national hero,” the Americans have charged themselves with the responsibility of saving [Australia] as a free white English speaking nation as far as it lies within their power, for it is not in the nature of that great people to let MacArthur down. The Brisbane Telegraph referred to “Private John Doe, USA.”: “He comes to Australia to help us boot back to his own land the little yellow man who is trying to move in on a white man’s country.”34 Upon arrival in Melbourne, MacArthur told his supplicating hosts: “No general can make something out of nothing. . . . In any event I shall do my best. I shall keep the soldier’s faith.” Many Australians, like Curtin, had lost the faith they had been taught to have in Mother England; now their spirits were soaring. Of eleven baby boys born in one Australian hospital the night of 17 March, reportedly all were named “Douglas MacArthur _____.” On the 21st, MacArthur outflanked all the dignitaries awaiting his arrival at Melbourne’s Spencer Street station by stepping “into the range of flash bulbs in the drab battle dress of a fighting soldier[,] to which the glory of uniforms, red tabs and ribbons around him were a perfect foil.” Soon, during the obligatory “God Save the King” played in cinemas after each feature, audiences saw colored slides of MacArthur and Roosevelt.35 Before leaving Corregidor, MacArthur had reportedly told subordinates: “Bataan can stand. But if any crisis comes and I am needed here, I am coming back, alone if necessary.” During a train layover in Australia, in response to reporters asking for comment, MacArthur jotted down: The President of the United States ordered me to break through the Japanese lines and proceed from Corregidor to Australia for the purpose, as I understand it, of organizing the American offensive against Japan. A primary purpose of this is the relief of the Philippines. I came through and I shall return. This yielded a quotable quote for American newspapers, albeit the Australians cared less about his return to Manila than what he would be doing to keep the Japanese out of their backyards. He thought the best defense would be not on Australian soil but in New Guinea, which he characterized as a door either open to aggression from the north, or locked against it. Australians referred to the fighting soon to take place in New Guinea as “the Battle for Australia.”36 In Australia MacArthur found neither the personnel nor the assets nor the orders from Washington required for his vaunted return to save the 115

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Philippines. While the one heavy and one light bombardment squadron and the six pursuit squadrons were all slated for expansion, there was as yet no critical mass. There were warships, but only one Australian division, with most of the 25,000 Americans not trained in ground combat. On 17 March the 132nd and 182nd Infantry Regiments arrived at Nouméa. Then in early April the first units of the US Army’s 41st Infantry Division arrived at Darwin, with others landing at Sidney. Elements of the 32nd Infantry landed on 22 April, doubling the number of Americans. Already in place were the battle-hardened 6th and 7th Australian Imperial Forces. And there were two heavy bomber groups, just shy of two medium bomber groups, three fighter groups, and seventeen Australian squadrons.37

The Doolittle raid Amidst the many pieces of bad news in the first few months of 1942 were a few signs of hope. On 1 February, Enterprise effected a morale-building aerial attack on the Japanese base at Roi on the northern tip of Kwajalein, destroying and damaging several ships and planes, with a loss of thirteen US aircraft. Halsey also launched planes against the seaplane bases at Maloelap and Wotje, 150 miles due east of Kwajalein. The next day Fletcher’s Yorktown force attacked Makin, Mili and Jaluit in the Gilberts. On 20 February off Bougainville, hoping to exact a surprise raid on the Japanese base at Rabaul, Lexington engaged and shot down two flying boats and all but one or two of seventeen Japanese bombers. “Butch” O’Hare, expending a mere sixty rounds per target, shot down five bombers in six minutes, for which he was jumped two grades to lieutenant-commander and awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. After their return to Lexington, Lt.-Cmdr. John S. “Jimmie” Thach had each of his men sketch out the part of the cigarshaped planes he remembered best, the composite establishing that they were twin-engined medium Mitsubishi G4M1 Type 1 Rikko¯ bombers, later called “Bettys.” On 24 February Halsey attacked Wake, which had been in Japanese hands for two months. Then on 4 March he hit the two dirt runways at Marcus Island, a mere 830 miles from Tokyo. Six days later, planes from Lexington and Yorktown sank several transports off Lae and Salamaua.38 FDR (King later recalled) had “wanted something to be done to get after the Japanese to make them think,” but did not specify what that should be.39 Some said that in a meeting only two weeks after Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt broached to Marshall, King, Knox, Stimson, Harry Hopkins and Army Air Forces chief-of-staff Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, the notion of a moraleboosting, retaliatory attack on Japan. But Japan was beyond the range of any base in Alaska, and the Soviets refused use of their airfields. The typical complement of fixed-wing fighters for a fleet carrier was around eighty. A dive-bomber raid on Japan bore unacceptable risks, since a carrier was unlikely to get within range without being spotted by picket 116

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boats and/or patrol planes, resulting in the loss not just of planes and pilots but of the precious carrier itself. On 4 January 1942, discussing the means to get bombers quickly to North Africa for a possible invasion, King speculated that perhaps a medium bomber could be launched from a carrier. A few days later a staffer, Capt. Francis Low, suggested such an operation against Japan; another staffer, Capt. Donald Duncan, worked out a plan.40 Analysis showed it was possible. In early February 1942, two North American B-25A Mitchell bombers were hoisted onto the carrier Hornet by its boat crane, using a special sling made for the purpose, and were launched at sea. While one took all 500 feet of Hornet’s deck, the other lifted off in a mere 275 feet, less than a football field. On 1 April Hornet loaded a squadron of sixteen B-25s at Alameda near San Francisco, passing under the Golden Gate Bridge the next day. Although the bombers had been plainly visible on Hornet’s deck, the thousands who saw them apparently included no Japanese spies. At 0600 on 12 April, Hornet rendezvoused with Enterprise at the 180th meridian, latitude 39º north, then proceeded at 300–400 miles per day. On some days the weather was so rough that the planes’ altimeters registered swings of 200 feet.41 At 0630 on 9 April (Tokyo date), two days before the rendezvous, Japanese radio intelligence headquarters at Owada intercepted traffic indicating an approaching carrier force. Believing the Americans would launch divebombers and/or fighters well within 700 miles of land, the Japanese launched patrol planes in preparation for an aerial attack just prior to the American carrier’s likely launch point. While medium bombers could be launched from a carrier, they could not land on one, and in any event the carriers would be heading east, away from danger, the moment the planes were airborne. While there had been talk of “delivering” the planes to Vladivostok as a Lend-Lease project following the bomb run, the Soviets would never jeopardize their peace treaty with Japan by permitting such a thing. Chiang, however, had volunteered China as a base for raids against Japan, and although the US chose not to tell him what it was doing, it did say he could expect some planes to be delivered at Chuchow, about 220 miles southwest of Shanghai, and several other airfields, where they would refuel and join Stilwell’s forces 800 miles to the west near the Szechwan city of Chunking.42 Lt.-Col. James L. “Jimmie” Doolittle’s plane was to launch about 400 miles off the cape at Inubo¯saki, timed so as to arrive at Tokyo around sunset. The other planes would launch at sunset so as to drop their bombs in the relative safety of night, guided in by the fires started by Doolittle’s four incendiaries. It was further agreed, however, that if the American carrier force was detected prior to the 400-mile launch point, all planes would launch immediately. If this occurred up to 550 miles out, arrival at one of the Chinese airfields was still a “remote possibility.” If, however, the launch took place more than 650 miles out, it was calculated to be “impossible” to reach the Chinese airfields, given the prevailing headwinds.43 117

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On 18 April, while still 688 miles from Tokyo, the force was spotted by a picket boat, which used its radio before being sunk. While some at this point might have scrubbed a mission likely to be suicidal, Halsey ordered Doolittle to launch, hundreds of miles farther away and ten hours earlier than planned. Doolittle, who had combined a hot-shot career of barnstorming and speed records with a PhD in aeronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, happily complied. Now, instead of launching at dusk, dropping bombs at night, and arriving in China at daybreak, the planes would be flying over Japan in broad daylight, to ditch at sea or reach Japanese-occupied China – if at all – on fumes in the dark. Faced with these very long odds against survival, the twenty-four crews, all volunteers, proceeded.44 Each bomber had been stripped of armor but was crammed with 1,100 gallons of aviation fuel as well as a 2,000-pound bomb load, bringing it to 2,000 pounds above its 29,000-pound design limit. At the last minute, Doolittle allotted to each plane five additional 5-gallon cans. Hornet was doing 27 knots in violently rolling seas, aimed into the teeth of a 20- to 30knot gale. Someone had painted two white lines on the deck to guide each plane’s left wheel and nosewheel; if the pilot stayed on the lines, his right wing would not collide with the “island,” the tall bridge-mast-stack structure on the starboard side. Doolittle lifted off at 0820. Chicago Daily Times journalist John Wheeler wrote: As the carrier dipped her nose into a tremendous comber the handling crew would release the chocks and the plane would charge down the slanting deck. . . . It would reach flying speed as the carrier’s prow came up. . . . As the plane reached the end of its absurdly short runway the bow would reach the climax of its pitch, virtually throwing the plane aloft. Ross Greening said his plane took off like a rocket, even before catching the gale whipping up over the prow. The extraordinary, lumbering movement of the tempest-tossed planes, looking from a distance like chunks of miraculous metal capable of lifting up into the sky at taxiing speed, was captured for all time by movie director John Ford. Ted Lawson, who like Doolittle happened to be an aeronautical engineer, later wrote of the B-25: “It helps itself more than any plane I ever worked on or flew. It is so much more than an inanimate mass of material, intricately geared and wired and riveted into a tight package. It’s a good, trustworthy friend.”45 Among the designated targets were docks, railyards, refineries and ¯ saka and Kobe. Most armament plants in Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya, O planes carried three 500-pound demolition bombs of TNT/Amatol and a 500-pound cluster of 128 small fire bombs. In his “confidential” meeting with reporters back in November, Marshall had declared that the US would 118

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have no cavil about burning Japan’s paper cities. A former naval attaché in Tokyo told Doolittle: “I know that Tokyo fire department very well. Seven big scattered fires would be too much for it to cope with.” Before one of the bombs was loaded, someone scribbled on it the title of the Ink Spots’ 1941 hit “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire,” adding: “Just Tokyo.”46 The Norden bombsight, a top-secret analogue computer, calculated all the factors necessary to optimize bombing accuracy. The planes did not carry them, since they would be useless deadweight at the house-top clearances of this day’s flight plan. Instead, one of the flyers designed a makeshift device, fabricated from aluminum at a rumored cost of 20 cents each, and dubbed the “Mark Twain,” alluding to the elementary method for measuring a river’s depth.47 After takeoff, each bomber came around and paralleled the carrier’s course, setting its gyro for 270º True, which would take it to Inubo¯saki in five hours, although they would spread the attack over a 50-mile front. On the way Lawson saw a five-gallon can fly by his left wing, jettisoned by one of the planes ahead, despite Doolittle’s instruction that empty gas cans should not be thrown overboard because they would form a floating directional arrow back to Hornet. Flying just above the white caps to avoid radar detection, they achieved complete surprise. From 1,000 feet, Doolittle said he could see the startled expressions on people’s faces. In Tokyo, where an air-raid drill just ended, some thought the planes were part of the exercise (Map 3). At 1440 (Hornet time), bombardier George Larkin dropped two 500pound bombs on the Japanese Steel Company plant in Tokyo, a third and the incendiaries in the mixed industrial/residential Shiba Ward. John Hilger’s plane dropped an incendiary from 1,500 feet on Mitsubishi’s Nagoya Aircraft Works, killing five. At Kobe, Donald Smith hit the Kawasaki Aircraft Factory. Several bombardiers missed their targets, hitting a hospital, a school, and a residential district, although by chance also hitting a camouflaged oil tank farm. Radio Tokyo’s English language broadcast, monitored in Enterprise’s radio room, suddenly went off the air, reemerging several hours later with a claim that the designated targets had been schools and hospitals and that the planes had been driven off by anti-aircraft fire.48 Soon the weather closed in and night fell. Edwin York’s plane, eighth to launch, landed 40 miles north of Vladivostok, having been plagued by heavy fuel consumption which made it impossible to reach China.49 The Soviets, in view of their treaty with Japan, decided to intern the Americans. Most of the planes did reach China, favored by an unusual tailwind, but now blinded in cloud and fog. The pilots were to listen for a Morse Code signal, “57,” on which they could home in on the friendly airfields. But there was no signal. None of the planes reached Chuchow, although Doolittle’s crew parachuted a mere 30 miles away, having put his plane on automatic pilot just before the fuel ran out, fourteen hours after liftoff. When he found the wreckage 119

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Map 3 Chart of flights of five Doolittle Raiders

spread across a mountainside, he contemplated being court-martialed and jailed for failing to complete his mission. Lawson later wrote that while he found it embarrassing to talk of “love for a plane,” it was “beyond endurance” for him to bail out, “desert[ing] it in the air, coughing and preparing to nose over for its final plunge.” He tried to 120

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land his plane on a beach, but it stalled and its wheels caught the top of a wave, driving Lawson, his copilot and a third crew member through the thick windshield. As Lawson flew out, his leg caught on a piece of cockpit machinery and ripped wide open. Fortunately, a physician, Thomas R. White, had tagged along as a gunner on Smith’s plane. He amputated Lawson’s leg, giving his own blood while doing so. A total of fifty men bailed out, all but one of them surviving. These were led by locals to Nationalist enclaves, as were the ten men whose planes crash-landed. But two planes crashed in Japanese-held China, two of the crewmen drowning, eight others being captured. Of these, three were executed by Japan in Shanghai on 16 October 1942, after extensive torture and a grotesque show trial. To¯jo¯ promulgated retroactive laws to legitimize the executions.50 Later testimony revealed that one of the reasons Japan had refused to ratify the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (1929) was that it would double the range of American flyers, meaning that they would be able to drop bombs on Japan and then surrender, safe in the knowledge that they would be treated as prisoners-ofwar rather than war criminals. The five other captured men were put in Japanese prison camps, four of them surviving the war, the other dying of abuse and malnutrition. To insure that such a raid would not be repeated (although the US had no such intention), Japan overran the designated Chinese airbases. It then proceeded to scapegoat China for cooperating with the Americans, slaughtering (by one count) 250,000 people, an atrocity competing in brutality with the Rape of Nanking.51

MacArthur vs. Nimitz MacArthur told media representatives and a visiting congressman that the Pacific campaign required one supreme commander. He had no doubt who that should be. Although the Australians and New Zealanders had been delighted to give their warriors into his care, the US Joint Chiefs now eschewed the notion of a unified command. The 1924 War-Plan Orange, the first joint Army–Navy effort, recognized that any Pacific war would be predominantly naval and amphibious in character, thus justifying an overall Navy command. On 19 March 1942 King, intuiting where the significant action would be, proposed to Marshall that MacArthur be commander-inchief of the Southwest Pacific Area, with Nimitz getting the south, central and north Pacific. Roosevelt approved. MacArthur later groused that this divided command, supportable neither in logic, theory nor common sense, must be ascribed to “[o]ther motives.” While he chose at the time not to specify what these motives might be or who might harbor them, clearly King did not relish placing Navy and/or Marine personnel in MacArthur’s hands.52 Issues decided solely by logic, theory and/or common sense typically result in objective clarity, while issues influenced by the clash of egos, 121

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political power plays and/or hidden agendas typically yield ambiguous compromise. Roosevelt’s 30 March directive told Nimitz and MacArthur to “prepare for the execution of major amphibious offensives against positions held by Japan, the initial offensives to be launched from [Nimitz’s] South Pacific Area and [MacArthur’s] Southwest Pacific Area.”53 Whether this meant Nimitz and MacArthur were to work together, or independently in their respective jurisdictions, or even by poaching on each other’s turf, remained unclear. Over the next two months a critical mass of troops and matériel arrived. King on 4 May dared urge that a build-up for a European invasion “must not be permitted to interfere with our vital needs in the Pacific.” Marshall disagreed. MacArthur’s circumscribed area included Rabaul, and on 8 June, formalized in his “TULSA” plans of 27 June and 1 July, he proposed attacking this base, its harbor and five airfields, using the three divisions he already had (two US Army, one Australian), along with a borrowed division of US Marines, with air cover provided by two carriers. The virtue was that this would address and eliminate ab initio the air, naval and transport capabilities that Rabaul could otherwise employ to harass or even terminate any less adventuresome, step-by-step approach among the islands to the south. King, however, unwilling to give MacArthur the Marines or carriers, favored a less adventuresome, island-by-island plan starting in the Lower Solomons, even if each step would be plagued by whatever Rabaul chose to send. King and his fellow members on the Joint Chiefs rejected MacArthur’s proposal (Map 4).54

The Battle of the Coral Sea For the paltry damage Doolittle inflicted, no utilitarian cost–benefit analysis would deem the retaliatory deaths of 250,000 Chinese civilians to be fair value. Some thoughtful people characterized Doolittle’s raid as a “stunt,” intended only to boost US morale. A fluent Japanese officer joked: “Indeed, he could ‘do little,’” others noting that it only “increased Japanese determination to resist all along the line.” Morison, with the retrospect of sixteen years, believed it probably did the US more harm than good. But the raid did give Japan’s military leaders an image problem, Doolittle having put in question their assurances regarding the inviolability of the Home Islands generally and of the person of the Emperor particularly.55 Yamamoto, aware that in a protracted confict the US would crush Japan, was now planning a decisive engagement to take place off Midway in June. If Japan was still to accomplish an amphibious assault against Port Moresby, it would need to do so by early May, so that the carriers would have time to return north for Yamamoto’s venture. Japan’s southern strategy included taking territory on which aerodromes could be built to protect the flanks of subsequent advances. Well placed for such a strategy was the abandoned 122

Map 4 Map of area surrounding Coral Sea

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Australian seaplane base near Tulagi in the Lower Solomons, 760 miles due east of Port Moresby. From there Japan could launch aerial reconnaissance in the Coral Sea to search for any Allied warships wishing to foil the Port Moresby invasion, and/or support “OPERATION FS,” Japan’s planned invasions of New Caledonia, the Fijis and Samoa. And it could also serve as a perimeter picket for Rabaul, about 560 miles to the northwest. The Kawanishi H6K4 flying boat (later nicknamed “Mavis”), with a 3,660-mile range, and its replacement, the H8K1 (the “Emily”) with an even more extraordinary range of 4,440 miles, could probe well beyond the Allies’ landbased B-17s and Hudsons, thus yielding a substantial comparative advantage. And if a suitable airstrip could be built somewhere near Tulagi, land-based bombers and fighters could further support southern expansion while also extending the aerial perimeter of Rabaul. RAdm. Kiyohide Shima’s troops, covered by the light carrier Shoho, invaded Tulagi on 3 May, a week prior to the planned amphibious assault against Port Moresby.56 Everything went smoothly, with a support force under RAdm. Kuninori Marumo assigned to rehabilitate the seaplane base near Tulagi. Although decrypts had led US strategists to know of Japan’s intended attack on Port Moresby, Hornet and Enterprise were not yet back in Hawaii following the Doolittle raid and thus could not be deployed to the South Pacific in time to join Yorktown and Lexington in their effort to foil that attack. Although the Allies thus could not have a numerical advantage, Nimitz nevertheless decided to engage with what he had, the unacceptable alternative being to hand Port Moresby to the Japanese.57 The invasion force under RAdm. Sadamichi Kajioka included eleven transports, three cruisers, six destroyers, three gunboats and two seaplane tenders. At 0620 on 4 May, as the Japanese transports left Rabaul, Fletcher’s Yorktown arrived 100 miles southwest of Guadalcanal and attacked Tulagi, some of his SBDs carrying single 1,000-pound bombs, others two 500-pound and two 100-pound bombs. Also launched were Douglas TBD-1 Devastators, carrying 1,500-pound Mark XIII torpedoes, what their pilots called “pickles.” They returned to Yorktown at 0930 and relaunched, with a third launch at 1400. But a total of 105 sorties yielded only minimal destruction: the destroyer Kikuzuki, three minesweepers, four landing barges and five seaplanes. Since the American planes could not have come from as far away as Port Moresby, the Japanese inferred that American carriers were nearby. Yorktown now turned south to rejoin Lexington in the Coral Sea.58 MacArthur promised reconnaissance, but failed to advise Fletcher just how spotty it would be. Meanwhile, a bank of clouds hung diagonally across part of the Coral Sea, cloaking whatever naval forces chose to hide beneath it. Moving westward below San Cristobal Island was an attack force composed of RAdm. Tadaichi Hara’s fleet carriers Sho¯kaku and Zuikaku and 124

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VAdm. Takeo Takagi’s Cruiser Division 5, including two heavy cruisers and six destroyers. By 0800 on 5 May, Yorktown had rejoined Lexington and was refueling at 15º South 160º East. At 1010 on 6 May, Sho¯kaku and Zuikaku moved into position not far from where Yorktown had been. A Mavis spotted an American carrier, then lost contact. B-17s spotted Shoho and dropped bombs, missing it. During the night of 6–7 May, the opposing forces unknowingly passed within 100 miles of each other. At 0732 on 7 May, a Kate spotted what it took to be an American carrier and cruiser, 200 miles to the south of Sho¯kaku. Within forty minutes the Japanese had launched from Sho¯kaku and Zuikaku thirtysix Vals, eighteen Zeros and twenty-four Kates. When at 1135 the Japanese planes reached the spot identified by the Kate, the targets turned out to be not a carrier and cruiser but an American oiler, Neosho, accompanied by a destroyer, Sims. The Japanese dispatched Sims, only fifteen of over two hundred men making it into the destroyer’s sole whaleboat. Neosho, which back on 7 December had avoided damage despite being docked between California and Oklahoma, was now saved by having most of its oil tanks empty. Shot up, it remained buoyant, and was found adrift four days later. Sixty-eight men had abandoned it in life rafts. It took another six days to find them, Capt. John Phillips computing their probable position by inferring the drift of a raft – given its minimal “sail area” – from the drift incurred by the Neosho itself. Only three men survived the ten days.59 At first light, Yorktown, 100 miles south of Rossel Island, launched reconnaissance planes, which at 0814 reported two Japanese carriers and four heavy cruisers, about 50 miles north of the island of Misima in the Louisiades. Yorktown and Lexington launched an attack force of ninetythree planes, which at 1100 found Shoho, four cruisers and two destroyers under RAdm. Aritomo Goto. They destroyed Shoho, yielding SBD pilot Lt.-Cmdr. Robert E. Dixon’s classic radio message to Yorktown at 1136: “Scratch one flattop.”60 At 1020, a Japanese plane spotted the Australian heavy cruisers Australia and Hobart, the American heavy cruiser Chicago, and the American destroyers Perkins and Walke, all under the command of RAdm. Sir John Crace of the Royal Navy, whom Fletcher had ordered to steam to the southern outlet of the Jomard Passage to catch the Japanese transports. However, the transports never arrived, having been ordered to turn back to the north, the Japanese apparently considering themselves checkmated. Fletcher, informed that the Japanese transports had been turned back, chose not to pursue them up the Solomon Sea, instead taking Yorktown and Lexington east. In the late afternoon, radar reported approaching planes. RAdm. Aubrey Fitch, commanding Lexington’s task force, ordered the Combat Air Patrol, already aloft, to attack. A Zero, mistaking Yorktown in the dark for a Japanese carrier, made a landing approach, guided in by a signal officer who thought him an F4F Wildcat. Only moments before 125

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touching down did the Zero realize his error and hit the throttle, the signal officer then waving him off for excessive speed. Having failed to fire at that plane, Lexington’s gunners now overcompensated, and when Lt. Noel Gayler of Fighting Squadron Two came in following his Combat Air Patrol, they opened up on him, until an alert landing-signal officer grasped what was happening and swatted one of the gunners with his signal flag.61 During the night of 7–8 May, the two enemy forces again came within 100 miles, with neither side locating the other. At 0800 on 8 May, now 180 to 200 miles from the Japanese, Fletcher sent eighteen planes in a 360º search. At 0815 an SBD spotted the Japanese force under substantial cloud cover. Yorktown and Lexington launched forty-six SBDs, twenty-one TBDs and seventeen F4F Wildcats, which found the two Japanese carriers steaming 10 miles apart. At 1057 Yorktown’s planes attacked Sho¯kaku, without effect. Then Yorktown’s twenty-four SBDs attacked from 17,000 feet, as Sho¯kaku prepared to launch more planes. Three hits on Sho¯kaku disabled her from receiving aircraft. At 0615, the two Japanese fleet carriers had launched reconnaissance planes in a southerly search pattern of 145º to 235º to a range of 200 miles. At 0825, even before receiving contact reports, Takagi launched his strike planes. Fletcher’s radar picked them up at 1050, 70 miles out and closing. Because Fletcher had already launched eighty-four planes to seek out the enemy and had sent Crace’s ships west to intercept the expected transports, the American carriers could not now muster an optimum defense to aerial attack. Lexington was greeted with a force of fifty to sixty Japanese planes. The optimum method for a coordinated torpedo attack was to distract all defensive guns and Combat Air Patrols with a dive-bomb attack, then come in on both bows simultaneously with torpedoes, so that no matter which way the target turns, it will be broadsided. In this instance the torpedo releases of the two convening squadrons were not simultaneous, and Lexington, despite the relatively poor turning radius of this older carrier, successfully weaved through the torpedo paths, then sailed straight between two torpedoes running parallel.62 But her luck then ran out, receiving two torpedoes portside, with one bomb hitting the stack and another igniting a box of 5-inch shells. A 7-degree list was quickly corrected by counterflooding and shifting fuel. The American carriers were placed too far apart to benefit from shared Combat Air Patrols. Yorktown received an armor-piercing artillery shell converted into a bomb, which left only a 12-inch hole in the flightdeck but then cut through three more decks before exploding 50 feet into the structure, killing sixty-four men. Many of them, shirtless, died of charring flash burns. At 1247 Lexington would suffer a catastrophic explosion from sparks in a generator room which ignited fuel vapors from a weakened fuel tank. This left it dead in the water on a calm sea, unable to launch its planes to transfer them to Yorktown. The mass evacuation of men into the water 126

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occasioned no loss of life, since the sound and concussion of the carrier’s internal explosions reportedly scared off the sharks. Later, coaxed by four torpedoes from a US destroyer, Lexington settled gracefully upright, “a lady,” one loving officer observed, “to the last.” Yorktown, despite serious wounds from hits and near-misses, remained operational. Japan’s two carriers now had only one-fourth of the planes and pilots they had started with. Zuikaku had smartly avoided being targeted by hiding under a squall.63 This multi-day, multi-pronged engagement was a revolution in naval warfare, with none of the seventy Japanese and twenty-five Allied ships even spotting an opposing ship, much less firing at one.64 Japan believed it had sunk two carriers and two battleships and now declared a brilliant victory; in fact it had sunk one fleet carrier and a destroyer. The US had sunk a much smaller carrier, had so damaged Sho¯kaku as to take her out of action for months, and had shot down so many of Zuikaku’s skilled pilots as to render it temporarily useless. Net-net, who “won” was not immediately clear. Despite advice that both American carriers had been sunk, Inoue did not reverse the retreat of the transports, since the Japanese carriers had lost too many planes to provide credible air cover for the planned invasion. A long succession of Japanese advances had come to a halt, and “Coral Sea Day” became an Australian national holiday. As Fletcher sped south, a plane reconnoitering to the rear reported a fast-moving Japanese carrier approaching. Bombers were dispatched, but it turned out to be only a line of waves breaking against Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.65

Midway To force skeptics to accept his Pearl Harbor plan, Yamamoto had threatened resignation, his prestige making that a winning gamble. To finish the job and end the threat posed by the American carriers, Yamamoto on 2 April 1942 made a new proposal: lure the US Fleet from Hawaii by sending a force to attack the Aleutians, then attack Midway and land 5,000 troops, which would divert the US force from its pursuit to the north and into a trap. Some American ships would be ambushed by submarines 400 miles east of Midway, the rest destroyed by an overwhelming Japanese armada steaming from the northwest. Some Japanese planners envisioned Midway as a key redoubt in a huge network of Japanese perimeter strongholds. Others, more ambitious, saw it as a staging area for bombing Hawaii, prior to a Hawaiian invasion tentatively scheduled for October 1942. Yamamoto, who continued to see the struggle in Mahanian terms, considered Midway solely as a place to which the American ships could be lured and destroyed, thus bringing America to the negotiating table, consistent with the plan, reiterated on 7 March, to “deprive the UNITED STATES of its will to fight.”66 Skeptics, however, saw his plan as a distraction from what had been a generally 127

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successful thrust to the south. As before, Yamamoto offered a choice: accept his plan or his resignation.67 On 5 April the Naval General Staff reluctantly agreed, the order to attack Midway being issued on 16 April. Then, two days later, the Doolittle raid helped persuade Tokyo’s skeptics about the wisdom of securing outposts to the east.68 Japanese reaction to the Doolittle raid yielded a flutter of radio transmissions under the JN-25B code. By April 1942 about one message in ten in JN-25B could be understood well enough to grasp some of its meaning, enough to predict the intended invasion of Port Moresby. Analysts could also plot patterns of repetition and silence; collect the number, direction and frequency of various transmissions; and triangulate the location of any given transmitter by having listening posts pool the data they received. And while the Imperial Navy’s scheduled switchover to a new version of the naval code, JN-25C, would put all of these decryption efforts at naught, the switchover was postponed, Tokyo having decided that many of Japan’s far-flung ships were not yet ready.69 Nimitz guessed that the substantially increased radio traffic indicated a major operation that needed to be assembled quickly. Evidence grew that a koryaku butai, an invasion force, intended to attack what Japan called “AF.”70 A partially destroyed map in one of the Japanese aircraft downed on 7 December referred to Pearl Harbor as “AH,” suggesting that any other “A” was nearby.71 Wake was not a possibility, having already fallen into Japanese hands. Rochefort and analyst Jasper Holmes, guessing that “AF” had to be Midway, sent from Pearl Harbor to Midway via the undersea cable (which Japan had neither cut nor tapped) an instruction to send back to Hawaii via radio an uncoded message indicating that Midway’s waterdistillation plant had failed. Midway complied. A Japanese radio operator on Wake picked it up, and within 48 hours Hawaii intercepted and deciphered a Japanese radio dispatch indicating a need to bring fresh water.72 Timing was still a question. Yamamoto had insisted that available moonlight dictated arrival before 7 June. One of Rochefort’s associates, Lt.-Cmdr. Wesley Wright, now re-analyzed a number of earlier intercepts. About to go home after many hours of work, Wright was cornered by Nimitz’s intelligence officer, Edwin T. Layton, who demanded his best guess. He responded that Midway would be attacked on 4 June, preceded by an attack on the Aleutians a day earlier. Layton duly told Nimitz, who in turn pressed Layton for his own best guess. Layton, whom Nimitz had asked to stay on despite his having been Kimmel’s intelligence chief, blurted out: “They’ll come in from the northwest on bearing 325 degrees and they will be sighted at about 175 miles from Midway, and the time will be about 0600 Midway time.” While the actual moment of sightings and reports is unsettled, it appears that at 0545, a PBY reported the just-launched Japanese planes, on a bearing of 320 degrees. Layton’s intuition thus qualified as prophecy.73 The gravamen of Yamamoto’s plan was the application of overwhelming 128

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force: four fleet and four light aircraft carriers, eleven battleships, twentyone cruisers, sixty-five destroyers, eighteen submarines and numerous other vessels, including fifteen transports carrying 6,750 assault troops. Nimitz’s plan, centering on the use of planes to sink the enemy’s carriers, did not require a similar armada but a mere twenty-eight surface vessels. (The battleships were left behind.74) Accepting Rochefort’s and Layton’s crystalballing, Nimitz crowded Midway’s small base with additional aircraft. It now had twenty-one Buffaloes, sixteen B-17s, twenty-four PBY Catalinas, six Grumman TBF-1C Avenger torpedo-bombers, four Army Martin B-26 Marauder medium bombers retooled as torpedo-bombers, sixteen Douglas SBD-2 Dauntless scout bombers and seven Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat fighters. Marine Air Group (MAG) 22 was divided into two squadrons: seven F4Fs and twenty Buffaloes in Maj. Floyd Parks’ VMF-221, sixteen SBD-2s and eleven Vought-Sikorsky SB2U-3 Vindicator scout bombers in Maj. Lofton Henderson’s VMSB-241.75 Nimitz also stationed nineteen submarines in various places where the Japanese fleet might be found. But the surprise – and the victims of catastrophe if things went wrong – would be three carriers, Hornet, Enterprise and Yorktown. Japan’s Naval General Staff had advised Yamamoto that Hornet and Enterprise were in the South Pacific. In fact Nimitz had let them be seen there, then rushed them back. They arrived at Pearl Harbor on 26 May, slipping their moorings on 28 May to be part of the American surprise off Midway. About Yorktown, too, Yamamoto had been incorrectly advised. On 8 May, at the height of the Battle of the Coral Sea, Japanese pilots reported sinking it.76 But although the bomb that exploded on its third deck had ruptured some bulkheads and another had ripped open some fuel bunkers, it had survived, limping back to Hawaii at the head of a 10-mile oil slick. While its numerous wounds could not be healed in a few days, it could be restored to the minimal seaworthiness required to get it out to Midway for the purpose of launching planes. Thus, Nimitz cashiered a workforce of 1,400 into an around-the-clock schedule, using the repair facilities Nagumo’s planes had failed to destroy. Three days later, at 0900 on 30 May, Yorktown and its screen of two heavy cruisers and five destroyers left Pearl Harbor to join the two other carrier forces on 2 June at 32º north, 173º west, 325 miles northeast of Midway, the rendezvous area designated “Point Luck.”77 Fletcher was in command, assisted by RAdm. Raymond A. Spruance. Realizing the possibility of losing three carriers, Nimitz in his instructions accented conservatism: You will be governed by the principle of calculated risk, which you shall interpret to mean the avoidance of exposure of your force to attack by superior enemy forces without good prospect of inflicting as a result of such exposure, greater damage on the enemy. 129

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This was translated in the wardroom as: “Sock ’em and rock ’em, but don’t lose your shirt.”78 Japan’s largest battleship, Yamato, featured nine of the largest-bore guns of any ship in the world: 18.1-inch caliber, capable of sending 3,220-pound projectiles 25 miles, more than adequate to destroy enemy ships at long range and to turn Midway into a moonscape. Yamamoto and Nagumo could have chosen it as the primary means of attack, under air cover provided by carriers set in the rear. But they chose instead not only to place the carriers in the van, but also to assign their planes two fundamentally inconsistent tasks: bombing Midway and torpedoing any possible US naval force. Further, Yamamoto chose to keep his battleships and their screens in reserve, ships that might have provided much needed anti-aircraft fire if Japan’s carriers came under attack. Just as on 7 December, reconnaissance planes were to observe Pearl Harbor. Two four-engined “Emily” flying boats were to leave Wake, to be refueled by a submarine at French Frigate Shoals so they could continue flying southeast, looking for US ships in the 489 miles from there to Pearl Harbor. But when the sub reached the Shoals it spotted some US ships and scrubbed the mission. Just as on 7 December, submarines would be deployed as pickets, both to report what emerged from Pearl Harbor, and to sink targets of opportunity. But the sixteen submarines left two days late and did not arrive until 3 June, after the American ships had already departed for Point Luck.79 At 0400 on 4 June, Midway launched PBYs to look for the Japanese. By 0530 the Japanese had in the air seventy-two bombers, protected by thirtysix Zeros, to obliterate the island’s defenses. The planes, commanded by Hiryu¯ wing leader Lt. Joichi Tomonaga, were picked up by Midway’s radar, 93 miles out. To meet them, Midway sent up seven new F4F-3 Wildcats and Floyd Parks’ twenty superannuated Buffaloes, nicknamed “Flying Coffins.” From 30 miles out and on in to Midway, the highly maneuverable Zeros did their work, dispatching thirteen Buffaloes and two Wildcats, with the bombing of the island – a collective 30 tons in ten minutes – commencing at 0635. While the Japanese lost only three bombers and two Zeros against the defending planes, the twelve 3-inch, eight 37-millimeter and eighteen 20-millimeter anti-aircraft guns from the 3rd and 6th Marine Defense Battalions on Midway accounted for seven bombers and three Zeros. Around 0700, Tomonaga radioed back to Nagumo that a second strike would be necessary before any invasion could be attempted.80 At 0705, the six TBF Avenger torpedo-bombers and four twin-engined Martin B-26 Marauders from Midway found the Japanese carrier forces 220 miles out. Not waiting for fighter cover, five of the six Avengers and two of the four Marauders (nicknamed “Martin’s Prostitutes” because their short wings gave “no visible means of support”) were shot down by Zeros and anti-aircraft batteries. The Americans’ Mark-13 aerial torpedo had a 130

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delicate guidance system, requiring that it be dropped from not more than 50 feet at the slow speed of 110 miles per hour, making any plane delivering it a sitting duck. The Americans scored no hits, and only three aircraft made it back to Midway.81 An hour later came sixteen of Henderson’s Vindicator dive-bombers, aircraft so short on lethality that some crews referred to them facetiously as “Wind Indicators,” others “Vibrators.”82 Their pilots, brave but inexperienced, failed to hit the Japanese carriers with their ordnance of 1,000-pound bombs, and only eight planes returned to Midway. Henderson’s SBD, too, was lost. A few minutes later fifteen B-17s, diverted to the strike force from their original assignment of attacking the Japanese landing force farther off, dropped a total of 255 bombs from 20,000 feet, scoring not a single hit. Although Nagumo had a substantial number of reconnaissance planes available to seek out any lurking US force, he ordered only seven aloft, with only four to scout for surface fleets, the others confined to close work looking for periscopes.83 He also held his Kates in reserve, armed with torpedoes and armor-piercing shells to attack any ships his scouts found. With his scouts having found no American ships and with his lead pilot having called for a second wave against Midway, Nagumo at 0715 ordered the fleet carriers Akagi and Kaga to take the torpedoes off their planes and to rearm them with Type-80 fragmentation bombs. One of Nagumo’s scouts should have spotted the US force, but missed it. Another had been 30 minutes late in taking off because of a catapult malfunction, then veered away from its assigned vector. It radioed to Nagumo: “Sighted what appears to be the enemy composed of 10 (ships), bearing 10 degrees, distance 240 miles from Midway, on course 150 degrees, speed 20 knots [0728].” The plane gave two subsequent reports, one of them indicating: “At [0755], the enemy is on course 80 degrees, speed 20 knots [0758].” Nagumo failed to grasp that the US ships were turning into the wind and that one of them thus must be a carrier about to launch. He asked, “Advise ship types,” thought for a few minutes, then ordered that the process of replacing armor-piercing bombs and torpedoes with fragmentation bombs be stopped. Then, almost an hour after the original sighting, the scout radioed: “The enemy is accompanied by what appears to be a carrier in a position to the rear of the others [0820].”A few minutes later Nagumo received an additional report of “what appears to be 2 cruisers in position bearing 8 degrees, distance 250 miles from Midway, course 150 degrees, speed 20 knots [0830]” (Map 5).84 At 0830 Tomonaga’s first wave returned from Midway, their reacquisition by Nagumo’s carriers being completed by 0918. To make room on the flight deck, Nagumo had to send his torpedo-bombers below to the hangar deck, then take the newly landed planes below and bring the torpedobombers back up to launch against the American fleet. This process took several hours, and in the rush there was no time either to stow the bombs and 131

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Map 5 Search Patterns of VAdm. Nagumo’s Mobile Force, 0430–0950, Midway

torpedoes being switched around, or to blow out the various refueling lines now ribboning the decks. Search planes from Yorktown had spotted two Japanese carriers at 0543. By 0700 Hornet and Enterprise were launching sixty-seven SBD scout bombers, twenty-nine TBD and TBF torpedo-bombers, and twenty F4F-4 132

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fighters, retaining some of the F4Fs as a Combat Air Patrol. At 0838 Yorktown, having located no additional enemy carriers, launched seventeen SBDs and twelve TBDs, along with a squadron of six F4F-4s led by Jimmie Thach.85 A textbook attack would place the TBDs and/or TBFs approaching along the surface, with the SBDs commencing their dive at around 15,000 feet while some F4Fs dove simultaneously from 20,000 feet, and others stayed near the surface, all to draw defensive fire away from the slow, low-flying torpedo-bombers.86 Dozens of the torpedo-bombers from Hornet and Enterprise, having lost contact with their F4F escorts, chose to attack alone, doing no damage and getting slaughtered. Only one man of Hornet’s fifteen downed TBD crews, Ensign George Gay, would be rescued, after hiding in the water under his flotation cushion.87 Fifteen minutes later, fourteen of Enterprise’s torpedo-bombers attacked. Ten of them were shot down. Yorktown’s twelve torpedo-bombers stayed with their fighter escorts but fared no better. Of forty-one TBDs participating in the attack, only six returned.88 As the battle proceeded, the smallest carrier, So¯ryu¯ (15,900 tons), like the sisters Kaga (38,200 tons) and Akagi (36,500 tons), was loaded with aircraft, with ordnance strewn about, and with fuel lines everywhere filled with highoctane avgas. Thus, all the SBDs needed to do was score a hit. Enterprise’s thirty-seven SBDs attacked Kaga and Akagi, one pilot looking down from 14,500 feet and calling Kaga “one of the biggest damn things that I had ever seen.”89 Yorktown’s thirteen would pursue So¯ryu¯, while Hiryu¯ waited unmolested a few miles to the north. Kaga received four 1,000-pound bombs, So¯ryu¯ three. As a bomb hit Akagi’s deck, Lt. W.E. Gallaher thought: “Arizona, I remember you.” Akagi received a 500-pound bomb aft and a 1,000-pound bomb amidships, the concussion triggering several torpedoes. As William Ward Smith noted, the inability of American bombs to pierce armor here proved fortunate, since an explosion three decks down would not have had this devastating effect. Akagi, formerly Yamamoto’s flagship and now Nagumo’s, burned all night and the next day would have to be sunk by a Japanese torpedo. Deaths on Kaga totaled 800, on So¯ryu¯ 718, on Akagi 221. Mitsuo Fuchida, who had led the Pearl Harbor attack six months before, managed to survive, despite two broken ankles. Yamamoto, over 300 miles to the west on Yamato, was kept constantly apprised of the growing disaster, but was too far back to help. All of Yorktown’s SBDs would return. At 1054 RAdm. Tamon Yamaguchi on Hiryu¯ managed to launch eighteen Val dive-bombers and six Zeros, while retaining ten Kate torpedo-bombers. While none of Enterprise’s SBDs were shot down during the strike, twelve would be shot down in the aftermath, while six would have to ditch when they ran out of fuel.90 To find the American carriers, the Japanese followed the retreating SBDs. At 1159 Yorktown’s radar picked up Vals and Zeros. Twelve 133

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Wildcats from Yorktown dispatched ten Vals and three Zeros, and SBDs retreating from the attack on Kaga shot up two more Zeros. Antiaircraft fire shot down another of the Vals, leaving seven for an attack on Yorktown. The first got a near-miss before being shot down, then a bomb hit the smokestack, destroying the exhaust system and driving a column of air downward which extinguished eight of Yorktown’s nine boilers. A third bomb caused a fire in the hangar deck, while a fourth started a fire four decks below. Yorktown was dead in the water at 1220, forcing Fletcher to transfer his flag.91 Five of the Vals would survive, one of the Zeros. At 1331, with Yorktown only beginning to move, Hiryu¯ launched ten Kate torpedo-bombers and five Zeros. Thach and seven other quick-witted fliers launched their F4F-4s, their depleted fuel tanks rendering them light enough to lift off even though Yorktown could not steam into an oncoming wind.92 The pilots and anti-aircraft dispatched eight of the Japanese planes. But at 1444 two torpedoes hit Yorktown and within minutes the order came to abandon ship, the men leaving their shoes in neat rows before climbing over the side. The Japanese flyers reported mistakenly that they had hit a “second” American carrier. Yamaguchi at first wanted the returning Kates to relaunch immediately for another attack, but then decided to let his men get some lunch, with a view to a launch at 1800, incorrectly believing that two American carriers had been put out of commission and that two carriers had been destroyed in the Coral Sea, leaving the US with only one carrier. Later in the afternoon, Japan’s fourth fleet carrier, Hiryu¯, was spotted, and Enterprise launched twenty-four SBDs, most of them having been transferred over from the stricken Yorktown. At 1703, with no fighter coverage, they pushed over from 19,000 feet out of the sun, doing such severe damage with four bombs that the carrier, following an extended fight against internal fires that took 416 lives, had to be scuttled. Thirteen days later a PBY found a lifeboat with twenty men who had escaped from below decks but whom the retreating Japanese had failed to retrieve.93 The clumsy TBD-1, first flown in 1935, would be immediately withdrawn from front-line service, replaced by the new Grumman TBF Avenger.94 Churchill would later note that despite the TBD-1’s lack of effectiveness in the battle and the loss of so many of its three-man crews, “[t]heir devotion brought its reward,” in that when the SBDs arrived to dive-bomb the carriers, they were “[a]lmost unopposed.”95 Churchill’s quasi-religious perspective, entirely suitable for an admiring ally viewing the battle overall, was solidly based on a tactical fact: Since TBDs were horizontal scout planes, the Zeros had come down to deck level to deal with them. And when the SBDs arrived at 1022, they were at altitude to commence their runs, with the Zeros still down near the water. While Zeros could climb 3,000 feet a minute, they could not get into position in time. Thus, in place of the textbook theory of keeping the Zeros above the torpedo planes by drawing

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them up to the dive-bombers, the torpedo planes brought the Zeros down, clearing the way for the successful dive-bombing that won the battle.96 Midway, like the Battle of the Coral Sea, was a “modern” rather than a “fleet” engagement, with no ship even seeing an enemy vessel, much less firing at one. Japan lost four fleet carriers, leaving it with only two, also losing over 3,500 men and 280 planes, as against 307 Americans and 179 planes. Via cryptography, nerve, surprise, luck, and the bravery of US airmen, many of them in grossly inferior aircraft, the Americans had accomplished one of the most brilliant victories in the history of naval warfare. Revenge was writ large, since the sunken Japanese carriers had participated on 7 December. Historian Gordon Prange noted that all of the Japanese naval personnel he contacted for his book on Midway agreed that the loss was caused by sensho¯byo¯, “victory disease.”97 The Japanese were now for the first time reacting to Allied moves rather than initiating moves of their own.98 On 11 June Japan shelved its previously planned invasions of New Caledonia, Fiji and Samoa. With no air cover for an amphibious assault on Port Moresby, Japan substituted OPERATION RI, a plan for the elite South Seas Detachment under Maj.-Gen. Tomitaro¯ Horii to take Port Moresby overland, starting at Buna on New Guinea’s northern coast.99 Between lay the treacherous, disease-infested 140 miles of the Kokoda Track across the Owen Stanley Range, reaching 6,500 feet. The operation was set to begin around 21 July with a landing of 2,000 men, an advance contingent of Lt.-Gen. Harukichi Hyakutake’s 17th Army.

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“. . . and adjacent positions” With the loss of four irreplaceable carriers, Japan concentrated on building “stationary flat-tops,” that is, airfields, to defend its far-flung perimeter. One day a local commander at Tulagi took a pleasure excursion over to Guadalcanal, 19 miles to the south, finding there a site for an airfield on the plain east of the Lunga River, next to one of the copra plantations formerly operated by Lever Brothers. On 22 May 1942 a Japanese reconnaissance plane, probably part of the 5th Air Radar from Rabaul, was spotted flying over it. On 8 June some of the Japanese force from Tulagi set up camp near Lunga Point, and on 19 June an airfield survey team was dispatched.1 Martin Clemens, a dashing, Cambridge-educated colonial officer, the acting British commissioner in the British Solomon Islands Protectorate before his Tulagi headquarters were evacuated a few months before, was now one of three “coast-watchers” hiding in Guadalcanal’s interior, collecting information by binoculars and from his constabulary of sixty locals regarding all Japanese air and surface movements (Figure 7.1). Like the other eight coast-watchers ensconced throughout the Solomons, he kept moving, the Japanese having hired natives to track them down. On 20 June one of Clemens’ scouts noted that the Japanese were burning off the razorsharp, shoulder-high kunai grass at Lunga. Melbourne picked up a message that Japanese naval and engineering forces would land on Guadalcanal on 4 July.2 On 24 June King announced that the objective of a US counterthrust would now be Tulagi and “adjacent positions,” receiving word the next day of Japanese plans to build an aerodrome on Guadalcanal. In Hanover, New Hampshire, Professor Bernard Brodie was putting final touches on A Layman’s Guide to Naval Strategy before sending it off to Princeton University Press. Chapter 7, “Bases,” began: The majority of amphibious operations are undertaken for the purpose of capturing places already functioning as air or naval 136

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Figure 7.1 Martin Clemens and members of his constabulary.

bases, or which might be made to serve as such. The intention may be to use such a base for oneself, or to deprive the enemy of its use, or both.3

The First Marine Division No US troops had engaged in an amphibious landing since the Rough Riders arrived at Daiquirí, Cuba in the Spanish-American War, and the only largescale operation had been Winfield Scott’s unopposed landing of 10,000 troops at Vera Cruz in March 1847. Some strategists, alluding to Winston Churchill’s disaster at Gallipoli in 1915, thought amphibious assaults intrinsically suicidal.4 Although a handful of US Army units were trained in amphibious landings, the Marines made this a specialty, fulfilling war-correspondent and novelist Richard Harding Davis rousing expression: “The Marines have landed and have the situation well in hand.” With Congress perpetually unwilling to commit to any substantial permanent Pacific naval bases, some thought Marines might be trained to establish and then defend bases 137

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wherever and whenever needed.5 In 1921, the year two Marine regiments would be collectively named the Marine Corps Expeditionary Force, the legendary “Pete” Ellis drafted 712D-Operation Plan, the 30,000-word bible entitled Advanced Base Operations in Micronesia, describing (and also prophesying) how Marines might assault some or all of Japan’s mandated islands.6 The Marine commandant, Maj.-Gen. John Lejeune, embraced Ellis’ idea, which then became part of the 1924 Orange plan. Within two years the curriculum of the Marine Corps Schools in Quantico would include all aspects of amphibious expeditionary work in the Pacific, including naval and close-air support.7 Meanwhile, Marine protection of American commercial interests in the various “banana wars” – Mexico, Haiti, Nicaragua, Panama, San Domingo and Cuba – afforded ample opportunity for practical experience in exotic landscapes. The best way to understand amphibious assault, it was said, was by the case-study method, which meant fly-specking all that had gone wrong at Gallipoli. Lectures on this subject, the work of Maj.-Gen. Eli Kelley Cole and Col. R.H. Dunlap, became the subject-matter for all Marine officers at Quantico, each having been provided with a copy of the official British account of the campaign, Brig.-Gen. C.F. Aspinall-Oglander’s Military Operations, Gallipoli.8 In December 1933 Maj.-Gen. John Russell, following the Marines’ departure from Nicaragua, formed the Fleet Marine Force, a reinforced regiment whose tactics derived ultimately from a major theorist of the amphibious landing, Dion Williams. If, he had asserted, a contingent of 4,000 Marines had been landed at Manila following the defeat of the Spanish, there would have been no insurrection.9 The Tentative Manual for Landing Operations (1934) was an extraordinary, 127,000-word document whose dozens of authors and editors included students and instructors in the 1933-34 academic year at Quantico, as well as some of the men (A.A. Vandegrift, Roy Geiger, LeRoy Hunt) who would later apply its precepts in the Pacific. Its ultimate source was Lt.-Col. E.B. Miller, former instructor at the Naval War College as well as a graduate of the Army War College and the Fort Leavenworth School-of-the-Line, his advanced-base curriculum concentrating on invasions of the Philippines, Guam, and the Palau Islands. By 1939, the 1,092 hours of instruction at Quantico included 455 hours on landing operations.10 The Marines had tested the science of amphibious landings in 1923–24 on Isla de Culebra in the Caribbean, another prize of the Spanish-American War. Exercises on Culebra’s Flamingo Beach and Mosquito Bay revealed such elementary necessities as “combat loading,” that is, stowing gear in reverse order so that first-priority items were on top. In the 1930s the Tentative Manual’s teachings were perfected in Fleet Landing Exercises held there and on San Clemente Island off California.11 In 1940 the “FLEX 6” group, consisting of 3,000 infantrymen and artillerymen, embarked Quantico and Norfolk for Culebra and nearby Isla de Vieques, where they 138

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tested various landing craft, including Cape Cod fishing boats (which were rejected). Also used was a prototype of the so-called “Higgins Boat,” a shallow-draft vessel originally designed by Andrew Higgins in the 1920s, following substantial experience negotiating the bayous of Louisiana, where the ability to run up on and pull off a beach was at a premium. Amphibious assaults required not just practice, skills and equipment but also guts, the ability to advance, exposed, toward an entrenched enemy. The Marines had a proud tradition of personal bravery dating back to the eighteenth century, when they perfected the dangerous twin arts of boarding ships and defending against boarding, putting leather on their necks to blunt the slice of sabers. They considered themselves – with reason – an elite force. They were also a small force, limited by statute. In World War I, of 239,000 men who applied to be Marines, only 60,000 were accepted. When in the 1920s Lou Diamond, a mere sergeant who had not yet achieved the Paul Bunyan status he would later enjoy, had a request to make, there was no reason not to write directly to Commandant Lejeune.12 Some define a “corps” as two or more divisions, reinforced. So viewed, the Marines, first called a “Corps” in 1798, might have been said to be sailing under false colors. Reaching a peacetime high of 21,000 just after World War I, by September 1939 they totaled something above 18,000, numerically sufficient to cobble up a wartime division, although they chose not to do so. Within that 18,000, many “Old Breed” Marines had seen action in World War I at Belleau Wood, Chateau Thierry and St. Mihiel, as well as in various Caribbean assignments. Training on both coasts was nearly identical, although California Marines were taught that when jumping off a sinking ship they should hold their noses, while at Parris Island they were taught to hold their privates. In the late 1930s the Corps’ mainstays were the hardworking 1st Brigade, nicknamed “Raggedy-Ass Marines,” while the California-based 2nd Brigade was dubbed by some “Hollywood Marines” because their duties occasionally included appearing in movies.13 As the US in 1940 rushed to build a world-class army, many draft boards reported high proportions of physical and psychological unfitness, consistent with prior warnings by social science professionals that America’s youth was too “soft” to fight troops who considered it their highest honor to die in battle.14 The popular press projected images of bored, languid and often insolent or even delinquent teenagers, sitting around reading the comics, listening to the radio, refusing to do chores, taking money out of Mother’s purse to hang out at the arcade, etc. The Marines, however, were not, and never had been, so perceived. Audience expectations about their copyrighted mix of drunken brawling and blue-steel bravery would be set in Maxwell Anderson and Laurence Stallings’ What Price Glory?, premiering as a play in New York in 1924 and as a film two years later.15 Not surprisingly, the Marines’ very first officer, Capt. Samuel Nicholas, commissioned in November 1775, had recruited in his tavern.16 139

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In 1940–41 the growing prospect of American intervention attracted many scrappy volunteers, and the Marines were skilled recruiters, their techniques including sending promotional literature to young men listed as “1-A” and thus about to be drafted into the Army, in the hope of collaring a few who might hanker for something more.17 Most of the young “tough guys” now joining had been introduced to the Corps via such Saturday matinee serials as The Fighting Marines (1936; dir. B. Reeves Eason and Joseph Kane), where dashing heroes overcome bands of Hispanic motleys and Anglo-Saxon crooks, against backgrounds of California brush country which mere boys could accept as exotic locales. Such films provided potential volunteers with a good sense that this was no job for sissies and time-servers. And none applied. As an undergraduate at Yale, Paul Moore, Jr., scion of a wealthy banking family, saw a Marine officer with a crimson stripe on his dress-blue trousers and said to himself “I wanted to be just like him.” Who could resist – famed Peleliu veteran E.B. “Sledgehammer” Sledge later wrote – those trousers, or the white “barracks hat” worn by the recruiting sergeant. Or the recruiting poster by Haddon Sundblom, the inventor of the Coca-Cola Santa, featuring a Marine seemingly cut out of granite (Figure 7.2). Or “Semper Fidelis” and “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” two of the most stirring marches by John Philip Sousa, a non-commissioned Marine officer whose father had signed him up at 13 years of age to stop him from running off with a circus. But a mere yen for adventure was not enough. Of those responding to the Marine recruiters in Buffalo early in 1941, 80 percent were rejected. Of 205,000 applicants nationally in the last three years before the war, 167,000 were turned down. Of the minority who passed the physical, some backed out once they contemplated the length of the commitment and the virtual guaranty of front-line work. Those with no such quibbles were self-selected Gyrenes, wanting to get into things before the prospective war with Japan – thought to be a third-rate power known primarily for cheap novelties – would be over without them. The ten men in a hundred who had seen previous action served as role-models for the others pending their seasoning.18 An applicant could sign up at 18, or at 17 with parental consent. Some younger boys snuck in on forged papers, one later admitting to having been 14 when he enlisted; 16-year-old Kerry Lane hitchhiked the 70 miles from his family farm to Norfolk, Virginia, was rejected as too young, and came back two days later with evidence of parental consent and his purported birthdate penciled in a family Bible. When he needed to urinate and was directed to the lavatory, he had no idea which kind of porcelain to approach. Maybe it was of such young men that military historian Eric Bergerud was thinking when he wrote that the Depression, with its privations and its premium on hard work and jack-of-all-trades skill, had yielded a generation uniquely prepared for war. Ore Marion, having grown up poor in Buffalo, 140

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Figure 7.2 Marine Corps recruiting poster by Haddon Sundblom, circa 1942

said the orders of non-commissioned officers at Marine boot camp were no shock, since if your father, or your priest, or the local cop told you to do something, you did it.19 By June 1940 the Marines numbered 29,000. By Saturday, 6 December 1941, the Marines had between 66,000 and 70,000, enough for a numerical 141

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corps. New Marine officers came out of various new college training programs, comprised of one night a week and two weeks in the summer. Other officers were so-called “Ninety-Day Wonders,” about whom the Old Breed was particularly dubious. The Marines, it was said, were now in the business of manufacturing second-lieutenants, much as one might stamp out airplanes or tanks.20 Brig.-Gen. Holland M. (“Howlin’ Mad”) Smith knew every detail of the Tentative Manual and had trained Marines of the 1st Brigade extensively in its methods. It was en route to such an exercise in the Caribbean, FLEX 7 in February 1941, that senior planners brought together the 1st, 5th and 7th infantry regiments and the 11th artillery regiment, into a “First Marine Division,” activated on 1 February 1941 from the old 1st Brigade. King insisted that the FLEX 7 assault take place on the Caribbean island of St. John, but the particular beach he chose was blocked by steep mountains, so that if it had been defended by hostiles, the assault would have been – Smith later wrote – “plain suicide.” Smith insisted upon a beach from which a “beachhead” could be established, that is, an area inland from the beach to assemble men and assets for advance into the interior while protecting further landings. King snapped back: “Beachhead!, I’m getting sick and tired of hearing the word. . . . It’s beach, I tell you, not beachhead,” as if his ignorance of the appropriate amphibious tactic could be overridden by attacking the relevant tactical nomenclature. But choosing the wrong beach for an exercise would have been no mere “academic” failure; Smith told King that if the exercise did not work (by, for example having no way to get the artillery up the mountains), the men would lose faith in the judgment of their senior commanders.21 King relented, and let Smith choose the beach. As Smith left King’s flagship to initiate FLEX 7, King – in breach of longstanding naval custom – was not at the rail to say goodbye. Smith was sure he was about to be fired and so, following the exercise, when he was handed a letter from King, he chose to read it in the privacy of his cabin. King wrote: “I wish to express to you and to the troops under your command . . . my feeling of satisfaction . . . Well done!” King, the great egotist, had been won over. When in 1942 King would recommend to other senior people an amphibious counterthrust in the South Pacific, in response to concerns that the operation would have to be on a “shoestring” basis, King thought it sufficient to reply: “Holland Smith says it will work.”22 Even before FLEX 7, the 1st Brigade, concerned that the worsening world situation might mean losing its Caribbean training areas, searched the Eastern Seaboard for a substitute training area on the US Mainland. It ultimately settled on 110,000 acres at New River, North Carolina. When it was concluded that Nazi submarines could pick off transports as they lay at anchor off New River’s wide beach, it was decided to find a spot within Chesapeake Bay where U-boats were unlikely to prowl. The spot chosen 142

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was the prophetic Solomon’s Island, named not for the ancient monarch but for a Baltimore entrepreneur who had once built an oyster cannery there.23 The Marines built a huge wooden wall replicating the side of a transport, and threw over it cargo nets for practice ascents and descents. The exercise of August 1941 featured the first application of ramped Higgins Boats. King and other strategists developed “LONE WOLF,” whereby much of the 1st Marine Division, reinforced, was to be shipped to New Zealand to undergo months of training, followed by practice in amphibious landings in friendly territory, before an assault on some Japanese-held island – yet to be determined – in 1943.24 For now, the likeliest spot to checkmate Japanese expansion was on the storied isle of Samoa, where King on 6 January had assigned the new 2nd Division’s 2nd Brigade, later adding the 1st Division’s 7th Marines and ancillary units, to hold the island pending the construction of a US airstrip.25 Given the likelihood of early fighting there, the 7th was assigned a high proportion of seasoned fighters and modern equipment, as well as various lieutenants and captains permanently “borrowed” from other units.

Command In the third week of May, Maj.-Gen. A. Archer Vandegrift, Commanding General, South Pacific Marine Provisional Corps, embarked Norfolk, Virginia on Wakefield, the former liner Manhattan, passing through the Panama Canal and arriving in New Zealand in mid-June.26 The passage to New Zealand on Barnett, the Grace Line’s former Santa Maria out of San Francisco, was not bad, with plenty of chow. Vomiting from sea-sickness was to be expected, few of the boys having ever seen the Pacific, much less crossed it. But the voyage on some other vessels yielded worse problems. While just months before some of these ships had featured the “whish” sound of a dozen shuffleboard games, as transports they were so crowded as to leave no area for adequate daily recreation. Some of the quarters were former luxury staterooms with ocean views, while others were down in the holds. The American Legion was so filthy that the men on it were said to resemble “wild gypsies.” Many men chose to live and sleep en plein air, with certain areas of the deck becoming so crowded that individual squads clung together, protecting each man’s “spot” while he waited on the interminable mess line. It was reported that on John Ericsson, the former Swedish-American cruise ship Kungsholm sailing out of San Francisco in a nine-ship convoy on 22 June, officers had managed to stop the loading of rancid butter and spoiled eggs, although the beef, chicken and cooking greases were so sickening that the only men to remain healthy existed on Pepsi-Cola and peanuts.27 The Japanese knew that the Allies had agreed on a Germany-First strategy, and thus believed they had time to solidify their gains. On 28 May, King had 143

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suggested an assault on the seaplane base near Tulagi by Marines of the 1st Raider Battalion, formerly the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines. MacArthur objected, arguing that if the going got rough, the Japanese could reinforce their position faster than the Allies could. Nevertheless King, upon getting word of the smashing US success at Midway, felt instinctively that the momentum must be sustained and the sudden diminution in Japanese carrier strength exploited. On 25 June King urged dispensing altogether with the months of training and instead launching an amphibious assault on Guadalcanal and Tulagi by 1 August, before the Japanese could finish the airfield.28 The multi-tasked campaign was to be codenamed “PESTILENCE,” with the first stage called “WATCHTOWER.”29 To be in operational charge of Nimitz’s first stage, King had considered VAdm. William Pye, who had been in administrative charge of the battleships at Pearl Harbor and had temporarily relieved Kimmel pending Nimitz’s arrival in late December 1941. But in that brief tenure Pye had made the decision – extremely unpopular with the vast majority of Navy and Marine officers and men – to cancel the operation to relieve Wake. King rejected him in favor of VAdm. Robert L. Ghormley, about whom the officers and men in the Pacific had no opinion because they knew virtually nothing about him. Ghormley set up his headquarters in Auckland. One virtue of granting MacArthur a separate geographic command was to avoid a public perception that this national hero would be playing a merely ancillary role by providing only air support to an operation headed not by him but by Nimitz, who had been jumped two grades to assume this command.30 From King’s perspective, a greater virtue was to avoid having MacArthur leading Marines, otherwise a distinct possibility since the new 2nd Marine Division was already under the command neither of King nor even Marine Commandant Lt.-Gen. Thomas Holcomb, but of Marshall himself. King, who back in March had been the first to suggest two geographically separate commands, was now in no doubt about how he was going to make this bifurcated system play out. But on 26 June Marshall objected: Your directive states that a Task Force under [Nimitz] will execute the operation. In my opinion this is neither a logical arrangement in accordance with the principles we have adopted for joint action, nor is it a practical method for directing the operation.31 MacArthur, getting wind (as he typically did) of what was unfolding back in Washington, told Marshall: “It is quite evident” that King contemplates assuming general command control of all operations in the Pacific theater, the role of the army [i.e., me] being subsidiary 144

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and consisting largely of placing its forces at the disposal and under command of navy or marine officers.32 MacArthur’s substantial organization, meanwhile, had been in situ for months, had already engaged in reconnoitering, and had been champing at the bit to get started. Thus, “[t]o my mind,” MacArthur quietly averred, “it would be most unfortunate to bring in another commander at this time.” King, intuiting that MacArthur could not be cut out of the action completely, responded by putting a self-serving spin on the ambiguous language of Roosevelt’s 30 March directive regarding how the two separate commands should proceed. This counterthrust was going to be an amphibious assault, and only Nimitz – he now urged – controlled a force with the requisite skills. To make the plan palatable to MacArthur, command could be bifurcated temporally as well as spatially, with the initial amphibious assaults led by Nimitz with MacArthur’s support, then shifting command to MacArthur, with Nimitz’s support. Lest all this appear too pleasant, King now also used his lightning-fast schedule as a threat: “The primary consideration is the immediate initiation of these operations. I think it is important that this be done even if no support of Army forces in the Southwest Pacific Area is made available.” That is, if you and/or MacArthur won’t help – the hell with you both. Two days later King pushed his radical proposal further along by treating it as a fait accompli, saying his man, Nimitz, wanted twenty-one bombers transferred from Hawaii to New Caledonia, with the same number to Fiji. After all, he argued, if the US is to move into the Japanese-held Lower Solomons, even MacArthur’s vaunted air force would be marginal, his nearest Australian bomber base being 975 miles from the proposed scene of action, not too far to provide some aerial support, but not close enough for every kind of aerial support that would be needed. For a week, Marshall was in the unenviable position of brokering this power struggle. On 28 June MacArthur complained to Marshall that King was trying to muscle him out of the action – and of course he was.33 But in struggles for power MacArthur was never without resources, even if he was negotiating from halfway round the world. On 29 June he told Marshall: I am gravely concerned about this projected operation. From the Navy dispatches . . . I have seen . . . I infer that Admirals King and Nimitz contemplate an attack upon Tulagi and possibly immediate adjacent islands as a complete operation. Such action should be taken only as a part of an operation to capture New Britain and New Ireland. If the enemy is thrown back to Truk the captured area can be held, but if the Solomons or parts thereof are taken and the operation is not continued[,] the result will be a dangerous salient against which the enemy can bring overwhelming strength with the 145

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support of land based aviation. In such case the continued presence of strong naval forces including carriers would be essential and in their absence our occupying forces would face disaster. This was an accurate and insightful assessment, providing substantial evidence of MacArthur’s ability to structure an appropriate, multi-phased plan. Marshall now replied to King’s earlier, stinging rebuke: I have your memorandum of June 26th. . . . We have had a frank interchange of views and we both are in agreement that the operation should be mounted and that its successful accomplishment must be the governing factor. The implication in the last sentence of your memorandum “that this be done even if no support of Army forces in the Southwest Pacific is made available,” disturbs me greatly. Regardless of the final decision as to command, every available support must be given to this operation. . . . I have been trying to reach you on the telephone to arrange a personal conversation on this subject, and assume that we will be able to get together some time during the day.34 Marshall had lunch with King on 30 June, King apparently proposing a variant which still kept the operation out of MacArthur’s hands. On 1 July Marshall wrote to King: “I have given careful thought to your proposal that the entire affair be conducted by Ghormley under the direct control of the US Chiefs of Staff. I do not believe that the operation can be successfully conducted on this basis.” Enclosed with Marshall’s letter were MacArthur’s 1 July comments on King’s idea of a temporally sequenced command. MacArthur thought King’s proposal open to the most serious objections. The entire operation in the Solomons-New Guinea-New Britain-New Ireland area should be considered as a whole. . . . A change in command during the course of tactical operations in which it is impossible to predict the enemy’s reaction and consequent trend of combat would invite confusion and loss of coordination. . . . The Naval Mission from the beginning should be coordinated by [my man] Leary with the actual surface command exercised by the task force commander. Air and ground efforts should be directed by appropriate commanders, all being coordinated by [my] headquarters which was created for that specific purpose. Here all components are perfectly familiar with the problem, have all available information and are in immediate 146

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personal contact every day. Comparable unity of action cannot be achieved if the operation is directed by Ghormley in New Zealand.35 Marshall nevertheless adopted King’s earlier suggestion that Nimitz command through the occupation of Tulagi, followed by a switchover to MacArthur’s command taking place in perhaps two weeks. This was duly adopted by the Joint Chiefs. Thus did King get MacArthur delegated to a supportive role. Not that this particular piece of heavy lifting was likely to have been accomplished merely by King’s blowtorch approach with Marshall. Roosevelt, the unexcelled master of political manipulation, liked making things happen without leaving fingerprints. Whatever his views might have been regarding what made sense objectively, there could be little doubt as to whose side he was on: that of a show-boater who had for some years coddled an anti-New Deal, conservatively Republican constituency and allowed his air force to be destroyed on the ground, or the man Roosevelt had himself given unprecedented authority to command the Navy. As a boy, Roosevelt festooned his first letter to his mother with pictures of sailboats. He had almost gone to Annapolis rather than Harvard, and reputedly owned the nation’s largest private collection of naval books and illustrations, which his son Jimmy called not so much a hobby as a “vice.” Among Roosevelt’s many fond experiences during six years as assistant-secretary of the Navy was a sojourn with the Marines fighting the Caco bandits in Haiti in 1914. Although he had wanted to resign his assistantship in favor of a Navy commission, influenza complicated by pneumonia in 1918 delayed his presenting the paperwork to Wilson, and the war ended. But he was a “Navy man,” in conversation off-handedly referring to the Navy as “us” and the Army as “them.”36 The somewhat arbitrary line originally drawn between MacArthur’s and Nimitz’s commands had been 160° east longitude. By happenstance, that meridian sliced just 3 miles west of the Japanese airstrip on Guadalcanal, placing the putative battleground astride the two jurisdictions.37 In order to maintain the sanctity of separate geographic commands while also assuring that Nimitz had the first crack at the enemy on the ground, the Joint Chiefs adopted the expedient of shifting the vertical boundary by 1 degree to 159° east, thus extending Nimitz’s bailiwick to a few miles west of Guadalcanal.38 By this fine-tuning of meridians was MacArthur inched out of commanding the first ground assault of the Pacific campaign.39 Marshall wrote to MacArthur: “I wish you to make every conceivable effort to promote a complete accord throughout this affair. There will be difficulties and irritations inevitably but the end in view demands a determination to suppress these manifestations.”40 Neither Marshall nor the other member of the Joint Chiefs, “Hap” Arnold, objected to King’s new lightning-paced schedule, and so it was 147

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forwarded to Ghormley in Auckland. Since Vandegrift had just arrived in Wellington, Ghormley had him fly up to break the news personally. After subtracting the days needed for the long voyage from New Zealand to a rehearsal in the Fijis (already secure and garrisoned by the Army’s 37th Division), then on to the Lower Solomons, Vandegrift would have a mere twenty-four days to gather intelligence for and plan an assault upon Japanese-held territory about which he and his staff knew virtually nothing. His second echelon, primarily the 1st and 11th Marines, would not arrive in New Zealand until 11 July, to depart for Guadalcanal a mere week later. Vandegrift observed that the operation could not be mounted on King’s schedule. Ghormley answered that it could not be done at all, but that preparations should get underway until someone had the good sense to call it off (Figure 7.3).41 Ghormley, 58, had only minimal experience commanding vessels and had not had an assignment in the Pacific for thirty years. His expertise lay in diplomacy, being uniquely qualified for “big picture” work in Europe. He had been in London since August 1940 as Special Naval Observer of British military and strategic plans, a significant post that would help transition the two nations’ military relationship as the US commitment evolved from Lend-Lease into full-scale participation. He had been a trusted intermediary between Roosevelt and Churchill. He had worked on ABC-1. He had been Turner’s predecessor running the Navy’s War Plans Division. And he was said to have the most analytical mind in the Navy. For King (on Nimitz’s suggestion, apparently) to take a man of Ghormley’s diplomatic talents and accumulated wisdom regarding the European situation and Anglo-American relations, and send him to the South Pacific to be in overall charge of an aggressive amphibious invasion, seems utterly bizarre.42 Since it was politically inopportune to assign the more senior MacArthur to support an operation carried out by Nimitz, Ghormley’s primary qualification seemed to be that he was more senior than Nimitz.43 In addition, as a diplomat, he would be charged with the care and feeding of the Americans’ New Zealand hosts and then of the Free French who now ran Nouméa, its harbor and nearby grass airstrip at La Tontouta being essential to keep any operation in the Solomons supplied. On 8 July, Ghormley flew from New Zealand to MacArthur’s headquarters in Melbourne to secure air support for WATCHTOWER and to smooth MacArthur’s ruffled feathers. The two men quickly found a kind of rapport, in that both objected to King’s 1 August schedule and shared a concern about the lack of logistical support for a seamless transition to the latter two stages of PESTILENCE, slated to be MacArthur’s responsibility. Since the problem of inadequate supplies had doomed Bataan, such an objection was reasonable. Yet King was among those in Washington who, upon receiving their joint complaint, scoffed that MacArthur just three weeks earlier had urged a much more ambitious and risky attack on 148

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Figure 7.3 VAdm. Robert L. Ghormley in 1942.

the Japanese stronghold at Rabaul – to be led by him. In King’s view the newly cautious MacArthur was merely pouting because he had been denied command. Thus was the objective wisdom of MacArthur’s present advice lost on those who – knowing him too well – could not accept it at face value.44 149

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On 25 March Eisenhower had asked Marshall to commit to BOLERO, the build-up in England for an early cross-Channel invasion of Europe, as the central thrust of Allied strategy. That day Marshall discussed BOLERO at a lunch with Roosevelt, Knox, King, Arnold, Stimson and Hopkins, obtaining Roosevelt’s hearty approval. In the weeks that followed, however, the British suggested that a cross-Channel operation in 1942 was dangerously premature. In April, Marshall submitted a detailed plan for a cross-Channel attack of forty-eight divisions to take place by April 1943, with commitments of personnel and equipment for such a landing to accumulate in England and on the US east coast.45 By late June 1942, British defeats in North Africa tended to vindicate the British ambivalence about an early cross-Channel adventure, and on 10 July Marshall became King’s ally by telling the Joint Chiefs and FDR that if BOLERO’s assets were not to be immediately applied in northern Europe, they should be freed up for the recently accelerated counterthrust in the Pacific.46 Although this was in part a bluff to force the British into an early cross-Channel invasion, Roosevelt now called the bluff by requesting “a detailed comprehensive outline” of these new plans for the Pacific, “including estimated time and overall total of ships, planes, and ground forces.” King, Marshall and Arnold sheepishly responded that they did not have such plans to give him.47 Roosevelt, now declaring himself “opposed to an American all-out effort in the Pacific against Japan with the view to her defeat as quickly as possible,” went so far as to tell Marshall to purge the record so the British would never know of this proposed attempt at intimidation.48 The American people had been delighted by the Doolittle raid and hungered to get started in earnest against Japan. Roosevelt, grasping that the only way to maintain the public’s commitment to Europe was to somehow get American troops into battle against Hitler, on 14 July told Marshall, King and Hopkins to fly to London to reach some kind of compromise with the British that would bring Americans into the fight quickly, even if this meant landing them in North Africa, following training in amphibious landings by the Marine Corps. Seeing the Pacific as only a “holding war,” Roosevelt asserted that the defeat of Germany “means the defeat of Japan, probably without firing a shot or losing a life.”49 The three proceeded to London and returned in late July, having acquiesced in Britain’s desire to postpone the invasion of northern Europe and instead to proceed apace with North Africa.50 Not that Marshall was abandoning his new-found desire for quick action against Japan. Rather, he now argued that since North Africa constituted a substantially smaller effort than would be later required for an invasion of Europe, assets and transports which were on hold should now be made immediately available for use in the Pacific. As Marshall could clearly see, King was about to engage in a land war, and on a shoestring.

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“Our turn at bat” RAdm. Richmond Kelly Turner had graduated fifth of 201 men in the Annapolis class of 1908. While in some men hard drinking produces surliness, in Turner it merely accompanied it. He vied with King, it has been said, for the title “Most Hated Man in the Navy,” a label neither man would have rejected as uncomplimentary.51 If King “shaved with a blowtorch,” Turner was “as abrasive as a file.”52 In late 1941 and early 1942, when Turner headed the Navy’s War Plans Division, his opposite number in the Army, Dwight Eisenhower, whose skill-set included getting along with some very difficult people, found “Terrible Turner” so hard to cope with that, exercising his extensive interpersonal skills with Marshall and Roosevelt, he persuaded them to find a way to get Turner out of town.53 Turner knew about air support, having qualified as a Navy aviator in 1927 (the same year as King), followed by service as executive officer of Saratoga in 1933-34. Although his last practical experience with amphibious assault had been years before that, he nevertheless put in for and obtained command of the Amphibious Force, South Pacific, a change in posting as dramatic as the one which now made Ghormley his boss.54 Turner reached San Francisco on 29 June where he, King and Nimitz put together a strategic plan. On 2 July this took the form of a directive from the Joint Chiefs to Nimitz to seize and occupy three objectives: ●

● ●

Ndeni, one of the Santa Cruz Islands, 260 miles north of Espíritu Santo, to be used as a US airbase; Tulagi, already occupied by the Japanese; and “adjacent positions,” Guadalcanal having not yet attained the dignity of being named.55

These assaults would comprise Task One of PESTILENCE, with Nimitz then yielding command to MacArthur for Task Two, the rest of the Solomons and the northwest coast of New Guinea, and then Task Three, the substantial Japanese base at Rabaul. On 3 July Turner, still in San Francisco and meeting some of his new staff officers, issued a memo stating that in addition to invading Tulagi there should be “the occupation of an airfield (or airfield site) on the north coast of the 90-mile long and 25-mile wide island of Guadalcanal.” Nimitz, for his part, now ordered that within a month a US airbase was to be cut out of the coconut groves of Luganville on Espíritu Santo, to be used by B-17s for reconnaissance and bombing in support of Task One. Flying to Hawaii to confer with RAdm. Frank Jack Fletcher, veteran commander of the Coral Sea and Midway, Turner and Nimitz were told that the Japanese had unloaded on Guadalcanal’s northern coast not only a construction crew, four tractors, six road-rollers and dozens of trucks, but also a fighting force.

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Nimitz’s 10 July orders reflected the adjusted priorities by ordering landings by 1 August on Guadalcanal; on Tulagi and its appendages, Gavutu, Tanambogo and Makambo; on nearby Florida Island; and on Ndeni. Because of delays in the arrival of men and supplies in New Zealand, Ghormley and Vandegrift were granted a postponement of one extra week, the invasion to start on 7 August.56 With Task One just weeks away, Turner had been throwing together a staff on the run, grabbing men first in Washington, then San Francisco, then Hawaii, filling more staff positions upon his arrival in Auckland on 16 July. Several of his aides were not so much as introduced to him until after the invasion of Guadalcanal had begun. Vandegrift’s organizational issues were even worse. The 7th Regiment of his 1st Division was on Samoa. The 1st Raider Battalion, including men hand-picked by Merritt A. (“Red Mike”) Edson from other units, was at first on Samoa, then transferred to Nouméa. The 5th Regiment was in New Zealand, the 1st Regiment at sea out of San Francisco, the 3rd Defense Battalion in Hawaii, the 11th Regiment sprinkled among these others, while the 2nd Regiment of the 2nd Division, to replace the 7th Regiment of the 1st Division but not yet formally in the 1st Division, was still in San Diego. Vandegrift had never seen all of his men at once and, like Turner, had not been introduced to some of his officers.57 As the rushed planning went forward, it appeared that inter-service squabbles, telegraphed undoubtedly from the huge egos of King and MacArthur, were complicating an already understaffed and over-stressed operation. On 22 July, with the transports already pulling out of New Zealand, King’s chief-of-staff, Russell Willson, told him that “the land and air reinforcements so far indicated for these island positions are insufficient” and (if that were not enough) “we are not in a position to keep available, at all times, strong naval support.” On 1 August King passed this foreboding to Marshall, adding: “I request that you review your previous decision in this regard,” tantamount to saying: We are about to go into harm’s way; you had better now give us what you said could not be given. Years later, King wrote (perhaps with a smile) that it was only “after being committed to enter into the Solomons that [Marshall and Arnold] began to understand what [they] had tackled and what a very serious situation it was to keep the Japanese out of the Solomons.”58 In his years of intelligence work, Turner made sure all data flowed up to him and not out to competing thinkers, analysts or agencies who might – once they knew as much as he knew – come to conclusions or make recommendations contrary to his. This tendency to hoard relevant information would prove potentially embarrassing when Congress at war’s end investigated the Navy’s failure in the autumn of 1941 to keep Kimmel informed about Japanese intentions. Historian John Costello has written that Turner managed to lie and bully his way through that investigation to avoid having any fingers pointing at him, his status by that point as a war hero allowing 152

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that simple tactic to go unchallenged. Turner’s “stranglehold” technique was at work in the summer of 1942. Not until 25 July did he record his awareness of actual progress on the Japanese airfield, and that notation, “large airdrome nearing completion eight miles east of TENARU,” misstated the airfield’s actual location, a biographer suggesting that Turner had chosen to omit what he really knew – not from any fear that the Japanese had broken the Americans’ codes, but out of a desire that MacArthur’s intelligence people should remain ignorant of the Navy’s actual plans.59 Pearl Harbor had been a monumental gamble for the Japanese, Midway for the Americans, who were now again throwing the dice. What boded well was WATCHTOWER’s sheer unlikeliness, even the official Marine Corps history calling it “a stab in the dark.”60 Samuel B. Griffith II, who would soon see significant action as executive officer of Edson’s Raiders, described the operation as “conceived, planned and launched on a crash basis,” characterized “by near frantic, and sometimes near fatal, improvisation.” Vandegrift later wrote: “There was no time for a deliberate planning phase, and in many instances irrevocable decisions had to be made even before the essential features of the naval plan of operations could be ascertained.”61 Halsey wrote that the idea of a US land action to stop Japanese expansion was not popular. . . . Two- and three-starred officers in both the Navy and the Army opposed it. The probability of success was too remote, they argued. Too many advantages lay with the enemy – he was thoroughly prepared for war (with the help of the fuel and scrap iron we had sold him); his fighting was confined to one ocean; he had the initiative and was on the offensive; his lines of communication and supply were internal; he had many more bottoms available; and three of his major bases – Rabaul, Truk, and Kwajalein – were within 1,200 miles, whereas our own nearest major base – Pearl Harbor – was 3,000 miles away.62 Some junior officers thought King’s plan so hare-brained that it must be a “do-something-quick” response to a rumor that the Japanese were about to attack Soviet Siberia.63 In Japan, both the elite air corps and the common soldier lived under regimes of hierarchic brutality, with each rank privileged to abuse those below. The Japanese had known of property rights and contractual rights, but had no Lockean/Rousseauistic tradition of civil liberties. Turner was among those desiring an early challenge to these warriors, whose reputation for ferocity was attaining mythic proportions. He later recalled that in the first week of July 1942, meeting with Nimitz and Fletcher in Hawaii, he believed that “we ought to go into Guadalcanal even if we got kicked out again.” Such a notion 153

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would strike most reasonable people as an unsound and even a disturbing idea for a commander to be entertaining while throwing together his first campaign. If Turner really believed that, it was perhaps indicative of his concern about American morale. Pearl Harbor and the string of subsequent Allied disasters had generated domestically a negative psychological atmosphere, of sufficient concern to some to justify putting the lives of Doolittle’s men at risk just to change how the public felt. Turner believed that unless US forces started fighting and attaining some early wins, “the millions of civilians we were training to be soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines would come into the Military Services with a defeatist attitude, which would be hard to cure.” Thus as May 1942 turned into June, “and June into July,” Turner later wrote, “I became more and more convinced that” – using a baseball metaphor – “it was time for ‘our turn at bat’.”64

“All wharfees is bastards” Preparations for WATCHTOWER were riddled with the snafus which inevitably accompany a rush job by people who have not worked together before, with the myriad logistical issues of establishing a two-theater war. When on 11 July the transports John Ericsson, Barnett and George F. Elliott arrived in Wellington, the city was not ready for such an influx, and the seven encampments set up for the Marines lacked proper sanitation. Weeks at sea had rendered many of the men unfit, some having lost more than a pound a day. Because of King’s timetable, there would be no time to get reconditioned, Vandegrift later noting that his men had been robbed of the “hardening” necessary for what they were about to do.65 Guadalcanal lay 2,000 miles to the north, and of course would offer no docking facilities. Cargo ships arriving from the US had been “organization-loaded” to achieve economies of space, some ships summarily dumping their cargo on the dock and sailing off, already booked to supply the pending invasion of North Africa. Those that remained to transport men and equipment to the Solomons would have to be reloaded for combat, the goal being to have each Amphibious Troop Transport (APA for “Auxiliary Personnel, Attack”) carry a Battalion Landing Team (BLT) and everything it would need for a month, with each cargo vessel carrying enough additional stuff to divvy up among three BLTs for an additional month. The collective convoy would thus carry enough to supply the entire division until mid-October.66 Since no one had informed the men that they were embarking for combat, some told locals they were going on maneuvers and would be back shortly. Ghormley refused to reveal the pending operation to the New Zealand government, despite the constant pestering of prime minister Fraser. Wellington’s longshoremen, accustomed to the benefits of a welfare state under Fraser’s Labour government and unaware that the Yanks were about to take the battle to the enemy, saw a gold mine in taking as long a time as 154

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possible to unload and reload the ships. Vandegrift ordered the Marines to do the stevedoring themselves.67 In the Navy, career advancement seldom coincided with a keen interest in logistics, the Naval War College having dismantled its logistics section several decades before. On 2 July the Marines, with no support companies trained in the relevant methodologies, began working in shifts of 300-man gangs along the five-ship Aotea Quay, some in eight-hour shifts, some with four hours on, four off, twenty-four hours a day for ten days in the cold, pelting rain of Wellington’s winter, as muttering longshoremen looked on. Exposed cardboard boxes became mush, one man later recalling trudging through one hundred yards of gelatinous cornflakes. Vandegrift later admitted that the operation’s extreme speed, coupled with all the problems at the docks, meant that vital equipment never arrived in the battle zone, while “items of minor importance” did. The diplomat Ghormley never got this matter sorted out. An ungrammatical Marine wrote on the wall of the men’s lavatory at the old Hotel Cecil: “All wharfees is bastards.” The Fourth of July augured badly when a Wellington newspaper carried an article suggesting that the US Marines were planning to assault Tulagi. That the article turned out to be not the result of an intelligence breach but only a lucky (or unlucky) guess, did nothing to comfort the strategic planners who awoke to read it.68 Those believing in omens must have been bothered when their hurried schedule of socializing with locals was interrupted by an earthquake. Vic Croizat stood in a street littered by chimney bricks and shards of plate glass, with a frightened woman desperately gripping my forearm with both hands. In fiction this would have been the beginning of a romantic affair. But, when the tremor stopped she melted back into the darkness without having uttered a word.69 On 22 July, just four days off the original schedule, fifteen transports and cargo ships left New Zealand to rendezvous with dozens of other ships, 400 miles southeast of Suva in the Fiji Islands. The combined convoy then sailed to Koro, another of the Fijis, for a dress rehearsal on 28–31 July, before continuing up to the Solomons. While Suva featured one of the only adequate terminal installations in the South Pacific, seventeen transports and cargo ships that would rendezvous at Koro directly from the US would have no time for combat loading. Other elements steamed in from Samoa, Tonga, New Caledonia and Sidney. Koro was chosen for the dress rehearsal, codenamed “DOVETAIL” because of its presumed similarity to Guadalcanal. While Edson’s Raiders had been engaging in rigorous training since arriving on Samoa in late April, and while later in the war Marines would be trained on Samoa and on

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Guadalcanal itself in the arts of tropical warfare, for most of the men there was no time for such training now, their limbering-up exercises having been confined to stevedoring in the rain. Vandegrift called the Koro rehearsal a “complete bust,” with many landing boats conking out while milling around the ships, others hanging up on the reefs, with only one-third of the troops actually touching shore and no attempts at debarking supplies. Two transports from San Diego missed the rehearsal altogether. The spirits of some were dampened by scuttlebutt that US forces had just landed in France, thus denying the Marines the bragging rights of being this war’s “first to fight.”70

“PESTILENCE” For years the Japanese had been scoping out their envisioned empire, sending empty freighters into various ports so anonymous passengers could take touristy pictures of significant facilities. In November 1939 the Imperial Navy organized a new 4th Fleet, one of its tasks being to gather topographical data, while intelligence officers, posing as itinerant workers or as gatherers of trochus shells used in manufacturing buttons, gathered other data. The US had mounted no such effort, and now seemed comically unable to obtain reliable data about its putative targets. Much of what could be discovered seemed vaguely ominous. Alvaro de Mendaña de Neira, the sixteenth-century Spanish explorer who named the islands after King Solomon in order to attract gold-hungry entrepreneurs, failed entirely in that effort. Natives of Guadalcanal invited his men ashore, then started throwing stones at them, yelling “mate,” their word for “death,” coincidentally resembling the Spanish verb matar, “to kill.” The Spanish responded by shooting two of them, and the others ran off.71 Mendaña’s navigator and his chief purser both wrote long accounts of their voyage, a translator noting in 1901 that the Solomons were the first of the Pacific island groups to be discovered yet the last to be explored – as if early wanderers had concluded that anything would be better than what they found there. And in fact the European adventurers, having had a look, elected to avoid these islands for two centuries. Then in 1768 Bougainville appeared, giving the Solomons the name Terre des Arsacides, “Land of the Assassins,” an expression he presumably found apt. In a canoe recovered off nearby Choiseul after a raid by 150 natives, the Europeans found a human jaw, broiled.72 An entrepreneur from New South Wales arrived in 1851 with a grand plan to rule the island of Guadalcanal (or “Guadalcanar,” a corruption of the Spanish used in some maps). He was instead murdered by natives. A booklength study by a surgeon in the Royal Navy warned in 1887 that while the missionaries and traders along the coasts were exercising a civilizing

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influence, the interior was “inhabited by fierce and treacherous tribes.” The island became a British protectorate in 1893. A commentary to the British Admiralty chart of 1908 warned: Owing to frequent intercourse with whites, but more to the labours of the missionaries, the treacherous and bloodthirsty character hitherto borne by the natives has been modified, but every precaution should be taken against surprise by small parties dealing with them. Adventurer and journalist Jack London spent some time on the island and in 1916 wrote a short story set there, called “The Red One.” A perusal of this work, similar in tone to the final pages of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, would have put Marine planners on notice that they were about to visit hell-onearth.73 The Lever dry-goods concern had arrived about when Jack London did, with a view to exploiting the copra. By the late 1930s the copra plantation, next to the grassy area where the Japanese would build an airstrip, comprised some 7,000 acres, managed by an Englishman named Bernays, who wore small gold earrings. While visitors could take comfort from the former resident commissioner’s assurance that to his knowledge locals had not organized a head-hunting party for a number of years, Bernays nevertheless warned that “Anyone who thinks he is safe for a minute in the Solomons is daft.” Infanticide was still of recent memory, with cannibalism said to be still active in the hills.74 Postcards of Guadalcanal and Tulagi, derived from photographs taken by missionaries, were scenic but useless.75 The British Admiralty chart of the waters off “Guadalcanar,” with “corrections” current as of April 1901, openly admitted that “little reliance” should be placed on what it stated or failed to state about shoals, and provided no accurate information regarding what travelers might find when they stepped ashore.76 Tulagi, across the channel, had been the Australian provincial capital, the primary locus of the 500 Europeans who lived in the southern Solomons, most of them planters, traders, colonial administrators, sailors and Lever employees, who had been evacuated several months before. To find some to talk to, Vandegrift assigned his chief intelligence officer, Lt.-Col. Frank Goettge, who had dropped out of college in 1917 to join the Marines, then turned down a football contract with the New York Giants to stay in. He arranged interviews with planters, government workers and employees of the Burns, Philp & Co dry goods concern, flying to Sidney, Melbourne, and even up to Vila on Efate.77 The British Admiralty map, derived from an Austrian map dated 1897, showed trading huts and a well-plumbed anchorage in an area called “Lengo.”78 Neither it nor a crude real-estate map showed topographical detail. Nor had Goettge’s interviewees shown any great keenness for 157

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exploration and observation, most being able to provide only hazy descriptions, while others, speaking with greater assurance, were simply wrong. In the end, the “official” map used for the invasion was a crude, hand-sketched affair compiling what Goettge had debriefed from his mixed bag of colonial sources.79 Some informants volunteered to accompany the Marines ashore, although only one of them, a former Lever employee named Charles Widdy, was thought worthy of mention by memoir writers. There were also three former officers of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate, Dick Horton, Henry Josselyn and Nick Waddell, all now commissioned as sub-lieutenants in the Royal Australian Navy. And there were three school boys, Solomon Dakei, Hugo Gigini and Silas Sitai, who had been off at school in Fiji but were now returning home as scouts and, as necessary, as volunteer interpreters with Guadalcanal’s 8,000–10,000 indigenous inhabitants.80 On 26 November 1941 the Joint Board in Washington had thought war sufficiently certain to request aerial photographs of all Pacific islands, although 7 December intervened to end that project.81 Aerial photographs were taken during Fletcher’s attack on Tulagi and the Battle of the Coral Sea, but these either went to the bottom with Lexington or Yorktown or became equally inaccessible in some file somewhere.82 A good set of aerial photos taken by Col. Karl F. Polifka was misdirected by an Army transport officer in Townsville, then lost in the mayhem of the docks at Wellington, then relocated after the campaign was over (Figure 7.4).83 A set of aerial strip pictures was provided to Vandegrift, but it had been taken in partially cloudy weather, leaving parts of the mosaic blank.84 On 17 July Lt.-Col. Merrill B. Twining, the Division’s assistant operations officer, attempted to get a string of aerial photographs of the Lunga area in a B-17, but his mission had to be abandoned under an attack of Zeros, and Twining just made it back to Port Moresby – a round trip over 1,500 miles – on fumes.85 A suggested nighttime landing by a small band of Edson’s Raiders to confer with coastwatcher Martin Clemens was scrubbed by Ghormley as too risky.86 MacArthur had promised aerial reconnaissance as well as frequent bombing of the Japanese base at Rabaul. For additional aerial reconnaissance and bombing from land-based aircraft and tender-based flying boats, Ghormley assigned his old Annapolis 1906 classmate, RAdm. John Sidney McCain. Once the 2,000-foot airstrip at Efate was extended to 5,000 feet and a similar bomber strip was carved out of the jungle at Espíritu Santo, “Slew” McCain assigned ten B-17E Flying Fortresses, as well as another twelve in the Fijis and nine on New Caledonia. He also had a total of twentyeight PBYs at a total of nine airfields, as well as fifty F4F-3P Wildcat fighters, seventy-nine Army Bell P-39 Airacobra pursuit planes, twenty-two Army Martin B-26B Marauder medium bombers, twenty-two flying boats, and eighteen Hudsons Lend-Leased to the Royal New Zealand Air Force.87 158

Figure 7.4 Set of aerial photos of Lunga area. Airfield is under construction near bottom of Lunga Plain, third frame from left.

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Frank Jack Fletcher Ghormley assigned senior command of the assaults to another Annapolis 1906 classmate, Frank Jack Fletcher, 57 years old, promoted to vice-admiral on 15 July (Figure 7.5). Under him was a carrier force led by yet another of the 116 members of that class of 1906, RAdm. Leigh Noyes, who, like Turner,

Figure 7.5 VAdm. Frank Jack Fletcher, 17 September 1942.

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Ghormley and R.A. Spruance, had forgone intelligence work for a seagoing command. It was comprised of three groups: Saratoga, with two cruisers and five destroyers; Enterprise, with two cruisers, five destroyers and the new, fast battleship North Carolina; and Wasp, with two cruisers and six destroyers.88 Napoleon, when considering an officer for promotion, asked: “Is he lucky?” Fletcher’s curriculum vitae was highly distinguished, albeit with a hint of bad luck. He had been assigned the relief of Wake in December 1941, an opportunity for military stardom, but encountered difficulties fueling and was recalled, leaving the personnel on Wake to be captured and killed. After the war, the first edition of S.E. Morison’s The Rising Sun in the Pacific spread the word that Fletcher could well have acted in time and saved the island if he had not been over-occupied with refueling issues.89 Fletcher was in command at Midway, but had to transfer his flag from Yorktown after a bomb blew off its radio aerials, thereby yielding tactical command to Spruance, whose name would thereafter be associated with the brilliant outcome of that engagement.90 On 30 March 1942, King had snapped at Fletcher for sailing away from a Japanese force, when in fact Fletcher had been nowhere near them, his position having been misreported by an Army reconnaissance plane.91 In the Battle of the Coral Sea, luck was with him twice, first when a flight of Japanese fighters could not interdict him because of bad weather, then when his dependence upon faulty intelligence was offset by the enemy’s own misinformation.92 However, he then lost King’s former flagship, Lexington, and not from a bomb or torpedo but from exploding gasoline vapor wafting into a generator room, after a damagecontrol crew had inspected it and declared it safe.93 He had been awarded the Medal of Honor for saving 350 refugees at Vera Cruz in April 1914, but its prestige was cheapened somewhat by Congress’s having issued a preposterous fifty-five such medals for that engagement, as if motivated to make the battle look more significant than it was. Fletcher’s present assignment would be to provide air cover by positioning his carriers 60 to 100 miles south of Lunga and Tulagi. He was as dubious about the operation as Ghormley and MacArthur, in that Japanese bombers and fighters were sure to get word of the operation and arrive from Rabaul. Because of the Coral Sea and Midway, Fletcher knew the strategic significance of having carriers, and the agony of losing them. He might have taken away from the Wake affair that some above him in the chain of command thought preserving carriers to be a value superior to that of helping a small garrison of men under threat. Some said that he had grown tired, that he had been too long at sea. Some said he refused to focus on the fact that WATCHTOWER bore no resemblance to the operations at Midway and the Coral Sea, in that here the goal was an amphibious assault, with carriers tasked to protect that assault rather than to sink other carriers and/ or assure their own survival. Nimitz, who with King had sensed a possible 161

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timidity in Fletcher’s performance at the Battle of the Coral Sea, nevertheless recommended Fletcher’s promotion to the three stars of viceadmiral.94 But King, as Lexington’s former skipper, demurred for several weeks, having a policy of not promoting men who lost their ships.95 It would appear that King favored the extremely rare class of officers who were lucky, that is, who took risks that paid off, while avoiding the penalties inherent in risk-taking. A second task force, directly commanded by Turner with overall command in Fletcher, was comprised of thirteen personnel transports, four “APDs” (destroyers converted to do quick in-and-out transport work), six cargo ships and five destroyer/minesweepers, supported by the heavy cruisers Quincy (9,375 tons), Vincennes (9,400 tons) and Astoria (9,960 tons) and the light cruiser San Juan (6,000 tons), as well as a patrol group comprised of two sister ships, the Australian heavy cruisers Australia and Canberra (both 9,750 tons), the light cruiser Hobart (7,000 tons), the US Navy’s heavy cruiser Chicago (9,300 tons), and two destroyers. Turner delegated command of this latter group to RAdm. Victor A.C. Crutchley of the Royal Navy. And six submarines would be assigned supporting roles.96 The US Navy’s bible of amphibious assault advised: Debarkation of troops and material from transports should be accomplished in the shortest possible time. A fast debarkation reduces the period of greatest vulnerability of transports to air and submarine attacks, lessens the value of the information given to the enemy, and shortens the time boats must remain in the water.97 Although the reloading in Wellington had been haphazard, frustrating and incomplete, and the dress rehearsal a “complete bust,” Turner, with no experience in large and complex landings on hostile shores, felt optimistic. On 25 July, one day before a rendezvous with Fletcher’s Saratoga near the Fijis, he sent Fletcher a message: If things go well, it seems likely that we may be able to send [some of the transports] to the rear on the night of D-Day, and probably send the rest . . . out on the night of D plus one Day. The great difficulty is going to be with the five cargo vessels left. Estimates for unloading vary all the way from three to six days, but you can be assured that we will get this done as soon as possible. We will need air protection during this entire period.98 Turner thus afforded Fletcher a few hours’ time to think about the projected schedule before they met. At the 26 July rendezvous, Fletcher summoned Turner, Vandegrift, Noyes, and McCain, announcing that he was not going to put his three 162

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carriers at risk for the time Turner said he needed. Turner’s new chief-ofstaff, Capt. Thomas Peyton, recalled the conference as one long bitter argument between VAdm. Fletcher and my new boss. Fletcher questioned the whole upcoming operation. Since he kept implying that it was largely Turner’s brainchild, and mentioning that those who planned it had no real fighting experience, he seemed to be doubting [Turner’s] competence. Fletcher’s main point of view was the operation was too hurriedly and therefore not thoroughly planned, the Task Force not trained together, and the logistic support inadequate. My boss kept saying “the decision has been made. It’s up to us to make it a success.” I was amazed and disturbed by the way these two admirals talked to each other. I had never heard anything like it. In my opinion too much of the conference was devoted to “fighting the problem,” as we used to say at the [Naval] War College, and too little time to trying to solve the problem.99 After the war, New York Times military analyst Hanson Baldwin interviewed Turner, his notes being to the same effect: Fletcher announced that he could not or would not stay there any longer than about forty-eight hours after the landing. Turner protested and finally said that he more or less had to stay there for at least four days for the ships could not be unloaded within forty-eight hours.100 Nimitz’s 9 July order to Ghormley had been: “You will exercise strategic command in person.” Thus, Ghormley should have been present on Saratoga that day to resolve this crisis between an officer needing time for landing all necessary men and supplies in the Allies’ first ground assault against the Axis, and a senior naval commander afraid of losing his assets in an operation he thought ill advised. Although Ghormley claimed he could not spare the time, it is impossible to imagine anything with a higher priority.101 Nimitz’s 9 July “in person” order had been transmitted from Hawaii one day after (and, in some sense, in response to) Ghormley’s message to Nimitz and King that he and MacArthur doubted the wisdom of the entire operation. And it was just a few days after that, on 16 July, that Ghormley had backed away from the project and anointed Fletcher (steaming from Pearl Harbor under radio silence) as the senior man on the scene. It was as if, naval historian John B. Lundstrom has written, Ghormley was saying to Nimitz and King: Since you will not accept my advice about postponing this project, let your man lead it.102 163

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Ghormley did send to the 26 July conference his chief-of-staff, RAdm. Daniel Callaghan, who throughout the meeting reportedly “never said a word.”103 Formerly Roosevelt’s naval aide, he at least understood the gravity of the situation. Ghormley’s summary of what Callaghan reported to him included the notation: “Task Force must withdraw to South from objective area . . . within two days after D day!”104 Yet this written record of what Callaghan told Ghormley avoids altogether mention of any dispute, relating instead that everyone at the meeting “deplored [the] lack of time to plan carefully and thoroughly, but saw not out but to whip plans into shape as rapidly as possible.” Indeed, as a “polite” and “civil” veil placed over what was reported by others as an ugly meeting, the Callaghan/Ghormley memo could have been penned by Jane Austen: Admiral Fletcher called me aside and said he was pleased that you . . . put him in tactical command of this operation. Thought you were going to exercise that function. Said he hoped you would not hesitate to change tactical disposition if you thought it necessary, and he would not take it amiss, as you might be in much better position to see the whole picture. Told him I thought you would not hesitate to do this if you found it necessary, but hoped that need for such action would not arise. Pointed out that during radio silence our knowledge of his tactical dispositions would have to be based solely on his operation orders and some guessing, unless he could keep us informed by plane. He promised to do this at every opportunity.105 Nor would Fletcher in retrospect admit that the meeting had been disputatious. In 1947 Baldwin asked Fletcher to answer several specific questions, among them: What plan of action was decided upon at the conference . . .? My understanding is that you, Admiral Turner and Admiral Callahan discussed the operational plan but that no agreement as to how long the air support force should remain off Guadalcanal was reached. I have been told that you asserted that it would be necessary for this task force to leave not later than forty-eight hours after the initial invasion; that Admiral Turner disagreed with this but Admiral Callahan took no part in arriving at the decision and that, in effect, there was no meeting of the minds between you and Admiral Turner about this important point. Fletcher, undoubtedly knowing that Baldwin already had Turner’s version of the meeting and was in essence giving Fletcher a fair opportunity to respond, replied that although he had not refreshed his recollection, 164

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I do not believe that the time the carriers would remain off Guadalcanal was brought up, except very casually. That subject had been covered at a conference at Pearl [in the first week of July] between Nimitz, Turner, me and others. I pointed out to Nimitz that the stay of the carriers would have to be very limited. Nimitz gave me the impression that the landing force would be ashore in two days and could dig in and accept air attacks. At the time of the [26 July] conference . . . I expected to remain off Guadalcanal until the landing was completed if it was not unduly delayed. Most of the conference was taken up in planning our fighter protection to cover both the landing and the carriers. I believe we modified our plans and I distinctly remember that Turner and his staff were very pleased. At no time was there any friction between Turner and myself.106 Significantly, Baldwin had not even suggested that there had been any friction, only a lack of a meeting of the minds. Fletcher, it seems, felt it necessary to deny a version of events that had not even been posed to him. Turner and Vandegrift – for their part – each honored the chain of command by not reaching out to Ghormley to overrule Fletcher. If Fletcher’s timetable had been made known to Vandegrift back in Wellington, he might have organized the unloading and reloading specifically to prepare for this problem. But there was no time now. He ordered all units to “reduce their equipment and supplies to those items that are actually required to live and fight.” Rations and fuel were to be cut by a third, with enough ammunition for a mere ten to fifteen days. Just how a reduction in needed supplies could be translated into picking and choosing among crates and boxes in cargo holds on Dog Day, was perforce left to chance.107

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Dog Day On 30 July, seven B-17s bombed the growing Japanese presence on Guadalcanal. On 1 August came ten more, the next day eleven, and on 6 August, B-17s dropped a total of twenty-eight 300-pound bombs.1 Some of the local men formerly enlisted by the Japanese to help build the airfield now wandered off. Even before the B-17s arrived, the Japanese knew something was afoot, an intelligence report having stated that the Americans were going to invade, brashly adding that the local Japanese force would prevail.2 Lt. T. Okamura, in command of the construction, must have sensed that time was short, since he repeatedly requested aircraft to fly in as soon as the airstrip could receive them, several light planes having already made successful test landings.3 What the Japanese were thinking, however, was unknown to the Allies, since the Imperial Navy had instituted a new JN-25D code.4 VAdm. Gunichi Mikawa’s 8th Fleet Command (Soto-nanyo Butai) on Rabaul, notified by Imperial Navy Headquarters on 4 August of an increase in US radio transmissions, believed that any American activity near Guadalcanal would be merely a feint to divert attention from what was thought the Allies’ real goal – to intercept the transports carrying Japan’s 17th Army to New Guinea’s north coast.5 Some transports had already landed on 21 July near the villages of Buna, Gona and Sanananda, unloading 2,000 soldiers and 1,200 bearers from Rabaul. The 500-man 5th Sasebo Landing Force under Lt.-Col. Hatsuo Tsukamoto had already crossed the Kumusi River and on 29 July captured Kokoda from a 100-man company of the Australian 39th Battalion. This forward echelon was thus almost halfway to Port Moresby, although still short of the treacherous mountain passes. Soon Japan’s South Seas Force under Maj.-Gen. Horii arrived; 2,000 of its troops proceeded up the Kokoda Track. On Tuesday, 4 August, only three days from Dog Day, Turner issued a memo to all hands announcing where they were headed.6 Nobody had heard 166

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of it, some thinking it must be some sort of canal. On Thursday, 6 August, men on deck listening to Radio Tokyo would hear Tokyo Rose deride America’s failure to take the initiative in the South Pacific: “Where are the United States Marines?” she chided, “No one has seen them yet!”7 Ghormley sent out a gung-ho message to his commanders: “Sock ’em in the Solomons!”8 Harry Power, skipper of the USS Betelgeuse out of San Diego, announced: “Tomorrow we will strike a blow to avenge the dirty treachery of PEARL HARBOR.”9 In the early hours of Friday, 7 August, the Allied force rounded Guadalcanal’s southwestern coast at 12 knots. A helpful weather front had kept the Japanese flying boats at Tulagi from making reconnaissance flights, while the rudimentary Japanese radar saw no blips. Despite the worries about loose talk back in New Zealand, surprise was absolute. The weather cleared and after 0223 a waning moon revealed Guadalcanal to the few men on deck.10 The Marines were awoken at 0330 and served steak for breakfast, followed by an inspirational message written by President Roosevelt.11 At 0605, still twenty-eight minutes before sunrise, float planes were catapulted to direct shelling and search for submarines. At 0613 Quincy commenced bombardment at targets of opportunity.12 Well to the south, Fletcher’s carriers assigned sixteen F4Fs and twenty-four SBD-3s to destroy the enemy aircraft in the harbor near Tulagi, with a similar number to hit whatever they found near Lunga. Saratoga, then about 30 miles southwest of Guadalcanal, had launched its first planes at 0530. The F4Fs arrived at Lunga at 0615 and began strafing the airfield and setting fire to Japanese supplies, also dispatching a small Japanese plane that happened to be passing by. The SBDs targeted anti-aircraft gun emplacements and took out some oil tanks at Kukum.13 The Tulagi-bound F4Fs destroyed up to a dozen four-engined flying boats and eight float-equipped Zeros (called “Rufes”) (Map 6).14 The eight American transports assigned to Tulagi, collectively named Group YOKE, arrived at their anchorage at 0637, the fifteen for Guadalcanal, Group XRAY, arriving at 0651. Paul Moore, educated at St. Paul’s and Yale, later recalled: “I felt like the Greeks going to Troy or something.” The XRAY transports would assemble for the debarkation point 4.5 miles off the anchorage called “Lengo” in the old Austrian map, several miles east of the airfield. At 0903 Quincy, Vincennes and Astoria leveled a six-minute pre-assault softening of 2,000 rounds of 5-inch and 45 rounds of 8-inch shells, peppering the shoreline to a depth of 200 yards. On the Tulagi side, San Juan unloaded 280 5-inch shells. The first units of the 5th Marines had already descended the debarkation nets into Andrew Higgins’ landing craft. Each carrying thirty-six men, they milled around while dozens of others were choreographed. Beach Red, a known anchorage in the Admiralty charts, was ideal for purposes of amphibious assault, with a steep incline from the deep channel to the beach and no jutting coral heads, meaning that there 167

Map 6 Approach by XRAY and YOKE transport groups to Guadalcanal and Tulagi

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would be neither a hanging up of boats nor an extended and exposed walk in the water.15 Since only a third of the Higgins boats were the new models with dropramps (LCVP(R) = Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel, Ramp), most of the invading force hit the beach by rolling over the side. Some of the men had painted their faces. The first group from the 5th Marines under Col. LeRoy Hunt hit Beach Red at 0913. While some had visions of carnage, in fact the men moved inland unopposed. They were followed by the open-decked LVT(1)s (Landing Vehicle, Tracked Model no. 1), called “Alligators” (although nicknamed “Large Vulnerable Targets”), designed by Donald Roebling of the great engineering family, its civil precursor intended for use in evacuating families from the Everglades during hurricanes. Starting at 0942, the transports came closer and anchored. At 1015 the Allied shelling ceased. At 1030 word came back from shore: “Penetrated 500 yards. No opposition.”16 On the Tulagi side things were very different. The original Japanese presence in May had been comprised of 200 men of the elite Special Naval Landing Forces unit of Japan’s 4th Fleet, and an anti-aircraft unit of 50. In July were added 144 construction workers for the seaplane base and dozens of additional men to fly and maintain the seaplanes. While at first they mistook the approaching transports as Japanese, at 0625 the local commander on Makambo sent a radio message: “Twenty ships of the enemy’s mobile force have arrived Tulagi, aerial bombardment by the enemy is underway; the enemy is preparing for landing. Aid requested.” It was picked up by Japan’s 8th Fleet and 5th Air Radar on Rabaul, 560 miles to the north. The message would also be intercepted back in Hawaii, the first report Nimitz would receive. Relaying the news back to King in Washington, he noted: “At last we have started!”17 The first units of Marines had wanted to land at 0755, the moment the first bomb landed at Pearl Harbor eight months before. Baker Company of the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines, on loan to Vandegrift from the 2nd Division, accomplished this (perhaps a few minutes early) near Haleta on Florida Island, becoming the first American units to invade enemy-held ground in World War II. Their immediate task was to protect the left flank of a second landing force, led ostensibly by Brig.-Gen. William Rupertus but in reality by “Red Mike” Edson. Edson’s men hit Tulagi’s “Beach Blue” around 0800. At 0810 the destroyer Buchanan spotted the Japanese radio antenna and blew it off.18 The islets of Tanambogo and Gavutu were likened to barbells connected by a rod-like causeway, one featuring the seaplane base, the other being the former headquarters of the copra venture of Levers Pacific Plantation Proprietary, Ltd. To these islands were assigned the 1st Parachute Battalion and the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines (the “2/5”) under Lt.-Col. Harold Rosecrans. The landing was delayed for hours due to a shortage of available 169

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landing craft, giving the Japanese ample time to prepare. They would provide the fiercest resistance of the campaign’s first days, a “soldier’s battle,” Vandegrift wrote, “unremitting and relentless, to be decided only by the extermination of one or the other of the adversaries engaged.” The casualty rate in the 1st Parachute Battalion, a light battalion one-third the size of an infantry battalion, was a catastrophic 50 percent, including a few killed by friendly fire from US planes. Of Edson’s Raiders, 38 were killed and 55 wounded, a casualty rate of 10 percent, with total reported deaths of Marine and Navy personnel on the Tulagi side of the channel quickly rising to above 120. The Japanese fought to the death, with 1,500 known to have been killed, 70 to have escaped to Florida Island, 23 captured, and a maximum of only 3 actually surrendering. Soon 7,500 Marines were ashore on this northern side of the channel, and the worst was over. The high US casualty rates could be ascribed in part to a lack of intelligence about where the defensive strongholds were, to inadequate “softening up,” to delays in getting all troops ashore, and to the fact that this was an archetypal amphibious assault against an entrenched foe, of the kind to be experienced later at Tarawa, Iwo Jima and Omaha Beach. While the Marines had trained for such a thing for over a decade, this first venture could also be euphemistically called a learning experience. “[N]ever again,” Joseph H. Alexander has written, “would a landing force splash ashore so dangerously blind.” In a message to all hands, Vandegrift voiced a short and noble expression for the result achieved: “God favors the bold and strong of heart.”19 At Rabaul’s Upper Airstrip at Vunakanau, the fighters of the Tainan Air Corps, part of RAdm. Sadayoshi Yamada’s 25th Air Flotilla, were already armed and fueled to support a bombing mission against the three new Allied airstrips at the head of New Guinea’s Milne Bay, 195 miles east of Port Moresby. Milne Bay was a crucial target, since from it Allied bombers and fighters could intercept Japanese naval forces from Rabaul without having first to negotiate the treacherous, cloud-encased Owen Stanley Range.20 But now Yamada’s mission was canceled in favor of Guadalcanal/Tulagi, and at 0955 twenty-seven Bettys were launched on the three-hour trip, supported by seventeen Zeros from Vunakanau and the Australian-built fighter strip at Lakunai. Capt. Masahisa Saito informed his Zero pilots that they were embarking on the longest flight of their lives.21 As the Bettys passed over the Bougainville Strait at 15,000 feet, they were reported by coast-watcher Paul Mason.22 At 1315, radar on the heavy cruiser Chicago picked up the planes 43 miles distant at a bearing of 315° True, and at 1324 they appeared out of the northwest in Vee formations, some estimating them at 8,000 feet, others 4,000 feet higher. The Allied warships hit two or three of them with anti-aircraft fire, then the XRAY transports, still anchored 2,000 yards off Beach Red, opened up with their 3-inch M3 170

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anti-aircraft guns. Fuller’s captain later admitted that his vessel’s contribution had been nil since the shells had been set to explode at the wrong altitude.23 For the Fall River objective, each Betty had been loaded with two 550pound and four 130-pound bombs. Although the transports off Guadalcanal failed to take evasive action, the bombing proved utterly ineffective.24 Although the supplies already on the beach would have been easy targets because they were stationary and subject to a straight bomb run, the Bettys ignored them, their orders specifying the destruction of warships and aircraft carriers.25 At 1455 came nine Vals from Lakunai, undetected by the coast-watchers. One dropped a bomb on the destroyer Mugford, killing nineteen. But they did not attack the transports or bomb the beached supplies. Saratoga and Enterprise, about 75 miles to the south, had sent up over thirty F4F-4s, while Wasp sent eight SBD-3s. Although reports conflict, it appears that in the two air raids the Allies destroyed two of eighteen Zeros and fourteen of forty-three Bettys. The Betty’s failure to have self-sealing fuel tanks caused Americans to dub it the “Flying Lighter.” The Americans’ losses were not insubstantial: nine F4Fs and one SBD, although several airmen were retrieved from the water.26 The US had entertained various estimates of the Japanese ground forces. Goettge put at 8,400 the number on Guadalcanal, while former planter Don MacFarlan, observing Lunga from the interior on 6 August, counted the tents and huts and estimated a total of 4,000 men, half of them laborers.27 By dusk on Friday, 11,000 Marines were on Guadalcanal, less than half of them riflemen.28 Vandegrift faced the painful choice of either turning his combat troops into amateur stevedores while watching for an enemy force of unknown size emerging from the jungle at any minute, or having a maximum number of fighting men move forward, take the airfield, and begin to dig in, with rear echelons coping with supplies as best they could. He chose the latter, assigning a mere 310 men to stevedoring, unsupervised by a specialist in manhandling supplies.29 The cargo trucks that might have sped this effort were back in New Zealand.30 Turner could have put ashore 1,900 additional Marines to help, but did not.31 Marines nearby who had not actually been assigned just sat by and watched, as did a few natives. Soon upwards of 100 boats were at Beach Red with no one to unload them, another 50 waiting offshore.32 To the local Melanesian pidgin would be added the word staka, defined as a “huge amount.”33 Although Fletcher would be withdrawing his air cover on Sunday morning, at 0240 on Saturday Turner ordered unloading halted for the night, there being no place left on the beach to put anything.34 While there were other beaches, Lunga was the only one marked with soundings on the old Austrian map, and the only one within what was becoming a Marine perimeter. 171

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Dog Plus One As the sun rose on Saturday, 8 August, the Japanese dispatched twentyseven Bettys, loaded this time with 1,760-pound torpedoes, and supported by fifteen Zeros. Coast-watcher W. Jack Read, overlooking the Japanese seaplane base at Buka Passage less than 175 miles from Rabaul, radioed the Bettys’ progress, using plain language rather than code so that the receiving station at Efate could quickly forward it to Turner.35 It was also picked up at Pearl Harbor and at 1043 retransmitted to Turner. At Beach Red, unloading had not resumed until 0930; on news of the approaching Bettys, the transports weighed anchor and assumed antiaircraft cruising disposition: four division columns of three to four ships each, at intervals of 1,500 yards at a speed of 13 knots, with a distance between ships of 1,000 yards, making simultaneous turns. At 1157 the Bettys appeared out of the clouds over Florida Island, in compound Vee formations, this time descending to only 100 to 200 feet from the surface. Half of them headed for the YOKE transports, the others for XRAY, now initiating torpedo runs at only 20 to 40 feet above the channel.36 The Allied warships, transports and ground installations fired 8-inch, 5-inch, 4-inch, 3-inch, .50caliber and 20-mm rounds, Vincennes’ 8-inch guns achieving “salvo splashes,” towering geysers of water which several planes hit, causing them to crash.37 The XRAY commander, unaccustomed to seeing planes fly so low, thought perhaps the planes wanted to draw horizontal fire so the Allied ships would unwittingly fire upon one another.38 At 1201, a Betty, having been hit by 20-mm guns and its right engine flaming, crashed into George F. Elliott, the former liner City of Los Angeles, exploding on the upper decks on the starboard side near amidships. Although the destroyer Hull tried to tow Elliott to Beach Red so its cargo could be saved, the tow failed.39 Later, in an effort to eliminate the burning vessel as a beacon when night fell, Hull fired four torpedoes at it, but none exploded.40 Elliott would continue to blaze brightly through the night, illuminating the transports, destroyers and APDs. All but one of the planes were shot down, a sort of pay-back for Midway. Only one torpedo found its target, killing fifteen men on the destroyer Jarvis. If the Japanese had chosen on this second day to arm with bombs to destroy the staka of vulnerable supplies on the beach, “the consequences,” Vandegrift later wrote, “might well have been incalculable and ruinous.”41 As things stood, the Americans in two days had successfully fended off three substantial aerial attacks. Everyone was amazed at the disorganization of the attacks and the maneuvers employed and the apparent complete lack of knowledge of the tactics of aerial torpedo attacks. . . . The reason . . . is that on the previous day when our forces were attacked by horizontal bombers, the ships on the Guadalcanal side of the channel did not get under 172

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way, but stayed along the shore and only the cruisers and destroyers were in the middle of the stream, along with four ships disembarking cargo on the Tulagi side. It is thought that the pilots reported this fact to their base and that the torpedo planes were sent down with specific instructions to hit the cruisers and destroyers which they hoped to find alone in the middle of the channel. Having eliminated them, they hoped to attack the remaining transports with a cruiser task force which we knew was en route from Rabaul. However, on arriving they found not only the cruisers and destroyers in the middle of the stream, but all the transports and cargo ships and all let go at once. Endeavoring to carry out their orders to pick the destroyers and cruisers, they became confused because of the AA fire and never came out of their dilemma.42 Since Fletcher’s prior experience with Vals had been in carrier battles, their presence on 7 August suggested to him that a Japanese carrier might be nearby, the likeliest spot being the wide-open waters of the Solomon Sea west of Guadalcanal. His own carriers moved east all day Friday, placing them at midnight 60-70 miles south of Guadalcanal. On Saturday, Fletcher and Noyes sent fewer planes to Guadalcanal and Tulagi, keeping many in reserve for self-defense.43 And although on Saturday, F4Fs from Enterprise reportedly dispatched five Bettys in as many minutes, other flights defending the transports proved inefficient, with Wasp’s patrols being too early to engage the Japanese, Saratoga’s too late.44 Contrary to the several intelligence reports, the Japanese on Guadalcanal totaled only 400 to 600, most of them trained in engineering rather than combat, along with 2,300 to 2,600 conscript workers, many of them Korean and Chinese, who had been sent on various jobs for two years, strung along with promises that soon they could go home.45 While the Tulagi side of the channel had been a fight-to-the-death, these men on Guadalcanal had all run away during the initial shelling, abandoning their four bivouacs along the Lunga River, apparently believing (a captured man later said) that the US was only on a raid to destroy the airstrip and would soon re-embark.46 Thus they left everything: ammunition, equipment, canned goods, many bags of rice, sake, a refrigeration unit stocked with Asahi beer, even the chopsticks jutting from their unfinished morning rice. Now forced into the jungle with little food, they foraged native sweet-potato gardens and when these were depleted, went hungry. A few would eventually surrender; many would starve. By 1600 on Saturday the 1/1 had secured the airfield and was continuing east to the Lunga River, while the 1/5 went directly west along the coast, crossing the Lunga and establishing a position facing Kukum (Map 7). The American construction equipment was still in the cargo holds, with only one of the 1st Engineering Battalion’s bulldozers getting to shore. But the 173

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Map 7 Initial dispositions on Guadalcanal, 7–8 August 1942.

Japanese had left four tractors, nine road-rollers, thousands of gallons of gasoline, and 600 tons of cement, even a 1940 Plymouth.47 The landing strip, 3,778 feet long and 160 feet wide, was nearly complete, with a gap of only 197 feet still to be rolled and leveled. The road-rollers, damaged during the initial US barrage, were now cannibalized for enough parts to yield one functioning machine. There were trucks and dozens of bicycles, as well as an attractive wooden command center 200 yards from the airstrip, dubbed “the Pagoda” because it featured the uplifted eaves of the Asian architectural style.48 The Americans completed the runway quickly and a few days later extended it, naming the aerodrome after Maj. Lofton Henderson of Marine Scouting-Bombing Squadron 241, who had died leading an attack on the Japanese carriers at Midway.49 The Imperial Navy had switched from the JN-25B code to JN-25C on 1 June, too late to avoid Rochefort’s decrypting the plan for Midway but in time to put the US in the dark until a body of data using the new code could be collected and analyzed. Among the items the Marines found in one of the Lunga bivouacs was a codebook for this new JN-25 variant, although it would be of no use. Back on 7 June, just a few hours after Midway, the fact of the US’s ability to break Japan’s naval code was revealed in Robert McCormick’s rabidly anti-Roosevelt Chicago Tribune, after one of its reporters was shown a code-breaking document by Lexington’s executive officer. Although many would view publishing such a story in wartime as punishable by execution, the Navy had failed to have the reporter sign a 174

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confidentiality agreement before coming aboard the carrier, thus allowing the Tribune to persuade a grand jury that anything the Navy voluntarily shows a reporter is fair game for publication.50 Whether in reaction to the story or not, the Japanese on 14 August dispensed with JN-25C in favor of yet another version, JN-25D.51 On Saturday afternoon the commodore of the XRAY transports, without authority from Turner, dealt with the time constraints by ordering a “general unloading,” making the supply logjam even worse. Despite Fletcher’s decision to withdraw air cover after Saturday, Turner, perhaps because of the superb shooting by his surface vessels, decided to continue unloading one more day. Word of his decision to stay was radioed to but never reached either Fletcher or Ghormley. Turner’s flagship, McCawley, a coal-burning transport converted from the Grace Line’s Santa Barbara in 1940, had been nicknamed “Wacky Mac” – without affection. Prominent among its inadequacies was a communications system totally unsuitable for flag purposes.52 At 2032 on Saturday, Turner called Vandegrift and Crutchley to meet with him on McCawley (Figure 8.1). Several hours earlier he had received reports indicating

Figure 8.1 RAdm. R. K. Turner (left) and Maj.-Gen. A. A. Vandegrift on flag bridge of McCawley.

175

THE FIRST TWO DAYS

that by [Sunday] morning . . . we would have landed 30 days rations, ample amo, and most of the gas. Until about 1500 or 1600, I assumed unloading on Tulagi was proceeding – I then found nothing had been landed. When this . . . was digested . . . I decided to hold the conference: 1st, to find out from Vandegrift whether or not he would have enough stores ashore to let us retire; 2nd, to get Crutchley’s opinion as to whether the ships could stick it out for 1 or 2 days more, in spite of Fletcher’s retirement. Crutchley arrived on McCawley at 2230, Vandegrift not until 2315. Vandegrift was not (as one might reasonably be) visibly angry about having a significant proportion of his supplies and even some of his warriors about to sail off. Rather, he “told Turner that we were all right on Guadalcanal, but that he would have to know more about the situation on Tulagi before concurring in the withdrawal of the transports.” Turner had a boat ready to take him over. The third prong of Task One, the occupation of Ndeni, had been sidelined ever since the Americans had heard that an airfield was being built on Guadalcanal. Turner had decided that the heavy resistance encountered at Tulagi warranted postponing the 130-mile excursion to Ndeni, and he committed his reserves from the 2nd Marines. When in the middle of the night Vandegrift reached Tulagi, he saw that all was well.53

176

9 THE BATTLE OF S AV O I S L A N D

Savo Island, 4 miles in diameter, 7½ miles north of Guadalcanal and 18 miles west of Tulagi, comprised a partial barrier against any Japanese naval force trying to attack the transport areas either via New Georgia Sound (“the Slot”), or the Solomon Sea in the west, or around Santa Isabel to the north. Volcanic in origin, Savo had been in eruption when the Spanish first saw it in the sixteenth century. Its more recent inhabitants had been noted for their aggressive cannibalism.1 Turner had surprised some by his ecumenical choice of Crutchley, a British officer, as his second-in-command. Also in direct command of the screening forces in the channels on both sides of Savo, Crutchley stationed the heavy cruisers Vincennes, Astoria and Quincy and the destroyers Helm and Wilson in the northeast channel, their nighttime configuration being box-shaped, with 90-degree turns each half-hour. He placed the heavy cruisers Australia, Canberra and Chicago to the south with the destroyers Bagley and Patterson, moving at 12 knots, 600 yards apart and reversing direction on the hour.2 Crutchley also deployed two destroyers, Blue and Ralph Talbot, as pickets, patrolling in northeast-to-southwest tracks 6 to 8 miles into the Slot. For Crutchley, attending Turner’s Saturday-night meeting meant a 20mile journey from the southern screen to McCawley, which lay at the eastern end of the landing area, just outside an anti-submarine screen of destroyers and APDs surrounding the transports. While he might have taken a launch, he chose instead to pull Australia out of its place in the screen. Australia lacked a TBS (“Talk Between Ships”) radio, and it was unclear how many ships knew that he and Australia were gone and that he had delegated command of the screen to Chicago’s skipper, Howard Bode. Capt. Frederick L. Riefkohl, on Vincennes and in command of the northern screen, did not know, nor did RAdm. Norman Scott, commanding a screen of warships athwart the channel between Tulagi and Beach Red. Even among ships and commanders from the same navy who have drilled together in nighttime operations, rejoining the track of a moving screen in the dark was an intrinsically hazardous maneuver, with the possibility that 177

THE BATTLE OF SAVO ISLAND

one might either collide or be mistaken for the enemy and fired upon. These men and ships were from different nations, had not worked together, were mostly new to nighttime maneuvers, and were dead tired. When he left the southern screen at 2055, Crutchley had not decided whether he would be returning or not. This being so, Bode chose not to put Chicago in the lead of that screen. Crutchley, like most senior officers in the operation, had had little sleep in three days. He left McCawley at 2355, and although Australia lay nearby, the coxswain on Crutchley’s launch could not find it in the dark. Finally reaching Australia after 0115, now even more exhausted, Crutchley chose not to return to the screen, making Australia its own one-ship screen patrolling on courses 60º to 240º about 18,000 yards west of Beach Red. He went to bed.3 In the Pearl Harbor attack six months earlier, VAdm. Gunichi Mikawa, 53, had been Nagumo’s second-in-command. Now commanding the 8th Fleet, Mikawa had responded to Tulagi’s distress signal by commandeering the 18th Heavy Cruiser Division, a convoy escort force from Rabaul, and the 6th Heavy Cruiser Division, a support force from Silver Sound near Kavieng on New Ireland, 130 miles north of Rabaul, to join his flagship, the heavy cruiser Chokai, to form a squadron of five heavy and two light cruisers and one destroyer for purposes of foiling the Americans’ invasion. An appropriate order went out from the huge Japanese base at Truk, but the Allies could not decrypt it.4 The Allies’ vast aerial reconnaissance system, the product of many months of work, seemed to have every inch of ocean covered. Every day B-17s would leave the Seven Mile airstrip outside Port Moresby, avoid the highest peaks (13,000+ feet) of the Owen Stanley Range, then head for Rabaul, returning via Kavieng and Cape Gloucester. The Fall River airstrip at Milne Bay also dispatched four planes a day. The first would cross the Solomon Sea, enter the Slot from the south, travel its length, then turn back after passing Vella Lavella. The second plane traversed the Slot, then turned north of Choiseul, then came back over the Bougainville Strait. A third flew just below Bougainville, then north, then back through the Buka Passage. The fourth crossed Bougainville, returning via George’s Channel south of Rabaul. Five PBYs from Espíritu Santo, four from the Fijis and four from Ndeni covered a huge swath of ocean east of Bougainville, Choiseul and Santa Isabel. A PBY from Efate covered the sector between Guadalcanal and Rennell Island.5 As they steamed south, Mikawa’s ships came repeatedly under Allied observation. At 1231 on Friday, MacArthur’s B-17s saw both segments of Mikawa’s squadron near Rabaul, although they had not yet joined up. At 2319, MacArthur’s headquarters forwarded the sighting to Turner: “Six unidentified ships sighted . . . in St. George Channel, Course SE.” The message, although sent eleven hours later than it should have been, still gave Turner and McCain all day Saturday to find these ships headed southeast. 178

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At 2010 on Friday, Lt.-Cmdr. H.G. Munson, commanding the US submarine S-38 off Cape St. George southeast of Rabaul, radioed having seen at 1930 two small and three large vessels. This was an undercount, perhaps due to the darkness, perhaps because all Munson saw was the tail of one part of Mikawa’s group, CruDiv 18. This message did not reach Turner until 0738 on Saturday, substantially delayed but still early enough to order additional air reconnaissance. B-17s from the new airstrip at Espíritu Santo, 520 miles southeast of Lunga Point, reported nothing, having apparently missed Mikawa by 60 miles during an incomplete patrol. A TBF Avenger from Enterprise also saw nothing, missing the ships by 35 miles as they passed through the Bougainville Strait and entered the Slot.6 At 1026 on Saturday, a Royal Australian Air Force Hudson out of Fall River saw Mikawa’s force 37 miles northeast of the newly expanded Japanese base at Kieta in central Bougainville, still almost 350 miles from Guadalcanal. The Hudson radioed a message: IN POSITION 05 49S 156 07 E [latitude 05° 49⬘ South; longitude 156° 07⬘ East] SIGHTED EIGHT WARSHIPS COURSE 180 DEGREES T SPEED 15 KNOT FORCE CONSISTED OF THREE CRUISERS THREE DESTROYERS TWO SEAPLANE TENDERS OR GUNBOATS.

This was a very competent report, the force being in fact composed of seven cruisers and a destroyer. McCawley apparently did not receive the transmission, nor did the Hudson’s base at Fall River, having shut down for twenty-eight minutes during a Japanese air raid. Nor, by ill fortune, was the message picked up by either Port Moresby or Townsville, either of which might have rebroadcast it to Turner.7 Australian journalist Denis Warner and historian Peggy Warner suggest that personnel on several of the Allied ships and carriers did pick up the Hudson’s message. They argue that the plane was using a frequency (6,765 kilocycles) also used by coast-watchers, causing recipients to mistake it for a coast-watcher’s report. Since, they assert, the same ships also received at about the same time a coast-watcher’s report from Jack Read indicating the approach of Japanese bombers, perhaps a message about ships still hundreds of miles away was simply considered secondary, unworthy of being forwarded to Turner until the day’s more immediate concern – aerial attacks – had been addressed. Two other researchers, Chris Coulthard-Clark of the Australian War Memorial and Bruce Loxton, who served in the Royal Australian Navy and was wounded on Canberra on the night of 8–9 August, disagree with that thesis, pointing out that the Hudson’s radio was probably using 6,700 kilocycles, and that if by chance a coast-watcher was tuned in to that frequency and then passed along the information using the coastwatchers’ own 6,765 kilocycles, there would be some record of it in one or more coast-watcher receiving stations to the south.8 179

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A second Hudson, spotting Mikawa’s ships at 1103, attempted an immediate radio report but was scolded by Fall River into resuming radio silence. On their return to base, both Hudson crews were questioned by debriefers, who filed reports. Townsville, to which the first Fall River debriefing was sent, decided not to broadcast it to all commanders, instead forwarding it to Brisbane at 1817. There the Australians passed it by pneumatic tube to MacArthur’s naval headquarters. Only at that point did the message move rapidly, being radioed to Pearl Harbor for rebroadcast to the battle zone. McCawley received a report of the first Hudson’s sighting at 1842, after sunset and therefore too late to mount additional reconnaissance. Although the second sighting confirmed an earlier sighting by a plane from the same base, the debriefer at Fall River had refused to credit what the second pilot told him, and thus passed on to Townsville a watered-down account. It was rebroadcast at 2130, when it was picked up by both McCawley and Australia.9 Loxton received a full dose of the anti-Australian version of events during his year (1959) at the US Naval War College, where his teacher was Commodore Richard W. Bates, the coauthor of the official (and at that time still classified) 1950 study of what happened. Loxton and the three other Australian researchers have committed painstaking hours to reconstructing the history of these two sightings, together presenting (despite their disagreements inter sese) a long-delayed response to Samuel Eliot Morison’s quasi-official history, which understandably stuck in their collective craw. Morison had accused the Royal Australian Air Force of taking its bloody sweet time in getting the word out about Mikawa’s approaching force; he then added insult to injury by throwing in a Yankee accusation about a tea break. When Morison’s primary research assistant, Lt. Roger Pineau, first read this accusation against the Australians, he warned Morison that unless it derived from intelligence still classified, he had better set forth his proof or dispense with the allegation. But Morison, apparently confident in his unacknowledged sources, kept the passage just as it was. Since Morison’s reputation for accuracy was high, his accusation was adopted as gospel and repeated as fact by a succession of (American) historians.10 As the Australians have now shown, however, the reason for the RAAF’s foot-dragging is not to be ascribed to quirks of national character but to earlier communication failures of a kind that would be inevitable in an operation of this kind, mounted on this kind of schedule. Although their countrymen were about to die by the hundreds at Mikawa’s hands, few Australians at Townsville and Brisbane – and none at Fall River – had been told about WATCHTOWER. That being so, a small Japanese force off Bougainville, moving at 15 knots, simply would not have merited an alarm.11 On Friday, in the course of a very busy Dog Day, Turner had sent to McCain a dispatch: 180

THE BATTLE OF SAVO ISLAND YOUR SEARCH PLAN [for] DOG PLUS ONE [Saturday, 8 August] DOES NOT COVER SECTOR TWO NINE ZERO TO THREE ONE EIGHT MALAITA.

...

WHILE SOWESPAC [i.e., MacArthur] RESPONSIBLE THIS SECTOR [you

should] CONSIDER MORNING SEARCH NECESSARY FOR ADEQUATE COVER.12

Getting no report from McCain on Saturday indicating the presence of any Japanese force, Turner apparently assumed both that McCain’s airmen had completed the extra reconnaissance he had requested, and that they had found nothing to report. But while Turner’s requested search (and only this search, apparently) might have spotted Mikawa’s force, in fact it did not take place. Morison writes: “Extant records do not indicate whether or not McCain relayed [Turner’s] request” to the seaplane tender Mackinac at Malaita, adding that Mackinac’s skipper “does not recall being asked to make the search.”13 Other reports related that two planes were assigned, one being unable to take off, the other encountering thick weather around Santa Isabel and turning back. Fletcher, for his part, had promised to launch planes in a fan search to 200 miles in a 45-degree arc up the Slot, but only if McCain notified him that his own seaplanes could not get through. Since Fletcher heard nothing from McCain, he too assumed the reconnaissance had been completed.14 While McCawley had failed to pick up the Saturday morning sighting by the Australian Hudson, Mikawa did, and in fact commenced a feint to disguise his true course.15 Believing the element of surprise probably lost, Mikawa nevertheless pressed on. At dawn on Saturday, he had catapulted two scout planes to reconnoiter the positions of the Allies’ ships. Reporting back at midday, they of course knew nothing of what the Allies’ nighttime defense disposition would be. Based on his daytime reconnaissance, Mikawa at 1640 on Saturday planned his attack: steam south of Savo Island to the anchorage off Guadalcanal, destroy the transports, then proceed across the sound to Tulagi, do the same, and leave.16 The Allies, worried primarily about the next day’s expected air attack, were secondarily concerned not with a surface force approaching from the Slot but with lurking submarines approaching from the east. Thus, they posted fast destroyers and minelayers tightly around the transports off Beach Red on Guadalcanal and Beach Blue on Tulagi, each set of transports being about 22 miles east of Savo. The Japanese, in defiance of American stereotypes, had perfected the arts of visual acuity, with men naturally gifted in night vision trained to hone their ability, aided by special night binoculars with 200-mm lenses. This enabled stealthy access to within 8,000–10,000 yards of an enemy ship in clear weather, thus eliminating the obvious advantage held (in daylight) by ships with larger-bore, longer-range artillery. The Allies had the new centimetric SG7 radar, capable of spotting ships up to 20 miles away. But it was installed on only one Allied vessel, San Juan, and it was not placed on 181

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picket duty to guard against a force moving in from the north. The two northern pickets, Blue and Ralph Talbot, had only the older metric-wave SC radar, theoretically capable of spotting ships up to 10 miles away, although erratic in the presence of surrounding land masses. At times the two destroyers would be as far as 20 miles apart, so that if their radar sets failed to sense an approaching force, there would be ample room for that force to pass between them in the dark, unnoticed.17 Passing the Russell Islands after dark and still an hour northwest of Savo, Mikawa dared compromise the element of surprise by catapulting a float plane to reconnoiter the Allies’ nighttime dispositions. Around 2330 it flew directly over Ralph Talbot, which sent out a message: “Warning! Warning! Plane over Savo Island heading east.” When Turner on McCawley failed to acknowledge, another commander rebroadcast the warning. Turner reportedly never received this second message either. Quincy did pick it up, but its executive officer decided the plane “was one of our own” and thus did not wake the exhausted crew by sounding general quarters. In fact, despite the words “Warning! Warning!,” no klaxon sounded anywhere, officers on other ships being unimpressed because the report mentioned neither that the plane was Japanese, nor that it was a float plane of the kind launched from cruisers, nor even that it did not sound like any Allied plane.18 No one demanded further information. No one saw fit to ask whether any Allied planes were known to be airborne that time of night, nor did a protocol exist for an Allied ship to announce that it had a float-plane aloft. The Japanese plane proceeded to observe at leisure the disposition of the various Allied vessels, helped by the illumination provided by George F. Elliott, still burning brightly. At 0054 lookouts in the van of the Japanese force spotted the southwesterly picket, Blue, at a distance of over 5 miles. From that point forward, the Japanese ships slowed to 26 knots to reduce their wakes, keeping Blue constantly in their gunsights in case it spotted them. But it never did and, shortly after Blue made its 180-degree turn, Mikawa’s force passed silently by, less than 500 yards off Blue’s fantail.19 Chokai passed the western coast of Savo Island at 0120. At 0134 it spotted Jarvis, damaged that afternoon by a Betty’s torpedo, emerging from a heavy cloudbank just south of Savo, moving west/southwest, as if intending to retire around Guadalcanal’s western shore. At 0143, the Japanese plane dropped brilliant pale-green parachute flares at equal intervals on an east– west line along Beach Red, thus back-lighting the XRAY transports as well as the destroyer screen. Upon seeing the flares, several of the transports moved farther offshore. Soon another line of flares appeared east of Tulagi, back-lighting the YOKE transports. Despite several intervening rain squalls and cloud banks mid-channel, the Allied cruisers in both Savo Island screens could see the flares. At least one observer incorrectly believed them intended to illuminate not the transports but something inland.20 182

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The southern screen was patrolling parallel to Guadalcanal’s shoreline at 10 knots, to avoid collisions and conserve fuel. Turner and Crutchley had by their screening system adhered to a classic template of gunnery-based naval engagement, in the expectation that the Allies could thus employ an optimum number of deck guns against an oncoming single-file squadron at the optimum distance for these guns (8,000–10,000 yards), well beyond the presumed range of Japanese torpedoes. Most US cruisers had long since removed most of their torpedo tubes, finding torpedoes less effective than artillery at the distances at which cruisers were likely to be engaged.21 By 0136 Chokai had passed the optimum deck-gun range and closed to within 5,000–7,000 yards, its lookouts now spotting ships dead ahead. Canberra was leading the southern screen at 310º, about 4 miles south of Savo Island, and about to reverse course. Now its lookouts spotted a ship, probably Chokai. Two minutes later a full-fledged naval battle began willynilly, for the US the first multi-ship naval engagement since the SpanishAmerican War. At 0138 Chokai fired its deck guns and launched its port torpedoes in the direction of Canberra and Chicago.22 The Type-93 Long Lance torpedo, the ingenious product of fifteen years’ development, was a monster, 24 inches in diameter and almost 30 feet long, featuring a 500horsepower, reciprocating steam engine fueled by oxygen rather than compressed air, to minimize any tell-tale wake. It could accurately project more than 1,000 pounds of explosives at 49 knots with a range of 12 miles, or an incredible 21 miles at 36 knots, such range allowing a lethal spread technique of launching dozens of torpedoes in the dark at a battle line over 12 miles away. Although in 1940 a Chinese-born medical student passed information about the weapon to the US naval attaché at the Tokyo Tennis Club, US Navy technicians, upon reading the attaché’s report, had dismissed it as technologically impossible.23 At 0141, Yunagi, unable to read its compass because of a lighting failure and having lost track of the ship in front of it (Yubari), broke away, later claiming to have torpedoed a light cruiser at 0152 and to have sunk a destroyer with artillery fire at 0210. Around 0143 Patterson sighted the heavy cruiser Furutaka at 3,700 yards and broadcast over the TBS: “Warning – Warning – Strange Ship Entering Harbor.”24 In the same minute, Furutaka fired a torpedo at Patterson, three minutes later firing torpedoes at the closely grouped Canberra, Bagley and Chicago. Four torpedoes from Chokai and four from Furutaka, launched five minutes apart, took parallel tracks toward these Allied cruisers.25 At 0144 the heavy cruiser Aoba spotted Canberra at 4,200 yards, launched four torpedoes, and opened fire with its deck guns. The heavy cruiser Kako launched four torpedoes. Canberra, absorbing two torpedoes and twenty-four shells, was soon dead in the water with neither radio nor electricity. Bagley turned to port to fire torpedoes at Chokai, 2,600 yards distant. They missed and disappeared into the heavy cloudbank hovering off Savo Island, probably 183

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striking Canberra. Bode failed to radio the other ships, either with commands or otherwise, and Chicago started steaming off on a tangent to the west by itself, while the action was turning instead east/northeast. Although Mikawa had spoken of heading straight toward the Guadalcanal transports, his force now broken into two parallel columns, turning in a counterclockwise circle to engage the northern screen, Furutaka beginning its turn as early as 0147.30.26 Mikawa, it seemed, would be singularly blessed by a bizarre local meteorological condition. “We didn’t know it till afterward,” Turner later wrote, “but every night of the year, apparently, about 2330 a heavy rain squall started on Savo, and drifted slowly S. E., and cleared up about 0200.” Because of this squall-line, neither Allied screen, “[t]hough only 6 to 8 miles apart . . . could see the gunfire flashes of the other group, though [Turner], 25 miles away [off Lunga Point], could see all the flashes of both!”27 In the thick of the battle with the Allies’ southern screen, the light cruiser Tenryu¯’s lookouts, peering between that cloudbank to their left and the squalls to their right, sighted the northern patrol group at 14,800 yards. But the cloudbank and squalls farther east blocked the northern screen from knowing that the southern screen was in combat. Some saw flashes but thought them lightning, heard noises and thought them thunder. Nor did they pick up Patterson’s radio warning. Forward elements of Mikawa’s force, hidden by the cloudbank and squalls, closed on the moving rectangle of the northern screen at 4,000 yards. At 0201 Kako fired four torpedoes at Astoria, which missed (Maps 8 and 9). At 0202 Tenryu¯ launched torpedoes at Quincy, and the light cruiser Yu¯bari launched torpedoes at Vincennes. At 0205 Kako launched two more torpedoes at Astoria, again missing. At 0213 Chokai fired on Vincennes. At 0214 Aoba launched a torpedo at Quincy. An officer later recounted: “Their five heavy cruisers, heading across the stern of our column, raked it from the port quarter, and, as our ships started turning left to keep their turrets bearing, swung up our far (N.E.) side at close range.” Quincy and Vincennes both managed to fire a few heavy rounds, but both were doomed. Astoria had taken twenty-five hits from 8-inch shells and was crippled, although it would take over ten hours to sink.28 The Allied forces had fired a total of 471 shells in the battle, of which only 10 hit enemy ships, a pitiful percentage of only 2.1. How much of the destruction to the Allied ships was from friendly fire was never settled. The Japanese lost not one ship in the engagement, although Quincy’s shell-hits on Chokai killed forty men.29 Having annihilated the two cruiser screens, Mikawa now contemplated pressing his advantage. About 7 miles to the east, a screen comprised of the light cruisers San Juan and Hobart and the destroyers Buchanan and Monssen were steaming at 15 knots in a narrow track at 180º True and reverse, bridging the semicircular destroyer screen protecting the transports off Beach Red and the similar screen off Tulagi. With the entire 184

Map 8 Recreated track chart of Mikawa’s force on 7–10 August 1942.

Map 9 Portion of Japanese track chart showing second half of Battle of Savo Island.

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WATCHTOWER operation within his grasp, however, Mikawa turned away. By dawn his force was 110 miles northwest of Savo Island.30 Allied deaths were substantial: 1,023, with 789 wounded. Vincennes lost 338 men, Quincy 367, Astoria 245.31 The ocean was littered with the dead and wounded. A month later a Marine patrol found on the beaches of Savo Island parts of Allied bodies eaten by sharks, as well as a few grave mounds dug for dead sailors by accommodating locals.32 Crutchley, whose credentials included a Victoria Cross from the epic and problematic Battle of Jutland, sent a handwritten note to Turner: Having been placed in charge of the screening forces by you I have naturally been searching for my mistakes which may have led to or contributed to this great loss. I feel that undoubtedly there must be some but there are to my mind two main points that stand out: – one is that fatigue to personel caused lack of warning. In an operation of this kind this is almost inevitable. The other is that we US and British must have practice in night-fighting for we cannot prosecute the kind of offensive required without welcoming a night engagement.33 Turner later asserted that because he was himself unfamiliar with radar, he had queried Crutchley’s decision to set only two pickets, but that Crutchley assured him that two would be sufficient to locate ships 12–14 miles away.34 Obviously Mikawa’s eight ships, in single-line formation, never registered on either destroyer’s oscilloscope. Blue’s commander had no cogent explanation for why his ship failed to perform its assigned task, nor would he even concede that something must have gone wrong on his watch.35 Howard Bode on Chicago was willing to admit that radar was likely to underperform in waters surrounded by land masses.36 On Guadalcanal that night, some dozing optimists, crouching in a light drizzle, cheered with each detonation, figuring they had to be hearing an Allied victory. Capt. Paul Moore, on Tulagi, said the experience was like hearing the roar of the crowd at a football game without being able actually to see the game or to know “who was cheering for whom.” Others thought the offshore pyrotechnics merely a heavy storm. “We didn’t realize it,” a corporal noted in his diary, “but that was our ships getting blown to hell.” One officer grasped that “they were settling our hash” and that “we could do nothing about it.” Another whispered: “There’s a hell of a fight out there. The Japs are coming in to retake the island.” At dawn, some Marines saw Chicago glide by through the mists with 16 feet of its bow gone. By 0830 Vandegrift, with no sleep and having hurt his leg in a fall, was back on Guadalcanal from his trip to Tulagi. Sipping coffee, he and his senior people pooled what they knew, gathering that what they had glimpsed through the squalls – from their respective angles – comprised an unmitigated disaster.37 187

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At 0908 on 10 August the US submarine S-44, patrolling 70 miles south of Kavieng’s harbor, found and sank the heavy cruiser Kako as it returned from the battle, the only participating Japanese ship to be sunk. This was cold comfort, a cynic dubbing the Savo Island engagement “the Battle of the Five Sitting Ducks.” Some would later describe it as the greatest defeat in the history of the US Navy – Pearl Harbor not qualifying because it was not a clash between navies at sea. Nor could this sad labeling of what happened off Savo Island be blotted out by a study declaring the engagement too brief and one-sided to qualify as a “battle.”38 The first casualty of war, it has been said, is Truth. On 9 December 1941, Roosevelt had announced that in order for war news to be released, it must be “true,” although it must not give aid and comfort to the enemy.39 With the exception of Midway, few pieces of “news” from the Pacific in the first ten months of 1942 could satisfy both requirements. The US Office of Censorship, one of several agencies charged with suppressing information deemed potentially helpful to the nation’s enemies, was sufficiently strict that it barred sportscasters from revealing that a game was called because of rain. The Japanese arrangements for censorship and propaganda were classic attributes of a totalitarian state. Thus, the Battle of Midway was declared a great victory, ex-Ambassador Nomura being one of the few Japanese to know the true facts, since he was interned in the US and could read US newspapers. Of course the Japanese media had no need to lie about Savo Island, and within hours Radio Tokyo announced that a Japanese naval force had won handsomely.40 Nevertheless, in a regime where truth has no intrinsic value, the Japanese saw fit to gild the lily, claiming the sinking of twelve warships and ten transports. On 10 August the Washington Post, presumably after speaking with the Department of the Navy, “brushed aside” Japan’s claims as “extravagant,” which of course they were, albeit a truthful account of Allied losses would have been bad enough. The New York Times ran Japan’s press release, also commenting that no one in the Navy or War Departments could be found to controvert it. Among the policy disputes between King (a skilled writer and editor) and Knox (a longtime newspaper man) was that concerning how much news to release. It was said that if King had his way there would be but one news release, at war’s end, announcing: “We won.”41 On 10 August, King asserted: “It appears that we have had at least one cruiser sunk,” as extravagant in understating the Allied losses as Japan had been in overstating them.42 King indicated years later that this was “the blackest day of the war.”43 But for now, as far as the public and the world were concerned, the Allied losses could be said to be “at least one cruiser sunk.” Life magazine photographer Ralph Morse left Guadalcanal and arrived at Pearl Harbor on 26 August, providing Nimitz with perhaps as complete an account of what had happened that night as anyone – even the surviving commanders – could 188

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then offer. As Morse made his way east from Hawaii, Nimitz contacted King, suggesting that Morse and his editors be quieted.44 And nothing was revealed. While major media were sensitized to censorship issues as one of the conditions of the wartime marketplace for news, small-town newspapers were not, and several published human-interest stories of the trials and tribulations of local lads on the night of 8–9 August, the first such stories appearing as quickly as 13 August. On 15 August the Manchester (NH) Union told of a hometown boy who managed to survive a night in the water after Vincennes was hit, the many explosions having scared off the sharks.45 Readers might well have concluded that Vincennes was the “one cruiser sunk” referred to by King five days before. Australia, meanwhile, now publicly admitted that its ship, Canberra, had gone down. Even before Mikawa had arrived that night, Turner had ordered the shotup Jarvis to Efate, escorted by the destroyer Hovey. While the several reconstructed track charts for the Battle of Savo Island do not agree, clearly Jarvis was headed west, around Guadalcanal’s Cape Esperance. Since the order had been to meet up with a destroyer/minesweeper and proceed east through Lengo Channel, Jarvis never made that rendezvous, then chose to go on alone.46 It would be a death sentence. At 0740 on 9 August a search plane from Saratoga sighted Jarvis alone in the Solomon Sea, heading southwesterly, down by the bow and trailing a heavy oil slick. At 1300 Japanese aviators looking for Fletcher’s carriers spotted Jarvis 130 miles southwest of Savo Island. In an effort to eliminate weight, Jarvis had thrown overboard almost everything, including boats and rafts. Since a Betty had knocked out its radio, it issued no distress call. Thus, there was no search and rescue effort. Those who now hit the water in life jackets would have been better off to have gone down with the ship.47 Ghormley, Nimitz, King and Knox read various officers’ reports about the Battle of Savo Island but had no satisfactory overall picture. In January 1943 Rep. Melvin Maas (R-MN), a member of the House Committee on Naval Affairs and a Marine reservist who had recently returned from a tour of Australia and Guadalcanal, published an article stating that the Japanese air attacks on 7–8 August had derived from a lack of coordination with MacArthur, whose geographic jurisdiction included reconnaissance and bombing missions over Rabaul. Maas wrote: Whatever has been said in Washington, I can attest as one who was on the scene and who later discussed the facts with all the leaders involved that the movement into the Solomons was not properly planned; that MacArthur’s complaint about its being a “Navy show” must not be lightly brushed aside; that there was a woeful and expensive lack even of “co-operation” and “co-ordination,” let alone true unity, between the Army and the Navy; and that our 189

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fighting men had to make up in blood and sweat for errors which might have been avoided by unified leadership and a properly coordinated plan. Maas wanted the public to know about these mistakes, not just because at the time there were few knowledgeable observers willing to venture public criticisms of how the war was being prosecuted, but also because Maas had lost a son-in-law off Savo Island. In Maas the public had an early commentator who could not be ignored.48 Knox ordered Adm. Hepburn, the senior strategist who before the war had recommended (in vain) that Guam be heavily garrisoned, to investigate. Hepburn and an aide flew all over the world to interview knowledgeable survivors. In April 1943 Howard Bode, following questioning by Hepburn, committed suicide. In May, Hepburn filed his confidential report with King, who in September forwarded it to Knox with comments.49 The gist was that the men were simply too exhausted and too inexperienced to handle the situation.50 Significantly, King issued no recriminations, undoubtedly mindful that it was he who had set the breakneck schedule, he who had men and ships working together in battle conditions without prior drills.51 Ultimately the responsibility was his. Turner, too, the man who had said that it was “our turn at bat,” that Guadalcanal should be invaded even if the Marines were subsequently kicked out, was ill positioned to suggest now that perhaps the whole operation should have been mounted on a less frenzied schedule.52 On the night of 8–9 August 1942 Turner had weighed the mix of inadequate, piecemeal, and tardy snippets of information being presented to him. The possibility that reconnaissance which had been ordered might not have been carried out was of course “non-information,” a lacuna someone must identify as such. Turner’s primary focus was the proven diurnal threat from the air, secondarily the possibility of sneak submarine strikes. Thus, with two modes of attack likely, an overnight threat from surface warships became “unlikely,” much as the “likelihood” in December 1941 of a Japanese attack in the Philippines or Malaya made an attack in Hawaii “unlikely.” Threats that are relatively “unlikely” tend to engender explanations which make them even less likely, such as Secretary Knox’s comment in November 1941 that an attack on Pearl Harbor would be “suicidal.” And now, Mikawa’s force had been deemed “unlikely” to be headed toward Guadalcanal because other destinations were “likely.” Turner later recounted: “About 7 p.m. Aug. 8th, I received from GHQ Australia, that the Jap ships sighted were probably engaged in establishing a base at the Shortland” off the southern coast of Bougainville.53 This of course would mean that Mikawa would stop at the Shortland Island staging base but come no closer. Even more likely, in Turner’s view, the sighted ships comprised a small naval force on its way to Rekata Bay on the northern tip of Santa Isabel Island, its probable purpose being to join in the aerial attack Turner was expecting on 190

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Sunday.54 Thus did Turner and his staff, undoubtedly exhausted, ignore the strategic saw that one cannot know what the enemy is “likely” to do but one can discover what it is “capable” of doing. A prominent text on naval strategy ascribed the Savo Island debacle to “[a]n over-exclusive preoccupation with enemy air attack – despite warnings, received many hours before the attack, of an approaching cruiser squadron.”55 US warships used a paint thought to be so non-flammable that it could not be lit with a blowtorch. Yet some of the casualties that night were from fires set by high-explosive shells on painted surfaces. As a result, the paint on ships’ interiors was scraped off, with men for the rest of the war living, as William Ward Smith wrote, with “bare steel and sweating bulkheads.” Although Bode had killed himself and the commanders of Vincennes and Astoria were passed over for promotion, the disaster yielded few other adjustments.56

May the sea lie light upon thee Thus the official inquiry ended. Sit tibi mare levis, “May the sea lie light upon thee.” But the pain did not end. Later United Press correspondent Joe James Custer, wounded on Astoria that night, published several of the pitiable letters families had written to him, asking if he knew anything about what had happened to their sons. “He was all we had,” one ended.57 Grieving loved ones, like survivors, needed to take something positive away. On 17 August 1942, a Navy communiqué stated that, following “heavy fighting” off Savo Island, the Japanese were “forced to retreat” before reaching the transports.58 The New York Times wrote the next day that Mikawa had been “compelled to retreat,” AP noting that “Admiral Ghormley’s cruisers and destroyers” drove the Japanese force “into defeat before it could reach and attack the Allied transport[s].”59 George Johnston, then a journalist for several Australian newspapers but also carried by London’s Daily Telegraph and by Henry Luce’s Time/Life, similarly wrote that Mikawa had been “driven off.”60 On 29 August, 2nd Lt. Herbert Merillat, a public relations officer, issued the Marine Corp’s first substantive press release from Guadalcanal. With regard to Savo Island he advised: “We do not yet know the full story of that battle but we do know that the Jap ships were turned back.” In 1943 AP correspondent Walter B. Clausen, assigned to Nimitz’s headquarters, went further, writing that the “mission” of the Allied cruisers had been “accomplished,” since they “had intercepted the enemy task force and frustrated any possibility that the transports and the landing expedition could be smashed.”61 After the war, RAdm. Mitsuharu Matsuyama and Capt. Kenkichi Kato told US interrogators that Mikawa’s purpose had indeed been to foil the landing by attacking the transports and the troops.62 Such testimony seemed to provide some further comfort that the Allies had 191

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“won” the battle – even if at great cost. And Ghormley in a postwar manuscript memoir wrote: The Battle of Savo Island without doubt saved our transports from attack. . . . The mission of the screening forces was to protect our transports. Therefore, this action, disastrous as it may have been in regard to ship losses, did accomplish its purpose.63 On 19 August 1946 Time reopened the matter. Two weeks later, F.L. Riefkohl, in command of the Vincennes group of cruisers and also the senior US Navy officer among all the ships engaged, his career having gone nowhere, declared that “[b]y inducing Mikawa to retire from the scene we eliminated his force as an imminent potential threat to our Guadalcanal forces, as completely as if we had sunk them.” Further, From letters I have received, I believe that if the parents and relatives of the men who lost their lives in this action knew what their sacrifices meant to the success of our South Pacific offensive, and the progress of the war, it would help to ease their grief. As things have stood for nearly four years, they are quite at a loss, as they don’t know exactly how or why their loved ones lost their lives.64 But the notion of the Battle of Savo Island as somehow an Allied victory would not be accepted. Mikawa had intended to destroy the transports, and he had turned away without having done so. But the cruiser screen had not “driven” him to do anything. Churchill later wrote that Mikawa shared with other Japanese commanders an unnecessary conservatism.65 The most that could be said was that he believed he had no more time, and wanted to be beyond the range of Fletcher’s planes when daylight broke.66 Thus, for the loved ones and survivors, some redeeming comfort was hard to come by.

Fletcher’s departure It was reasonable for Mikawa to fear an attack by Fletcher’s carrier-based planes if he was caught within range in daylight. It was also incorrect. Fletcher had waited to hear if McCain needed him to perform reconnaissance, and when no word came, by 1630 on Saturday his carriers were 50 miles south and east of Guadalcanal. He blinkered a message to Noyes: “In view of possibility of torpedo attack and reduction in our present fighter strength, I intend to recommend immediate withdrawal of carriers. Do you agree?” Noyes did.67 At 1807 Fletcher radioed Ghormley, requesting that his three carriers be permitted to leave immediately, twelve hours earlier than the deadline he had earlier decreed to Turner and Vandegrift: 192

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Fighter plane strength reduced from 99 to 78. In view of large number of enemy torpedo planes and bombers in this area, I recommend the immediate withdrawal of my carriers. Request tankers be sent forward immediately as fuel running low.68 Turner picked up the message. Ghormley, having disdained the entire operation, approved Fletcher’s request, evidencing no concern about what Turner – about to be deprived of air cover but far from unloaded – either would or could do.69 At 1819 Fletcher began moving south. Saratoga’s log for 2000 reads: “Task Force 61 withdrawing to the southeast, course 147, speed 15 knots, lat. 10-42S, long. 161-14E.”70 At 0105 on Sunday, with Mikawa’s surprise attack still forty minutes away and thus not yet a factor, Turner radioed Fletcher: “Absence air support [he might well have written ‘Absence YOUR air support’] require[s] me to withdraw all ships tomorrow . . . to avoid unwarranted loss.”71 At that time Fletcher’s carriers had paused at the southern periphery of the operating area while waiting further confirmation from Ghormley.72 It was given and they were quickly gone. Fletcher knew nothing of Mikawa’s attack, the War Diary of Task Force Sixteen noting at 0300 on Sunday: “Heard first flash report indicating some type surface action in the Tulagi-Guadalcanal area.” Nor did this “flash report” animate Fletcher to turn around, despite the urging of several aides. The notation thirty minutes later reads: “Approval for retirement of carriers received,” followed at 0430 with “commencing retirement from the area.” In 1947 Fletcher said: At the time my decision to withdraw was made it was not known that enemy forces were approaching. When the planes searched to the northward they usually sighted enemy forces. I believe that they sighted some cruisers on the late afternoon of the eighth. Of course the carriers would have been of no value in a night action and we were confident that the cruisers could look out for themselves in that kind of action.73 At 0641, just after sunrise, when a more aggressive scenario would have placed Fletcher’s planes well north in an avenging pursuit of Mikawa’s retreating force, Turner asked Fletcher to return and provide air cover. In 1947 Fletcher, telling Baldwin that he had not refreshed his recollection, characterized these hours as follows: Shortly after daylight of the ninth we began to intercept garbled radio messages indicative of action of some kind. About nine a. m. I broke radio silence to tell Ghormley that it appeared that Turner’s cruisers had been in action and had sustained heavy losses but that I had not been able to get in direct communication with him.74 193

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Fletcher does not mention here having received Turner’s request to return. He never responded to Turner.75 Thus, just as he launched no planes in pursuit of Mikawa, he launched no planes to protect the transports. Over the radio from the battle zone came a repeated plea: “Any friendly planes in the area, come in. Any friendly planes in the area, come in.” But there were no friendly planes. Sailors on Fletcher’s ships who picked up the radio message were ashamed to look at one another.76 Fletcher’s record-keeping now took on a high odor of self-justification.77 By 0800 on Monday the carriers had passed Espíritu Santo on their way south. Mikawa later said that if he had known that Fletcher’s carriers had left, he would have attacked the transports.78 Fletcher’s first stated reason for leaving was that he had lost twenty-one aircraft. In two days Saratoga had lost eight planes to combat, Wasp two, Enterprise four, with the carriers’ records showing four losses due to night ditches and crash landings, a total of not twenty-one but eighteen. With 1,038 sorties in those two days, eighteen losses were hardly exorbitant. Moreover, Fletcher still had eighty-three planes.79 Fletcher’s second stated reason was the Japanese presence. At 1035 on Friday, a Japanese unit at Cape Hunter on Guadalcanal’s southern coast had spotted part of Fletcher’s force: two aircraft carriers, a battleship, five cruisers and ten other ships. It tried to contact Lunga so the more powerful radio there could notify Rabaul. But no one was answering at Lunga, its personnel having already fled into the jungle.80 Rabaul knew nothing. Further, to protect his carriers while still fulfilling his mission, Fletcher could have taken them south while still within flying range of the transports, thus making it highly unlikely for Rabaul-based planes to find and attack him.81 But planes from Rabaul were not his stated concern. Rather, he feared Vals flying from a carrier in the Solomon Sea. There was no such carrier. Fletcher added that his carriers were short on fuel oil. One of the Americans’ few oilers had been hit in the Battle of the Coral Sea, undoubtedly putting Fletcher in mind of potential difficulties now if somehow he was caught short.82 A fair reading of Fletcher’s message is that he was not asserting low fuel as an additional reason to leave, only as an issue requiring attention. Two weeks later, Nimitz asked why Fletcher’s carriers could not have gone off-station one at a time for refueling, thus leaving two constantly available.83 This gave Fletcher a chance to make clear (if indeed it was so) that oil was not the reason for his leaving. Instead, on 9 September he flatfootedly told Nimitz that the three could not take turns retiring for oil because they were all low. This assertion is contradicted by the available fuel logs.84 One of the three carriers involved, Wasp, was later sunk, taking with it all of its records. But the other carriers’ records survived. Several historians have noted that Enterprise, using 1,300 barrels daily, had in its bunkers 16,534 barrels. Saratoga, using 3,952 barrels daily, had been topped off on 3 August and now had 33,792 barrels.85 194

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Angry Marines like William Manchester focused on this as Fletcher’s stated “reason” for leaving, not only because it was the easiest reason to refute with hard evidence, but also because, eight months earlier, his chosen method for refueling had been the reason Fletcher never reached Wake. John L. Zimmerman, official chronicler of the Marine campaign, essentially shook his head, noting: “Whatever it was that made him want to go home, it most certainly was not fuel.”86 Nimitz in a 23 August 1942 report to King called Fletcher’s decision to leave “most unfortunate . . . permit[ing] the enemy to make a clean getaway without being subjected to carrier air attack during the early daylight hours” of 9 August. Others agreed.87A 350-page internal Navy analysis concluded that Fletcher “attached more importance to the carrier operations than he did to the amphibious operations,” his departure constituting a “serious detriment” to WATCHTOWER.88 An ex-Navy pilot called it “the greatest humiliation in the Navy’s history, greater even than Pearl Harbor.” While this was an odd comment in view of what had happened off Savo Island the same night, perhaps this pilot meant that the humiliation lay in Fletcher’s failing to take revenge for that catastrophe.89 Turner, for his part, had no cavil in calling what Fletcher did “desertion.” But the unkindest cut was in Hepburn’s report on the Battle of Savo Island, classified until 1972. Among his conclusions was that Fletcher not only let Mikawa escape but also had been “responsible for” the Turner/Crutchley/Vandegrift meeting on McCawley that had pulled Crutchley out of the southern screen in the first place. That is – Hepburn suggests – but for Fletcher’s departure, Crutchley would have stayed with the screen and the whole outcome of the battle might have been different.90

Turner’s departure With Ghormley out-of-touch and Fletcher gone, Turner was now, by default, the expedition commander. He was also, as he succinctly put it, “bare ass,” the withdrawal of air cover and the sinking of his cruisers leaving his transports minimally defended. While the skittish Ghormley wanted Turner to “withdraw as soon as practicable,” even if Turner’s transports had weighed anchor at 0230, moments after the destruction of Crutchley’s screening force, his retirement to the south in daylight would have kept him within the range of Japanese aircraft all day.91 In any event, the process of pulling men from the water and transferring them to the transports precluded the 0630 departure originally scheduled. Turner by now knew that the debarkation had been botched and that many of the vessels still held much of what should have been on the beach. Thus, at 0845 Turner took an extraordinary risk, by starting a third day of unloading, without air cover and without a cruiser screen. It was a decision he must have known would be judged retrospectively as either brave or criminally negligent, depending on 195

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the good or bad luck of how it turned out. And it must have seemed like a long shot. Just seven hours earlier, thinking he had identified and covered every reasonable risk, Turner had instead been victimized by Murphy’s Law. Now, with dozens of dead bodies still in the water because of earlier missed cues, he chose to discount even graver risks. It was reasonable to assume that Rabaul, knowing that Mikawa had destroyed the cruisers but left the transports, would be particularly keen to follow up with an immediate aerial attack. Unloading continued all morning, uninterrupted except by an air-raid warning which turned out to be unfounded. But such good luck could not be pushed indefinitely. The interception at 1435 of a message from Fletcher to Ghormley left no doubt that Fletcher’s planes were gone for good. The XRAY transports weighed anchor at 1530, the YOKE transports at 1900. Some skippers were so keen to get out that they reportedly left some of their boats and coxswains on the beach. Escorted by the damaged Chicago and six other warships, the convoy started east through Lengo Channel.92 In fact, no Japanese bombers would arrive on Sunday, as they had on Friday and Saturday, the Japanese thus squandering the opportunity Mikawa’s effort had given them. In the fierce inter-service rivalry of the Japanese military, Mikawa lacked the authority to call an air strike. Thus, just hours after the Savo Island disaster, fortune happened to shine on Turner. By 1900 on Monday the transports were well to the southeast of San Cristobal Island.93 Turner had intended “to play general as well as admiral,” to command not only the debarkation but also the operation on the island. Given “Terrible” Turner’s reputation for surliness, Vandegrift and his staff were undoubtedly dreading his arrival onshore. Fortunately, among the various categories of equipment that did not make it off the ships was the radio set-up. McCawley’s inadequate radio systems had already cost Turner dearly, and he decided not to land on Guadalcanal. When Ghormley was first assigned to the South Pacific he had been told to establish an advance base, and on 18 May he had chosen balmy, malaria-free Nouméa on New Caledonia, 850 miles southeast of Lunga. Turner decided to set up his headquarters there. Naturally some Marines thought Turner – like Fletcher – had run away. Meanwhile, the radio equipment the Japanese left behind at Lunga would be adequate, once it was brought on line by skillful tinkering.94

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Shoestring Although the fifty-six hours the transports had spent off Guadalcanal and Tulagi should in fact have been adequate time for an orderly unloading if properly organized and appropriately staffed, when the ships left they still held over 1,000 men of the 2nd Marines as well as 75 percent of their cargoes. Some crewmen threw food overboard in the hope that it would float toward the beach.1 Reports varied as to how much the men had.2 Turner later said there were thirty-seven days’ supplies, a substantial amount that would relieve the guilt pangs of any departing sailor. Morison in his quasi-official history adopted that figure.3 On the other extreme was Ghormley, who on 16 August informed Nimitz and King, possibly on the authority of 1st Division quartermaster Lt.-Col. Raymond Coffman, that the men were down to three days’ rations.4 Whatever the reality, Vandegrift was worried enough to reduce the meals to two per day. Morison has written that the men had only four “units of fire,” the amount of ammunition theoretically used in four days’ combat. With no promise of early resupply, even a multiple of that figure would have been utterly inadequate. Much else that should have been there to mount an adequate defense of the airfield – including enough men – was absent. Many who had headed inland from the beach had no shovels to make foxholes, dugouts, or the one-man spiderholes employed on the perimeter. While a semipermanent lodgment with a competent perimeter defense required antipersonnel and anti-tank land mines, these had left on the transports. While the 75-mm pack howitzers were quickly positioned, the 105-mm howitzers, weighing 5,000 pounds and not easily broken down, stayed on the beach until the few tracked vehicles could drag them inland. But the huge 155-mm howitzers of the 4th Battalion, 11th Marines, capable of reaching warships firing from far offshore, were back in New Zealand. While one could use Japanese rice sacks as sandbags, one could not fabricate the sound-and-flash units necessary to spot Japanese artillery. There was no radar, which some might say was just as well. The codename for the Guadalcanal/Tulagi 197

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invasion, “WATCHTOWER,” did not “take” with Marines on the ground, who substituted the unofficial term: “Operation Shoestring.”5 While the US public would not have taken kindly to the notion that its troops were being under-supplied, for some time they would remain ignorant of the issue, with one early newsreel showing the Marines eating “nothing but the best,” another showing them putting up barbed-wire perimeters. While Vandegrift’s plan was to delineate some sort of perimeter and establish outposts, the mere eighteen spools of barbed wire that made it off the transports would accomplish nothing. Some rusty barbed wire was scrounged from abandoned native livestock pens. In late August Vandegrift brought Lt.-Col. Edson over from Tulagi and placed the parachutists under his command. When in the second week of September Edson’s men prepared a defense for the ridge south of the airfield they would soon make famous, they had to borrow the barbed wire from other parts of the perimeter. With no trip-flares to warn of enemy movements, some men improvised by putting pebbles or empty cartridges in used ration cans.6 While King later admitted that the defeat off Savo Island rendered “[t]he whole future . . . unpredictable,” in fact the four cruisers lost that night were to have played no ongoing role either in protecting the beachhead against further Japanese air or naval activity, or in securing supply routes to Guadalcanal from the south. Rather, they had been scheduled to leave immediately to assist in TORCH, the invasion of North Africa in November. As was now apparent to everyone, the troops lacked a complex, tested, redundant train of resupply traceable back to Efate and Espíritu Santo, Nouméa, Australia and New Zealand, Hawaii and the US. On 9 August, even before getting word that the transports had failed to land most of their cargoes on Beach Red, King told Marshall: “We are experiencing considerable difficulty in obtaining sufficient weapons and ammunition to support our operations in the South Pacific.” Two days later, Maj.-Gen. Millard F. “Miff” Harmon, Jr., Commanding General of the United States Army Forces in the South Pacific Area, told Marshall: The thing that impresses me more than anything else in connection with the Solomons action is that we are not prepared to follow up. We have seized a strategic position. . . . Can the Marines hold it? There is considerable room for doubt. Under-secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, meeting with Nimitz at Pearl Harbor after a short stint on Guadalcanal, described the situation as perilous, requiring a reassessment of the decision to conduct the Pacific war only as a side-show. Returning to Washington, Forrestal repeated his concerns to Roosevelt, Stimson, King and Knox. Stimson, apparently proud of his own senior status as a “Big Picture” thinker, responded: “Jim, you’ve got a bad case of localitis.” Forrestal retorted: “Mr. Secretary, if the Marines 198

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on Guadalcanal were wiped out, the reaction in the country will give you a bad case of localitis in the seat of your pants.” MacArthur, watching from the sidelines, insinuated that this might be another Bataan.7 Maj.-Gen. Alexander M. “Sandy” Patch, commander of the Army’s Americal Division, found the logistics center Ghormley and Turner were attempting to set up at Nouméa utterly chaotic. When “Hap” Arnold, commanding general of the Army Air Forces and a colleague of King, Marshall and Leahy on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited Nouméa on 23 September, he was shocked to find eighty transports at anchor filled with food and matériel, used as floating warehouses even though all theatres of war desperately needed cargo ships. A similar logjam was growing at Espíritu Santo, almost halfway between Nouméa and Guadalcanal. These ships had not been combat-loaded in the US, and neither Nouméa nor Espíritu Santo had the cranes and other equipment to reload them properly, with local manual labor characterized as “almost non-existent.” Ghormley said one of the reasons nothing could be done was that no one knew what was in the ships, that perhaps the solution was to return them to Wellington (a round trip of 2,400 miles) for unloading and reloading, in order to generate accurate manifests.8 “No nation in military history,” a senior naval spokesman later admitted, “was ever forced into a war so poorly prepared as the United States was in the Pacific. No great nation ever fought a major power with less equipment on hand at the outset.”9 Although extraordinary wartime regulations put merchant seamen at risk of imprisonment for refusing orders of a Navy officer, no one wanted to risk a trip north.10 Some cargo ships could achieve 15 knots, others only 12; a round trip from Nouméa to Lunga of over 1,700 miles thus involved six days of daylight, six long opportunities for roving hostile planes and for the submarines lurking in what was being called “Torpedo Alley.”11 The so-called YPs (“Yippees”), ex-tuna clippers, were even less useful, capable of only 9 or 10 knots and of holding only 100 to 150 tons.12 Back on Guadalcanal, Vandegrift chose a gentlemanly understatement of the supply crisis by terming Ghormley’s and Turner’s efforts “unresponsive” to his needs.13 The resupply method decided upon was via APDs, World War I-era destroyers converted into transports while retaining a destroyer’s high speed. On 15 August five risked the trip. Several days later more hove to off Lunga, carrying a few days’ rations as well as reinforcements and equipment. One was sunk by Japanese planes. In the early hours of 22 August, the destroyer Blue, which had just missed annihilation in the Battle of Savo Island because neither its lookouts nor its radar could spot Mikawa’s convoy as it passed just astern, now failed to spot the destroyer Kawakaze, which fired torpedoes, so damaging Blue that it had to be scuttled. Meanwhile, several of the visiting APDs brought over the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines from Tulagi.14 199

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Although it is unclear what the average man in the lower ranks knew or felt about all this in the first several days, at some point in some quarters the sense emerged that the Navy had run away in fear. Inter-service disputes were the usual suspects for most snafus in the South Pacific, since every operation required inter-service cooperation, yet every Marine had been told what to think of the Army and Navy. Several months later, psychiatrist Theodore Lidz spoke with dozens of men with symptoms of “battle fatigue,” “war neurosis,” etc. Although one might challenge their comments as not “objective” or “representative” of feelings among those less deeply affected, what they said was cogent and fairly accurate. Dr. Lidz noted that they “did not know that the naval battle off Savo Island . . . had been disastrous,” and therefore “never understood why they were left unprotected.” Thus they imagined “that petty personal bickering between the army and navy left them stranded.” While Dr. Lidz was in the business of effecting cures by correcting false imaginings with reality, he was himself misinformed, in that it was not Savo Island, but Fletcher’s abrupt departure, that had triggered his patients’ sense of vulnerability. While many Marines on the island shared Dr. Lidz’s view, they too knew nothing of the facts underlying Fletcher’s departure, which more closely resembled his patients’ speculations about “personal bickering.” In any event, there was a growing sense of isolation. Twining later wrote: We were left without exterior communications or support of any kind – and with no promises that help would be forthcoming. We had no source of information or observation, except such as we could derive from the 24-foot observation tower, constructed of palm logs, that we had inherited from the Emperor. We were on half rations, had little ammunition, no construction equipment or defensive materials whatever, and no one would talk to us when we improvised a long-distance transmitter from captured Japanese equipment. Outside of that, we were in great shape.15

The womb of Nature Chaos umpire sits, And by decision more embroils the fray By which he reigns: next him, high arbiter, Chance governs all. Into this wild abyss, The womb of Nature and perhaps her grave, Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire, But all these in their pregnant causes mixed Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight. Milton, Paradise Lost, Book II, lines 907–14 200

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Looking out at Guadalcanal from the deck of a transport on that first morning, a Marine analogized the scene to a travel poster or a Dorothy Lamour film. “From our vantage point we couldn’t see what a putrefying shithole it really was.” Morison, while keeping within the polite rhetorical standards of the 1940s, said as much, calling the island “faecaloid.” This was no Shangri-La. A subconscious association with rank tropical sicknesses must have crept up on one veteran when he described the island as “paramecium shaped.” In 1887 naturalist Henry Brougham Guppy, part of a British survey team, described a venture into Guadalcanal’s jungle as a sort of Victorian walking tour for masochists: After being provokingly entangled in a thicket for some minutes, the persevering traveler walks briskly along through a comparatively clear space, when a creeper suddenly trips up his feet and over he goes to the ground. Picking himself up, he no sooner starts again when he finds his face in the middle of a strong web which some huge-bodied spider has been laboriously constructing. However, clearing away the web from his features, he struggles along until[,] coming to the fallen trunk of some giant of the forest which obstructs his path, he with all confidence plants his foot firmly on it and sinks knee-deep in rotten wood. With resignation he lifts his foot out of the mess and proceeds on his way, when he feels an uncomfortable sensation inside his helmet, in which, on leisurely removing it from his head, he finds his old friend the spider, with body as big as a filbert [i.e., a hazelnut], quite at its ease. Shaking it out in a hurry, he hastens along with his composure of mind somewhat ruffled. Going down a steep slope, he clasps a stoutlooking areca palm to prevent himself falling, when down comes the rotten palm, and the long-suffering traveller finds himself once more on the ground. To these inconveniences must be added the peculiarly oppressive heat of a tropical forest, the continual perspiration in which the skin is bathed, and the frequent difficulty of getting water. Major Frank O. Hough, a Marine public relations officer, had the same reaction: No air stirs here, and the hot humidity is beyond the imagining of anyone who has not lived in it. Rot lies everywhere just under the exotic lushness. The ground is porous with decaying vegetation, emitting a sour, unpleasant odor. Substantial-looking trees, rotten to the core, are likely to topple over when leaned against, and great forest giants crash down unpredictably in every windstorm. Freshly killed flesh begins to decompose in a matter of a few hours.16 201

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Of the effects of the place upon the psyche of Jack London’s protagonist in “The Red One” (1916), what seared deepest . . . was the dank and noisome jungle. It actually stank with evil, and it was always twilight. Rarely did a shaft of sunlight penetrate its matted roof of a hundred feet overhead. And beneath that roof was an aërial ooze of vegetation, a monstrous parasitic dripping of decadent life-forms that rooted in death and lived on death. James Jones in his novel The Thin Red Line (1962), recounting an Army unit’s later arrival on the island, wrote of the soldiers’ first experience of the jungle: The men . . . stood rooted before the enormity their adjusting eyes disclosed. This was more than they had bargained for. Whatever else you could call this teeming verdure you certainly could not call it civilized. And as civilized men, it made them fearful. The toughest barroom brawler among them was fearful. Lest we think the novelists too flamboyant, Pvt. Richard William Harding said the bamboo seemed to grow even as you hacked it down, while Master Gunnery Sergeant Ore Marion of the 5th Marines remembered “the constant threat of death and the dirty, rotten smell of death that clung to your hair, your clothes, your teeth and even the balls of your feet.” Marion’s account of having to find and dispose of the corpses of his dead buddies, after they had been exposed for several days, is nothing short of ghastly. Marksman John B. George described the surrounding ocean as “warm as urine.”17 Local experts in Australia had advised that Guadalcanal had no snakes or other dangerous creatures. In fact the naturalist Guppy had found a snake with venom as lethal as a cobra’s. The experts also neglected to mention creatures that were merely loathsome. William Manchester described wasps as long as one’s finger and toxic centipedes that would raise a long, welted line as they perambulated across one’s body. A Navy corpsman attached to the 1st Division wrote of “[g]iant webs, strong as fishing line, spun by spiders as big as a mess kit.” Lt. Bayard Berghaus recounted leading a patrol through thick vegetation, getting to a point where all of a sudden everything was desiccated, as if the area had been hit by a blowtorch. The next moment every man was covered by ants, the sting of each feeling like a white-hot pin. Vandegrift noted that in the process of clearing the jungle to set up fields of fire, he gathered eleven different kinds of thorns.18 The eleventh edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (1910) described the Solomons’ climate as “damp and debilitating” with “[f]ever and ague.” Two 202

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years earlier, Jack London provided an autobiographical account of the combinations of fevers and infections that flesh is heir to, including “Solomon sores”: A mosquito bite, a cut, or the slightest abrasion, serves for lodgment of the poison with which the air seems to be filled. Immediately the ulcer commences to eat. It eats in every direction, consuming skin and muscle with astounding rapidity. The pin-point ulcer of the first day is the size of a dime by the second day, and by the end of the week a silver dollar will not cover it.19 The Marines contracted their share of these problems. Robert Leckie, machine-gunner and scout, wrote of ulcers which entered the bone and fungus which left the “flesh encrusted with oozing pus by the canteen-cup.” Another Marine had a Miltonic flair: The warm, dank climate . . . is perfect for uninhibited growth of bacteria, fungi, molds, mildews, damps, and rots and ulcerations of all kinds, all shapes, all sizes and varieties. It is a womb of Nature . . . . [I]t is a mad cycle whipped by blind instinct of senseless creatures, seen and unseen, human bodies being “perfect media for the ravishing microscopic hordes.” This, then is the “paradise” of the South Pacific, “the happy hunting grounds of the brown maiden who bathes in the clear, cool, blue-green waters of Hollywood’s Technicolor islands.” Here “human beings rot.” Guadalcanal was close enough to the equator that August nights were nearly twelve hours long. Crawling into one’s foxhole was a stygian experience.20 The pidgin term for “night” was “big night,” the term for darkness “too dark,” as if the unadorned English words were inadequate to describe the local conditions. The weird nocturnal sounds included rats, land-crabs and lizards rustling through leaves. One would not want to meet up with the giant, barking lizards, Guppy having reportedly captured one measuring 5 feet 7¾ inches. A cockatoo-like bird sounded like two boards banging together. A variety of chirps and whistles made one think the Japanese were signaling each other, as if they were wily Amerindians in some Saturday matinee. Out on patrol, Ore Marion heard a haunting “Hello! Hello!,” which turned out to be the cry of a parrot once owned by a missionary who released him before fleeing the Japanese.21 The commander of the 5th Marines Reinforced noted: The first few nights the boys had the jitters and got trigger-happy. They’d see shadows in the dark. They’d hear those crazy birds hollering in the jungle trees and they’d think the whole place was 203

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full of boogie-woogie men. Sometimes they’d get excited and shoot off everything they had at the dark. Some called this “jitter-bugging,” alluding to a dance craze of the swing period. At dawn of the second day, some men found they had shot four cows. Once one got over the initial jitters, perimeter duty was typified by boredom all day, followed by interminable nights of dozing, discomfort and apprehension, punctuated by aerial bombing and naval shelling and, on occasion, violent combat. At night on the perimeter one could not smoke for fear of revealing one’s position. As dawn came, Marines’ heads popped out of their spiderholes and lit up, laughing about how they had managed to survive one more night.22 Since Guadalcanal was 560 miles south of the Equator, August was supposed to be a winter month, with a near-perfect climate, that is, temperatures around 75–85°. Although it rained 240 days a year, August through November were not supposed to be the wettest, averaging 9 to 10 inches per month, a fraction of the 28 inches typical for February and March. Nevertheless, F. Tillman Durdin in the 18 September New York Times wrote: “It rains almost every night – weepy tropical rain that soaks into the bed rolls and seeps through tarpaulin. The nights are passed in wet chill and discomfort and the days in mud and filth” (Figure 10.1). Flying ace Joe Foss said the foxholes where much of each night was spent “never dried out” and “smelled like an owl’s nest,” a trope no less brilliant for being meaningless to

Figure 10.1 Men in foxholes.

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the vast majority who could only guess at such a smell. At times the rain was not weepy but torrential, accumulating at an inch per hour. During air raids one jumped into the first foxhole or dugout one could find, which might be literally filled with water, so that its occupant would be sitting in a filthy bathtub for hours on end.23

“Mopping up” Quick-breaking developments in Europe and Russia so crowded the front page of the New York Times with photos and arrow-arrayed maps as to give that conservatively formatted newspaper an uncharacteristically tabloid look. Soon Guadalcanal was getting its share of space, albeit with little real information. The first newspaper articles, appearing on Dog Day Plus Three, derived from communiqués by Nimitz and the Navy which did not even mention an amphibious assault. Although the stirring news accounts of Wake Island eight months earlier had appropriately covered the Marines with glory, some in the Corps believed that there had been a failure to “get the word out” about Marine achievements, conceding too many column inches to the publicity-adroit MacArthur. In March 1942 Marine Brig.-Gen. Robert Denig thus intelligently proposed retaining several “fightingwriters,” experienced journalists who could not only tell the public about a military engagement but exhibit the ultimate credential of having participated in it. Marine correspondents and public relations officers included Herbert Merillat, George McMillan, Frank Hough, Jeremiah O’Leary and James Hurlbut.24 On 10 August, King for the first time mentioned in public that there had been a ground assault. Further Navy communiqués were scant, with Washington Post writers providing an aggressively positive spin to the minimal amount of information/disinformation being released. In a few days the Post joyfully announced the capture of “thousands” of Japanese prisoners, followed by the capture of “5,000 square miles” of real estate.25 In fact Guadalcanal totaled 2,500 square miles, of which the Marines gingerly held less than 1 percent. On 17 August a Navy communiqué for the first time mentioned Guadalcanal by name. The Navy and Marines committed the forgivable but serious error of filing a sufficient number of upbeat, morale-building stories to unwittingly set a public perception that the battle was almost over. On 14 August Hurlbut wrote: The entire enemy force on Guadalcanal has been scattered and marine units are busy wiping up. Enemy action at present is mainly of a harassing nature. Snipers operate at night, but they are few and have done almost no damage. Almost every day, at noon, enemy bombers have flown high over the island, but about all they do is 205

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indicate the time. Yesterday seven bombs were dropped, ruining a flock of coconuts. Three days later the Navy reported that US ground positions were “well established,” words the Los Angeles Times fairly translated into the headline “Marines Get Firm Hold.” On 20 August the Navy proudly announced the land battle successfully completed, leaving only a “‘mopping up’ [of] remnants of the Japanese forces on the islands which were recently captured.” The next day the Los Angeles Times blared the headline: “Marines Mopping Up in Solomons.” On 27 August the Navy announced that Japan’s surface fleet had left, which the Los Angeles Times ran as: “JAPS FLEE IN SOLOMONS.” Wresting the first Pacific island from the Japanese, it appeared, had been easy.26 In August there were only three independent journalists on Guadalcanal, Richard Tregaskis of the International News Service, Robert Miller of the United Press, and cameraman Sherman Montrose of Acme Newspictures, although they were followed by William Kent of the Chicago Times, F. Tillman Durdin and Hanson Baldwin of the New York Times, Thomas Yarborough of Associated Press, and Patrick Maitland of the London News Chronicle. Copy was vetted once on the island by Vandegrift’s operations officer, Lt.-Col. Gerald Thomas, and then again at Pearl Harbor before being forwarded to the Mainland for further reviews. Miller’s 9 August piece did not appear in the Los Angeles Times until 29 August. Hurlbut noted that after the censors got hold of his original copy it “looked like pieces of rare old Belgian lace.”27 As the story cycle transitioned from “news” to “context,” official government sources endeavored to put a positive spin on things. On 11 August the Navy issued a bulletin indicating that the Marines had engaged in “intensive jungle warfare training” prior to the invasion. “On combat ranges hewn out of coconut and banana groves the Leathernecks sharpened their shooting for the invasion operations they have now practiced on the Japanese.” The October 1942 issue of Leatherneck magazine advised that the men’s jungle training included the art of ju-jitsu and “dirty fighting.” “By the first of August, their commanders figured they were tough enough to take on any fighting unit on the map.” This was disinformation, meant to suggest a deliberate and seamless transition from planning to preparation and execution. While the Marines were to have received such training through the fall of 1942, the schedule King had set made that impossible. While the 7th Marines, having cherry-picked from the rest of the Division some of the Corps’s most experienced fighters, did in fact get real jungle training, this group was still on Samoa and would not arrive on Guadalcanal until 18 September. The 16,000 troops of Patch’s Americal Division were getting training outside Nouméa, but these men too would get to Guadalcanal only later. Vandegrift, who had ample personal experience in the jungle fighting 206

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Haiti’s Caco bandits in 1914, rued that the stateside training for Guadalcanal had not included living and fighting in thick foliage, which he quickly recognized as required skills for any patrol. Vandegrift would retain the executive officer of the 5th Marines, Lt.-Col. William J. “Wild Bill” Whaling, expert in jungle fighting following extensive experience in Nicaragua, to run round-robin clinics, unit by unit, while also developing an elite ranger group of his own for messy assignments in the interior.28

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Deployment The Imperial Army, unlike the Navy’s Mikawa, was slow in deciding how to oust the Americans. On 19 August it embarked from Rabaul 1,500 troops in four transports, escorted by one light cruiser and four destroyers, these backed by three carriers, two battleships, five cruisers and seventeen destroyers from Truk. The Allies decrypted enough to be forewarned, and Fletcher now returned with the carriers Wasp, Enterprise and Saratoga, the battleship North Carolina, five heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and eighteen destroyers. The ensuing Battle of the Eastern Solomons, 23–25 August 1942, pitted planes from Enterprise and Saratoga, joined by Marine dive-bombers from Guadalcanal’s now-functional Henderson Field and Army B-17s from the recently completed airstrip at Espíritu Santo, against a huge Japanese force. Although the carriers Sho¯kaku and Zuikaku stayed well away and were not found, the Japanese lost as many as 90 of 168 aircraft to the Americans’ 17. More significantly, the Americans foiled Japan’s attempt to land reinforcements. Although Task One should have been over and the baton passed to MacArthur by 21 August, it now seemed that the schedule King constructed back in June and the recent jubilation about “mopping up” were unrealistic. Hanson Baldwin in early October analogized the situation on Guadalcanal to the Japanese holding Long Island while the US held Jones Beach. This was neat, but wrong; while the Americans held a mere 12–14 square miles, the Japanese neither held nor wished to hold the rest. Guadalcanal’s only value to either side was the airstrip and whatever else was needed to secure it. To retake what they had built, the Japanese would need to overrun the American perimeter. Any observer would find that eminently doable, since Vandegrift’s five infantry battalions (each about 885 enlistees and 36 officers) did not comprise enough men to extend a true perimeter of redoubts around the field, much less a passive, thin, cordon defense (although Napoleon had in any event exposed the inefficiency of that technique). While the perimeter fluctuated, it at times stretched for 8 miles 208

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between the Tenaru River on the east and the Matanikau on the west, extending inland as far as 3 miles, as at Edson’s Ridge. Since the textbook structure of defense-in-depth was impossible, the chances for intrusion were many, although the jungle was so thick that any movement by a defile required substantial, slow and noisy hacking that would be heard and reported by the patrols and listening posts Vandegrift was sending out. While thirty-six howitzers rendered him under-strength in heavy artillery, he had nearly a thousand machine guns, one for every ten Marines. These he deployed unconventionally, using the terrain to advantage and setting up devastating fields of fire from a series of camouflaged nests, with hope resting in the notion that the several rivers and swamps, in conjunction with the thick jungle, would somehow combine to fill in the perimeter’s gaping holes. Among the most prominent of those gaping holes were thousands of yards of undefended territory between the airfield and the jungle to the south, as well as an area west of the Lunga where each of three US outposts was separated by a thousand yards.1 The virtue of Vandegrift’s system was that it worked. Turner had urged starting a second lodgment by landing the 7th Marines at Cape Taivu, 25 miles east of Lunga. Since Taivu was becoming one of the most popular nightly drop-off points for Japanese troops, Turner’s idea was to fight the Japanese as they arrived, before they could disperse into the endless jungle. On 9 September Turner and Ghormley met at Nouméa, agreeing to that plan on paper. But after Turner spent two days on Guadalcanal, he would not force the idea on Vandegrift, finding that the area around Henderson Field itself “was then so weak as to require immediate reinforcement by at least one regiment if we were to have hopes of holding it in the immediate future against attacks which the enemy seemed to have in mind.”2 Vandegrift had aggressive instincts and, given the paucity of men and assets available, he relied heavily on the concept of reconnaissance in force. Patrols outside the perimeter were classified as offensive, counter-offensive, reconnaissance, and search-and-destroy. These assignments were uniformly nasty, even if no Japanese were encountered. Constant dampness yielded jungle fungus of the foot, ear, groin. Sweat was so profuse that it gathered in one’s boots until one sloshed in it. James A. Michener recorded that the mere act of stopping to catch one’s breath causing dizziness. And if the Division could not get barbed wire, George E. McMillan wrote, it certainly could not get socks. “Blisters form on your feet in ten minutes, burst in another ten minutes, and you march the rest of the way on raw feet.” In open areas exposed to sun, the surface of muddy areas would dry, cake, then crumble. Guadalcanal was said to be the only place in the world where you could stand up to your ass in mud and still have dust fly in your eye. Clothing would dry out as the sun hit it, only to become wet again from perspiration. The pale-green herringbone twill fabric of the Marine utility uniform underwent this process so often that it commonly rotted away. To get 209

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resupplied, some men resorted to the so-called “Marine Dead Dump,” an inventory of untreated clothing and boots previously worn by Marines who would no longer need them. On patrol one needed to drink two canteens of water a day, but the men were supplied with only one. Inadequate hydration made further progress agonizing. Twelve thousand gallons of water from the Lunga River could be chlorinated per day and most of the lister bags in secure locations were kept full, but getting to them was not easy. There seemed to be enough salt tablets and iodine drops for purification, although some foolishly imbibed untreated river water.3

Ordnance “Every Marine,” it was said, “is a rifleman.”4 Infantrymen were supplied with the M1903 five-round, bolt-action .30-06-caliber Springfield, a “classic” their fathers and a few of their grandfathers had used, with an effective range of 600 yards. The new M-50 and M-55 Reising Gun, .45-caliber with a twenty-round clip, combining features of a submachine gun and carbine, was soon called the “Rusting Gun,” having tolerances too fine for the local conditions.5 Some units had the Browning .30-caliber air-cooled machine gun, others the Johnson M1941 .30-06 caliber air-cooled light machine gun, with its pistol-grip stock, firing up to ten bullets per second.6 The .50-caliber HB-M2 Browning machine gun, weighing 84 pounds, was typically mounted on vehicles. The real workhorse proved to be the Browning water-cooled machine gun, releasing nine .30-caliber bullets per second from 250- and 300-round web belts. These projectiles would remain on a frozen rope for a few hundred yards, then spread in a conical pattern deftly described in the industry as the “beaten zone.”7 Inscribing an even nastier zone of slaughter at closer range was the 37-mm anti-tank gun, standard equipment on the LVT(1) amphibian tractors but also used as a stand-alone, whose possible loads included a canister of shotgun pellets, the modern equivalent – Vandegrift later said – of grapeshot in the Revolutionary War. Another extraordinary weapon was the .30-caliber Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR). Air-cooled, gas-fed and with a retractable tripod, weighing 16 pounds, it could empty its twenty-round clip in under three seconds and be immediately reloaded, thus providing rapid fire without a machine gun’s weight and bulkiness. With thirteen-man squads of three four-man fire teams, one team would include a BAR, the squad leader using the BARenhanced team as his base-of-fire and the other teams to maneuver.8 Some units had the M2 60-mm mortar, delivering a 3-pound projectile in an effective range of 1,000 yards, releasing 200 fragments in a 34-yard circle. The 81-mm mortar could launch a 10.6-pound rocket 2,500 yards. At the high-caliber end of the arsenal was the 75-mm M1A1 pack howitzer, with a 14-pound shell and a maximum effective range of 9,600 yards. It could be disassembled into parts that could be hand-carried, designed by the French 210

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decades earlier to be borne by mules. And the 105-mm M2A2 howitzer, employing a crew of nine, fired a 33-pound projectile with a range of 12,000 yards.9

Rat landings Japanese airmen returning from their 7 August attack counted twenty-seven US transports off Guadalcanal, thirteen off Tulagi.10 Since the Japanese did not know that the Americans summarily abandoned the unloading on 9 August, with hundreds of men and the lion’s share of the supplies leaving the battle zone, it would have been reasonable to estimate that forty transports had left on Guadalcanal/Tulagi not fewer than 15,000 troops, well supplied for a long occupation. And on 11 August, two days after the transports had left, a Zero on a strafing run reported a substantial, division-sized US presence. But a Japanese military attaché in Moscow told Tokyo, on purportedly good authority from the Soviets, that the Marines wanted only to destroy the airbase and leave. The next day a senior officer, flying in a Betty bomber at 10,000 feet, concluded that the Soviets were right and that most of the Americans were already gone. As of 7 August, two brigades of Japanese land forces were available at Davao in the Philippines, with another, the Kawaguchi Detachment, on Palau. A 2,500-man regiment under Col. Kiyonao Ichiki was on Guam, and elements of Lt.-Gen. Harukichi Hyakutake’s 17th Army, said to include about thirteen infantry battalions, were at Rabaul, readying themselves for the overland attack on Port Moresby. Hyakutake, the logical leader for any initial concerted effort against Guadalcanal, was among those believing the American raid to be a feint to distract him. Without his participation, no substantial ground force could be committed without new orders from Imperial General Headquarters. And Tokyo, embracing the optimistic perception from the Betty bomber at 10,000 feet rather than what the Zero pilot saw up close, concurred that the Americans were leaving Guadalcanal.11 Mikawa wanted not only to attack the American transports but also to retake the airfield. Upon inquiry, Hyakutake’s staff suggested that Mikawa not bother Tokyo but go in with a few hundred men, the Americans being dismissed as “summer insects which have dropped into the fire.”12 Mikawa’s hopes for a substantial ground initiative thus failed for lack of administrative support.13 On 11 August Rabaul dispatched 300 navy riflemen and 100 soldiers. A few days later 113 troops of Japan’s Special Naval Landing Force arrived, managing to find 100 members of the original garrison and 328 workers hiding in the jungle. Since the range of the SBD-3 was 250 miles, theoretically any Japanese naval force could be attacked if it could be found in daylight, even as far away as the portion of the Slot between Choiseul and Vella Lavella, less than 90 miles below the Japanese staging base at 211

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Shortland. To avoid US aerial attacks, the Japanese used 34-knot destroyer/ transports, the equivalent of the American APDs, carrying about 150 troops each. The ten-hour, 295-mile trips from Shortland to Guadalcanal were timed for arrivals after dark. At 2300 on 25 August three destroyers landed troops at Cape Taivu, followed the next night by a landing of 128 men nearby. The Japanese called such nocturnal operations Nezumi Yuso, “rat transport,” named for the cunning and agile nocturnal rodent, while the Marines dubbed them “the Tokyo Express” or the “Cactus Express,” “Cactus” being the US codeword for Guadalcanal.14 An attempt to land 1,250 Japanese troops by three destroyer/transports was turned back by ten SBD-3s on 28 August, with one ship sunk. At 2330 on 29 August a force including five destroyers put 750 more men ashore at Taivu. Maj.-Gen. Kiyotake Kawaguchi arrived on 31 August leading 1,200 troops, with hundreds more arriving on successive nights. Between 29 August and 4 September the Japanese managed to land 5,200, while the use of barges on 5 September went awry, with only 150 of 1,000 men getting ashore.15

To Do and Die For now I see the true old times are dead, When every morning brought a noble chance, And every chance brought out a noble knight. Tennyson, Morte d’Arthur, lines 280–81 Among the troops thus landed by Japan’s fast destroyers was a small, elite force that in early June had been poised in transports off Midway, only to be pulled away when that operation foundered.16 In the middle of the night of 18–19 August at Taivu, six Japanese destroyers landed this Ichiki Shitai Senkentai, the first echelon of the Ichiki Detachment.17 Professional shock troops, they specialized in nocturnal bayonet charges, preceded by flares dangling from mini-parachutes and fireworks vaguely imitating machine guns, accompanied by chatter, howls and war hoops. On the same night, a separate force of 500, the Yokosuka 5th Special Landing Force, arrived at Tassafaronga, west of Henderson Field. Not itching to get into battle at the earliest possible moment, they faded into the jungle.18 But Col. Kiyonao Ichiki, filled with ego and disappointed about having lost his chance to capture Midway, now had besotted visions of employing his 917 men to overwhelm the Americans, seeing no reason to await either his 1,100-man second echelon or his supporting artillery.19 Vandegrift knew of the landing via decrypts, and his reconnaissance patrols now reported troop movements.20 Marching west from Taivu toward the American perimeter, Ichiki’s men captured one of Clemens’ scouts, Jacob Vouza, a retiree from Clemens’ British Solomon Islands Constabulary following twenty-five years’ service. Finding on Vouza a small American 212

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flag, they beat him, tied him up, slashed him with a sword, used him for bayonet practice, then left him for dead. But Vouza chewed through the ropes and crawled to the US perimeter, becoming the first world-class hero of the Guadalcanal campaign. “Duty,” Japanese soldiers had been taught, “is weightier than a mountain, while death is lighter than a feather.” Takeo Yoshikawa, Japan’s spy at Pearl Harbor, wrote that in the years after the Russo-Japanese War, the death of a young man in battle “was still likened to the fall of the cherry blossom, which alone among the flowers drops to its death at the height of its vigor and beauty.” Banzai, while commonly translated as “Long Live the Emperor,” means “Ten thousand years,” an indication of what the common soldier’s superiors wished to instill as a personal frame of reference. It was just one of the catchwords of Nippon seishin, “the soul of Japan,” whose proponents found nothing more honorable than death in war. The propaganda pamphlet with which each Japanese warrior shipped out contained an ancient poem, Umi Yukaba, “Going to Sea”: Across the sea, corpses soaking in the water; Across the mountains, corpses heaped on the grass. I shall die by the side of our Emperor. I shall never look back. It served as a battle anthem sung to injured men as they exited the hospital to return to duty, and as a requiem, dual purposes most Americans would find irreconcilable and not a little distasteful.21 At some moment between 0115 and 0200 on 21 August, the first 100 to 200 of Ichiki’s men commenced a close-order charge across the sandspit which blocked Alligator Creek from reaching the sea. Marines on the perimeter launched flares. Al Schmid, a sergeant of the 11th Machine Gun Squad, H Company in Lt.-Col. Edwin Pollock’s 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, later recalled that in the eerie light he saw a dark mass descending the sandbank, resembling “a herd of cattle coming down to drink.” He and his comrades started a blistering barrage of machine-gun fire. Ichiki’s men, audacious to the point of craziness, did not know how to stop, to admit tactical error, to retreat and regroup. Those still alive following the slaughter on the sandspit were the next day subjected to an envelopment from the south by Lt.-Col. L.B. Cresswell’s 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, ending in individual soldiers attempting to run for the ocean, only to be shot on the beach or in the water.22 Between the initial, lemming-like charge and midday, Ichiki’s force was reduced to 130, withdrawing to Taivu.23 The Marines, less 34 dead and 75 wounded, scavenged from the Japanese corpses the shovels they needed to dig foxholes.24 Additional Japanese bodies washed up on the shore for weeks, many having been picked off in the water while trying to escape (Figure 11.1).25 213

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Figure 11.1 Dead from the Ichiki Detachment.

How Ichiki himself died, whether on the sandspit on the first night, or during Cresswell’s envelopment, or by suicide, was never resolved. It was said he left behind a diary with a postdated entry: “21 Aug. Enjoyment of the fruits of victory.” On that day, as Yamamoto waited for word of the result, VAdm. Matome Ugaki, chief-of-staff of the Combined Fleet, noted in his own diary: “Some of the staff were of the opinion that the enemy must have surrendered because of the prompt attack by the Ichiki Detachment last night.” When news of what actually happened filtered north, a dispatch forwarded to Tokyo reported that Ichiki’s effort had been “not entirely successful.” Genjirou Inui, an officer in Ichiki’s second echelon still en route to Guadalcanal, heard from the US Office of War Information’s short-wave KWID in San Francisco that 670 of Ichiki’s 700 men had been killed. He wrote in his diary: “such a rumor gets on my nerves[;] of course it’s an old trick of the enemy.”26 If in the first days Japan had abandoned the Port Moresby operation and gathered from various islands a force of 20,000 warriors, it would have overwhelmed the Americans, retaken the airfield, and forced Washington into a radical reexamination of what it was doing on the Pacific front.27 But in 214

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fact the Japanese did not see the opportunity. At 17th Army headquarters, Lt.-Gen. Hyakutake proposed extracting the remnants of the Ichiki Detachment and abandoning Guadalcanal altogether, despite substantial opposition from the Imperial Navy. Only because the “rat landings” of early September went smoothly (due to the lack of a US naval presence) did Hyakutake decide to continue. After the war, VAdm. Shigeru Fukudome mourned having been sucked into the Imperial Army’s decision – fed on arrogance – to send troops “little by little,” when one infusion of a large force (say, as many Japanese soldiers as ultimately died on Guadalcanal) would have led to success. But it was said that the Imperial Army never formulated a strategic plan for the South Pacific.28 Among the Marines, most of whom before this night had never seen an enemy soldier nor fired a shot in anger, gritty gallantry became the spontaneous standard. Cpl. Dean Wilson was shooting Japs with a BAR. Three of them loomed out of the smoke and charged his foxhole. The BAR jammed, so Wilson threw it aside, grabbed a machete and slashed the first Jap across the stomach so hard that his entrails fell out. He jumped out of his hole, rushed the other two and hacked them to pieces. Machine-gunner Pfc. (Private first class) Johnny Rivers, an Amerindian in Pollock’s 2nd Battalion, died with his finger on the trigger of his machine gun, thereafter shooting another 200 rounds into the advancing enemy. Then Al Schmid took over, with Cpl. Leroy Diamond loading for him until Diamond took a bullet in the shoulder. In the course of four hours Schmid, assisted by the injured Diamond and with his dead buddy Johnny beside him in their machine-gun emplacement, helped kill at least 200 of Ichiki’s men. Blinded by a grenade, Schmid nevertheless continued to contribute, firing where Diamond told him to. “[H]eroes,” Walter Bayler wrote, “were a dime a dozen.”29 The slaughter on the sandspit provided a great psychological boost to the Americans, ending Japan’s reputation for invincibility on land much as Midway had ended a naval reputation unchallenged since the RussoJapanese War. It was now clear that the combined elements of the classic Japanese approach to ground combat, suicidal courage derived from a conviction of spiritual superiority, combined with saber charges and “bamboospear tactics,” would not suffice. Col. Clifton B. Cates, commander of the 1st Marines, commented: In my opinion it boils down to this. The Japs are excellent individual soldiers, but their headwork is very poor. They have gotten away with murder so many times, maybe they think that it only takes a 215

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small force to lick a big one. Well, they got badly fooled once anyway.30 The primary shortcoming was inflexibility. When a captured Japanese sergeant was asked why his forces never probed perimeters for weakness and why they continued frontal attacks even after they seemed doomed, he replied that once a plan was carefully worked out, it was to be followed, with no intervening improvisation. The Japanese thus saw American flexibility as a weakness. A document dated November 1942, “Comments on Guadalcanal Fighting,” noted among the Americans “a lack of tenacity in their combat leadership. When they suffer a setback they are quick to abandon one method and try another,” as if adjustments in situ betokened a lack of moral fiber. An observer in China had written in 1938 that the weakness of the Japanese officer is that, unlike European officers, he fails to remain master of a combat. . . . He goes through with a battle rather than directs it. His courage and conception of honor are far more inspired by a warring passion than by a real and realistic understanding of the necessities of the craft of arms. . . . [He] is more of a warrior than a military man. . . . [T]he essential quality of the warrior is bravery; that of the military man, discipline. So fixed were the commanders on victory that they did not factor in the ramifications of failure. Lt. William H. Whyte, an intelligence officer on Guadalcanal whose later book The Organization Man (1956) would define postwar America, wrote that the Japanese went into battle carrying personal diaries, written orders and marked-up maps, all of which the Americans would find among the dead and send to intelligence for analysis. Their training system was one of hierarchical brutality demanding unquestioning obedience to superiors. AP correspondent Clark Lee noted that “when the Japanese lose leadership, or something goes wrong with their plans, they become confused and do not know what to do except stand and be killed or try to run or swim away.” The Japanese soldier, Vandegrift later wrote, has “a willingness to die on the spot but no capacity to take independent action to redeem his situation.” That is, he “was trained to go to a place, stay there, fight and die. We train our men to go to a place, fight to win, and to live. I assure you, it is a better theory.”31 What the Japanese saw as courage, “spirit,” the Americans saw as a prodigal waste of human life. Tennyson’s ballad to the Light Brigade, “Theirs not to reason why,/ Theirs but to do and Die,” ends by asking readers to “Honor the charge they made!” This was in 1854, the poet having no deeper personal involvement in this botched operation than having read about it in a newspaper. For Europe and the US, World War I would render such “ideals” preposterous. In the West, there could no longer be anything 216

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romantic about squandering lives. Except, of course, if they were the enemies’ lives; the slaughter of the Ichiki Detachment yielded in the 22 August Los Angeles Times a banner headline delivering succinctly just what readers craved to see: “MARINES MASSACRE JAPS.”

Rules of engagement At 0705 on Dog Day, Rabaul received a final radio message from a Japanese officer at Tulagi: “The enemy force is overwhelming. We will defend our positions to the death.”32 The second sentence need hardly have been uttered, since gyokusai, dying an honorable death rather than surrendering, was expected. The Japanese surrender rate on the Tulagi side of the channel on the first day was 0.002.33 One man walked out of the jungle and sat down on the trail in a hysterical laughing fit, waiting to be shot. The notion of instead raising his hands and surrendering had not occurred to him. An Imperial Army manual urged officers to commit suicide rather than be captured. Although enlisted men were not ordered to do so, they were expected to die fighting; the Senjin-kun service code of 8 January 1941 made clear that capture brought disgrace to one’s family. And soldiers wore a sash of 1,000 stitches, each of them by a different girl who would be let down if her handiwork was disgraced. Vandegrift, when asked at a press conference many months later whether he thought the Japanese had developed a respect for the Marines, adroitly replied: “I wouldn’t know; most of the Japs I saw were dead.”34 Given the sadism inflicted during the training of Japan’s comrades-inarms, the Japanese soldier could hardly expect from his enemy anything other than a gruesome torture followed by death. Surrender thus was not only shameful but also – from a cost–benefit perspective – illogical. Under Japanese regulations anyone who went missing was listed as dead; the notion of his being held in captivity to be repatriated later was unthinkable. Since Japan had refused to sign the Geneva Convention of 1929, the issue of what a Japanese warrior might refuse to discuss when interrogated was as foreign as that document’s other provisions about prisoners’ “rights.” Therefore, those few who surrendered, upon finding that they were neither tortured nor killed but offered medical aid and a cigarette, talked freely.35 Japanese air crews were advised: “[U]nder no circumstances should you cling to life by accepting defeat nor should you forget the dignity of our Imperial forces to the extent of enduring the disgrace of being taken prisoner.” When, following the first day’s aerial combat over Beach Red, the destroyer Jarvis tried to pick up the crew of a downed Japanese bomber, at least one airman shot at the approaching ship with a handgun, then turned and proceeded to kill his comrades and himself. In another incident, a downed Marine pilot, Lt. J.E. Conger, prevailed upon his Navy rescuers not to shoot a Japanese pilot floating nearby. When Conger reached out to pull 217

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in Shiro¯ Ishikawa, the latter aimed a pistol at Conger’s face. The cartridge was wet and failed to fire. Ishikawa then put the gun to his own temple. It again failed. He then dove under the boat in an effort to have the propeller cut him to pieces, but the coxswain cut the motor. He was pulled in with a boathook and knocked unconscious. Such were the risks involved in capturing a Japanese airman. As anthropologist Ruth Benedict wrote, in a Japanese weighing of human values, valor repudiates rescue.36 Some Americans, seeing Japanese airmen bailing out without parachutes, guessed that commanders did not want enlisted flyers to survive and provide information to their captors.37 Peter Turnbull, squadron commander in the Royal Australian Air Force, said he saw a Japanese pilot machine-gun his own comrade as he tried to swim ashore from his downed plane.38 Joe Foss of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, 27-year-old impresario of “Joe’s Flying Circus,” was shocked to see Japanese parachutes floating in mid-air without men, until one day he saw a Japanese pilot in the act of committing suicide by releasing himself from his harness. Some Japanese apparently viewed the parachute not as a means to reach the surface safely but as a shroud from which to die honorably once one lost the last offensive option: using one’s plane as a projectile.39 The overall lesson seemed clear enough: the Japanese not only would fight to the last man, but also would choose death over capture even when fighting was no longer possible. Japanese soldiers were willing to die, but they were trained to kill. They had a protocol of yelling wildly, not just to scare the enemy but also to summon up a frenzied courage in themselves, a Marine analogizing it to “a mad religious rite.”40 Terror of course favored darkness, and Ichiki’s charge exemplified Japan’s tendency to exploit it. Each Japanese soldier was handed a propaganda pamphlet, Just Read This and the War is Won, which described “Westerners” as “very superior people, very effeminate, and very cowardly,” with “an intense dislike of fighting in the rain or the mist or at night.”41 While the gist of basic Japanese military training was to purge any remnants of human feelings, if any remained, officers were told: “To eradicate the sense of fear in raw soldiers, carnivals of bloodshed [and] human sacrifices to the War God are most effective. Killing with the bayonet should be carried out whenever an opportunity occurs.”42 Among the provisions of Just Read This and the War is Won: “When you encounter the enemy after landing, regard yourself as an avenger come at last face to face with his father’s murderer.” On 12 August, Bill Whaling, with hyper-acute hunting instincts, spotted a Japanese naval rating hidden in some bushes near the command post of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines. At first surly, the prisoner, when plied with brandy by Japanese-speaking intelligence man Ralph Cory, volunteered that some of those who had fled the airfield were ready to surrender on high ground beyond the Matanikau River, 5 miles west of Lunga Point. Goettge 218

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set out with Lt. Cory and twenty-four other men, lightly armed, to bring in this group eager to give up.43 Prior to volunteering for the Marines, Cory, an expert on Japanese and US codes, had been employed in the highly classified OP-20-G office of the Department of the Navy in Washington, the Navy’s equivalent of Friedman’s SIS. While Cory’s was war work of a most significant kind, he was now on Guadalcanal, and for no better reason than having become tired of pushing a pencil. If the Japanese had captured him, and if they had figured out that he spoke fluent Japanese, they might then have found that he was the same Ralph Cory who before the war had worked in an American consulate in Japan. From there they might well have set about torturing out of him everything he knew. And he knew a great deal: that Japan’s Midway disaster had derived not from bad luck but from the US ability to read JN-25B, and that the so-called “MAGIC” project had managed to reverseengineer an Alphabetical Typewriter 97 machine to decrypt Japan’s sophisticated Purple cipher.44 That Washington had allowed such a person to get assigned to a South Pacific island hotly in contention, and then to go on a misguided mission to “rescue” a group of enemy soldiers from enemy-held jungle territory, indicates a monumental lapse in security. But in fact Cory was never in any danger of being captured. The Japanese naval rating had either lied or simply been wrong; this group of Japanese soldiers did not wish to surrender. Here, as on most occasions, the Japanese took no prisoners. Cory, as well as Goettge, an accompanying physician and twenty other men, were all killed. When the last of three fleeing survivors looked back, he could see Japanese sabers hacking through his buddies.45 Some chalked up the incident to bad luck. Vandegrift had been reluctant to approve it. Whaling later said that Goettge’s group landed at a beach near Point Cruz which Whaling had specifically told Goettge to avoid. Others saw the mission as a wrongheaded quest for the notoriety and propaganda value to be gleaned by pulling off an unusual, collective Japanese surrender. Word quickly spread that the Japanese had waved a large white surrender flag, others countering that it might only have been a battle flag with its red “meatball” hidden within its furls. Vandegrift later wrote that the captured Japanese naval rating had not intentionally set a trap. But for most who would hear the story, the incident presented a classic tale of Yankee humanitarianism (thus the inclusion of a physician) and good will, betrayed by Japanese trickery and brutality. A camp outside Nouméa was later named in Goettge’s honor. By mentioning the “Goettge Patrol,” anyone could sum up the primary rule of engagement as defined by the Japanese: Show No Mercy.46 Richard Tregaskis’s book Guadalcanal Diary (1943), twenty-six weeks on the New York Times bestsellers list and for decades the most popular account of the campaign, recorded several vicious battles with a seemingly 219

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inhuman enemy, taking the reader through the thick-and-thin, albeit within the rhetorical standards of 1940s innocence by avoiding the graphic depiction of carnage. But the young journalist was overly solicitous of his stateside audience, as when he wrote: “War takes on a very personal flavor when other men are shooting at you, and you feel little sympathy at seeing them killed.” If he had been back in the US, he would have known that this sentence was unnecessary, in that no one felt sympathy for the Japanese, while the Marines he was interviewing would have found the sentence preposterous. A century earlier, H. Wager Halleck began his Elements of Military Art and Science (1846) by explaining the circumstances in which a moral person may ignore the biblical injunction against taking life. The training of combat troops must somehow cancel or override all such moral promptings, so that the job of killing will be done efficiently and without pause, and so that it will not be followed by guilt. And if anyone on Guadalcanal was traumatized by guilt, it went unrecorded. Although the dozens of psychiatric patients interviewed by Theodore Lidz would presumably be those most likely to suffer from having taken human life, Dr. Lidz flatly stated: “Reactions of guilt concerning the aggressiveness entailed in killing the enemy did not appear as a major issue in the histories obtained.”47 In training and in preparing for battle, potential moral qualms are shortcircuited by demonizing and/or dehumanizing the enemy. Yale’s Institute of Human Relations did a study of fear in battle by sending out a questionnaire to 300 members of the Lincoln Brigade, the all-volunteer force of Americans who had fought for the Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War. Its findings, published later in the war, verified empirically that hatred crowds out fear.48 Vandegrift, maintaining the proprieties when all others had abandoned them, eschewed “Nip,” apparently having adopted his admired Stonewall Jackson’s refusal to refer to the enemy in derogatory terms. At the other extreme was Halsey (Figure 11.2). Seeing the damage at Pearl Harbor, he declared: “Before we’re through with ’em, the Japanese language will be spoken only in Hell!” In his first general order in October 1942, Halsey succinctly defined the US mission as he wished it understood: “Kill Japs. Kill Japs. Kill More Japs.”49 Months after the US Army took over on Guadalcanal, a large sign was posted: “KILL THE BASTARDS! KILL THE BASTARDS!”50 A generation of anti-Japanese racism, then the news stories and pictures from China, then the “sneak attack” on Pearl Harbor, then the story of the Goettge Patrol and Halsey’s rhetoric, all combined to demonize the Japanese. A winner of a Silver Star reported: “Every time I pumped a bullet into a Jap, I had the feeling I was getting rid of something unclean.” When Al Schmid’s character in Delmer Daves’ film Pride of the Marines (1945) decides to cancel his hunting trip in order to join the Marines, he comments: “I bet it would be more fun shooting Japs than bears.” And as word of the Ichiki incident spread, Lt.-Col. “Chesty” Puller, distant cousin of George 220

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Figure 11.2 Poster featuring William F. Halsey.

Patton and a veteran of a hundred skirmishes in the banana wars, was still stuck on Samoa with the 7th Marines, living in fear that he would be left out of the action. Upon hearing that nearly 700 men of the Ichiki Detachment had been killed, Puller became “as excited as a schoolboy . . . at last he had something tangible for a goal . . . you could sense his grim determination to slaughter more Japs than anyone else.”51 221

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Bernard Riley, a Navy man assisting in the assault on Tulagi, talked to Clark Lee about “Red Mike” Edson’s battalion: The Raiders are picked for their size and toughness. All seem to be above six feet, and as hard as nails. In training they get sprayed with animals’ blood and bad things are thrown at their faces to see if they can take it. It was good training for the past three days. The Raiders are out to kill the Japs and they killed plenty. One Raider, asked how many he had killed, answered: “Only ten,” perhaps doleful that he was losing out in some spirited contest with his buddies, who were “killing them right and left.” A Newsweek piece in late October quoted UP correspondent Robert Miller concerning some Marine pilots: “They brought down a record bag of Japs today. They reminded me of listening to college kids in a football dressing room after a game. Same sort of talk.”52 Al Schmid lost his eyesight to a Japanese grenade during Ichiki’s charge, but killed an estimated 200. Back in the US, the Navy Cross on his chest entitled him to be called a hero. Although he bristled at that notion, he did not mind being called “Killer,” describing how he had hated the Japanese even when he had seen them selling trinkets on the Atlantic City boardwalk. He had his life story released as a book, which was being turned into a film in which John Garfield recreates Schmid’s working-man persona and reenacts the terrifying scene in the machine-gun emplacement. With all this, Schmid might have been well served by a pose of stoic humility. He chose instead to say how he really felt: pleased to know he was “ramming lead and steel into the Japs’ guts and slaughtering them to hell out there in the water.” “Be mean and kill ’em. Kill ’em dead,” another man said. “Our motto in this Platoon is ‘No prisoners.’”53 On Dog Day, Japan’s top ace, Saburo¯ Sakai, suffered substantial injuries in a dogfight with several SBD-3s, but managed to fly his shot-up Zero hundreds of miles back to Rabaul. Drifting between total and partial blindness, his deep head wound staunched with his flying scarf, he used the pain to help him maintain consciousness, periodically augmented by a self-imposed punch with his fist. On occasion he turned his plane back to the south, semiconsciously ambivalent between the possibility of surviving and the assured honor of crashing his plane into one of the US warships. At one point he saw Japanese warships (undoubtedly Mikawa’s force) sailing south at high speed, but chose not to ditch in the water near them, since the time necessary to pick him up might be taken away from an important mission.54 Sakai’s flight to Rabaul was an extraordinary achievement of personal courage. It was also highly unusual for a shot-up Zero to make it back to Rabaul. If an American pilot saw a “smoker,” a Japanese plane spewing 222

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either black “smoke” (oil) or white “smoke” (unignited gasoline), he could be assured not only that the plane was out of the action but also that the pilot was statistically unlikely to get back up the Slot. Thus, to achieve a “smoker” was the operative equivalent of a “kill,” even if not formally tallied as one. In the melee of a dog fight, all one wanted or reasonably needed to do was to “smoke” the Japanese plane and get on to other business with whatever ammunition one had left. This was especially true since the only way to defeat the Zero’s maneuverability (a US training film called it a “skyrocket”) was to work in teams using a special maneuver. But when there was no immediate threat, the individual US pilot had time to contemplate and even to savor what he was doing. Joe Foss told of a friend’s encounter with a Zero in mid-October: He selected his victim, put in a good burst and saw a big puff of white smoke – probably gasoline spray. . . . Over Savo he was a bare hundred feet behind. Aiming carefully, he sent home a great burst of .50-caliber slugs. The Zero exploded so violently the pilot was blown from his cockpit. His chute, riddled, flopped like a wet sack as he fell. Foss found this to constitute getting a Zero “in a particularly satisfying manner.”55 Demonization of the enemy required desecration of the enemy’s dead. A wooden marker at a grave stated: “Here lie four Japs / May They Rest in Pieces.” When intense heat and humidity caused the hundreds of corpses of Ichiki’s men on the sandspit to stink, Korean workers who had been captured or wandered in, dug a pit and threw the bodies in, laughing and smiling. Some, whether exorcising their pent-up resentments or merely placating their new masters, urinated on the carcasses, a primal act of triumph and disdain. Out in the jungle, many of the bodies had been run over by the American tanks, whose treads – Vandegrift noted – came to resemble meat grinders. Within thirty-six hours these corpses became so decomposed that they fell apart when touched and had to be buried where they lay.56 Many became inured to this, some Marines being able to eat lunch in the stench of Japanese corpses so filled with maggots that they undulated. Whaling was seen merrily driving up a defensive ridge, dragging bloated Japanese corpses, so they would be the first thing any approaching Japanese force would see.57 One man collected Japanese gold teeth and kept them in a bag, another collected ears on a string, while another made his girlfriend a ring from a legbone. While no one adopted the abandoned native practice of “eating the long pig” (cannibalism) or reinvented the art of head-shrinking, the ancient science of denuding flesh from skulls reached perfection, so that jeeps could bear trophies as hood ornaments. Among the duties of government censors was to pull from the mail the many skulls Marines were trying to send home.58 223

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“Tricky bastards” Since Pearl Harbor, terms like “tricky bastards,” “sneaky little bastards” and “wily bastards” had become serviceable shorthand.59 A Marine told Time/Life correspondent John Hersey that he wished he were fighting the Germans, who are “human beings, like us,” while the Japanese are “like animals.” Although the ancient concept of bushido¯, “the way of the samurai,” included a sense of justice and of fairness to the enemy, that aspect of the doctrine had long since disappeared in Japan’s development of a modern military.60 Marine public relations officer Frank Hough said the Japanese would as soon kill a chaplain administering the last rites to the dying as he would an active enemy. Nothing delighted him more than killing our wounded lying helpless between the lines, unless it was killing the doctors and hospital corpsmen who went out to attend them. Corpsmen removed their red-cross armbands to avoid being singled out.61 Litter-bearers too were “a Japanese sniper’s dream.”62 By 10 December eleven of the enlisted men in the 1st Division’s medical unit had died. Marine flight surgeon Victor Falk, having arrived on 13 October, noted that of seven surgeons in his group, within a week three were dead.63 The Japanese booby-trapped their own and American dead. Japanese soldiers were ordered always to keep one grenade so that, even if gravely injured, they could pull the pin as a Marine came near. Soon the Marines started shooting presumptive Japanese corpses before approaching. Interviewed by those writing a training manual, one Marine recounted that on his first patrol, three Japanese soldiers emerged from the jungle. The one in front was carrying a white flag. We thought they were surrendering. When they got up to us, they dropped the white flag and then all 3 threw hand grenades. We killed 2 of these Japs but 1 got away. . . . They are tricky bastards. Clark Lee recounted that on Tulagi, twenty female Japanese (either nurses or “comfort women”) were seen to emerge from the local hospital. When the Marines approached, machine guns opened fire from inside the hospital, killing the Marines and the women. In another incident Maj. Lew Walt, commanding Able Company of Edson’s Raiders, found a wounded Japanese soldier along the trail and got him back to Division headquarters. On the operating table the prisoner grabbed a scalpel and stabbed an attendant.64 A Marine patrol was overtaken by Japanese wearing Marine helmets and uniforms.65 On Tulagi, a Japanese soldier donned a dead Marine’s clothes

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and, walking past a sentry at dusk, slapped him on the back and said: “What’s doing, kid?” The sentry, not fooled, shot him.66 Another Japanese soldier got on the mess line and was duly served by the cook before he was noticed and shot.67 At night the Japanese might call out “Corpsman!,” or “K Company, forward!” or whistle the Marine Corps Hymn, or call out “Brown” or “Smith,” so the gullible might expose their positions. An American corporal was shot and killed after stepping into the open, having heard, in a clear American accent, “Corporal of the guard, Post Number Seven!”68 Reportedly another Japanese soldier spoke English well enough to try: “Heh, Capt. Duryea, we are bringing reinforcements from the right . . . don’t shoot us.” Capt. Duryea, expecting no reinforcements, told the man to come ahead, then opened up.69 Some Marine units dropped all references to rank, both to avoid having officers targeted and to stop the Japanese from yelling orders using the officers’ names. Thus did Lt.-Col. Merritt Edson go by “Red Mike,” as he had since chasing guerrillas in Nicaragua.70 “[W]e were fighting what was essentially a medieval nation,” it was said.71 Edson gave the Japanese a sort of compliment, telling John Hersey: “What they have done is to take Indian warfare and apply it to the 20th century. They use all the Indian tricks to demoralize their enemy.” Vandegrift similarly commented: “In order to meet them successfully in jungle fighting we shall have to throw away the rule books of war and go back to the French and Indian Wars again.”72 Navajo code talkers coined terms derived from their native tradition, a tank being a “turtle,” a submarine an “iron fish.” But because walkie-talkies would not work and the 120-pound TBX radios, with an advertised range of 20 miles, failed completely in the high humidity, communications were by runner, hazardous duty because of “jitter-bugging.” Replicating a device first used on Bataan, the Marines invented nighttime passwords and countersigns the Japanese could not pronounce: “lollypop” and “lollygag,” “lollapalooza,” “bilious,” “Bolivia,” “Chesterfield,” “Lucky Strike,” “Lola’s Thighs,” “Philadelphia,” “pale people,” “quill,” “spill” and “sparkle.” Col. Cates had a close call when he could not pronounce “Lilliputian.”73 In the first in-depth reporting of the initial invasion, by C. Brooks Peters in the 29 August New York Times, Edson noted a propensity of Japanese snipers to let a man walk by, then shoot him in the back. Hollywood films would find suitable palm groves on Catalina to recreate such incidents of unsportsmanlike warfare, beginning with a well-liked GI, perhaps having just received a letter saying his wife is going to have a baby, getting shot from behind, followed by an angry upward barrage from his buddies.74 Another treacherous act favored by Hollywood was shooting an American pilot as he tries to parachute to safety. The device was adopted in John Farrow’s film Wake Island, and in the Wake portion of Howard Hawks’ Air Force (1943), which premiered in New York the same week Guadalcanal was secured. Hawks added an extra dimension by having the grinning Japanese pilot 225

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finish off the wounded man after he lands and tries to crawl to safety. While American ace Joe Foss, with substantial experience over Guadalcanal, said he had never seen either side fire at men who were parachuting, Ore Marion reported seeing a parachuting F4F pilot being killed by a Zero.75 The Japanese were adept at psychological warfare. Among favored techniques was the alleged use of loudspeakers blaring: “US Marines Be Dead Tomorrow,” “Babe Ruth eat shit!” and “Blood for the Emperor!” That this was terrifying rather than amusing is shown in Delmer Daves’ rendition of the Ichiki attack in his film Pride of the Marines. But the Americans, not intimidated, reportedly answered back with shouts of “Tojo eat shit!” and “Blood for Elea-nor!,” the latter a witty and complimentary reference to the nation’s peripatetic First Lady.76 Every night came a lone two-engined Japanese plane, nick-named “Washing Machine Charlie” a/k/a “Maytag Charlie” and “Maytag Moe” because of the distinctive sound of its two unsynchronized engines. Charlie’s job was neither to reconnoiter nor to destroy but simply to murder sleep. He would make numerous lazy circles around Lunga Point, then drop 250pound bombs, one at a time, never in the same place, their searing contents including US scrap-iron sold to Japan before the 1940 embargo. While bad weather often caused the Bettys to cancel their flights, Chaplain Frederic P. Gehring, who came to the island on 25 September, could recall only one night when Charlie failed to show up. The pilot, whose other names included “Washboard Willie,” “One Lung Charley” and “Sewing Machine Charlie,” achieved some sort of cult status, particularly after he reportedly made contact with a Marine radioman on the ground one night, informing him in perfect English that he had been born and raised in Kansas City.77 Another nocturnal visitor was a single-engined seaplane from the Japanese seaplane base on Rekata Bay on Santa Isabel Island. “Louie the Louse” a/k/a “Lousy Louie” was undoubtedly named for a Waikiki dive, “Lousy Lui’s,” whose nisei proprietor had been rumored to be a Japanese intelligence agent. Often a harbinger of bombardments for which he served as spotter, Louie would delineate the airstrip for offshore warships by dropping a red flare over its west end, a white over its center, then a green at the east. And a third pest was “Oscar,” also known as “Adolph the Sub,” a collective name for two submarines that would surface at will and do some shelling, not in the expectation of doing serious damage but as a sort of thumbing of the nose or exposure of the middle finger, perpetrating what Herbert Merillat called “a humiliating impertinence.”78

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The Cactus Air Force Contention for an island airstrip will probably yield air, ground and sea engagements, “triphibious warfare” (Figure 12.1) On 12 August the honor of being the first American plane to land on Guadalcanal was given to a PBY flown by an aide to McCain. Henderson Field was declared operational for dry-weather use, and soon the escort carrier Long Island was positioned to transfer an advance echelon of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing (MAW). Squadrons from Marine Aircraft Group Twenty-Three (MAG-23), including some experienced pilots borrowed from Marine Fighting Squadron

Figure 12.1 Henderson Field photographed by aircraft from Saratoga, August 1942.

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(VMF) 212, were the first to arrive, then nineteen new F4F-4 Wildcats of VMF-223 under Capt. John Smith. Then came an under-strength Marine Scout-Bombing Squadron (VMSB) 232, comprising twelve new SBD-3s with self-sealing fuel tanks, under Marine Major Richard D. Mangrum.1 On 29 August MAG-23’s ground personnel arrived, followed by the Group’s commander, William Wallace, and its two other squadrons, VMSB-231 and VMF-224. The “Mud Marines,” watching MAG-23 land at dusk, “leaped out of their fox holes, threw their helmets in the air, and yelled themselves hoarse.” One commented: “I always thought the most beautiful sight I’d ever see would be the Golden Gate, but damned if those SBDs ain’t just about the pertiest sight any man could wish for.”2 Some of the men, an officer noted, cried, “and were not a damn bit ashamed of it.” “I think I cried some, too.”3 Vandegrift admitted the same. Although coast-watcher Martin Clemens reminded the Marines of “a movie-style European in the hot countries, the sort that’s always sitting at a small table on a hotel veranda in Cairo or Singapore” and about to offer one a whiskey and soda, when he saw the planes, even his projected air of sophistication gave way to a tingle down his spine.4 With the ground troops understaffed to hold the perimeter and lacking heavy artillery, and with the Navy gone, the only feasible means to harass further Japanese landings and defend the airfield was thus with aircraft.5 On 22 August a B-17 led five Bell P-400 (a/k/a P-39D) Airacobras of Capt. Dale Brannon’s 67th Fighter Squadron the 520 miles from Espíritu Santo, to comprise Henderson Field’s first Army Air Forces detachment. On 24 August Enterprise donated some more SBD-3s, and on 30 August came the rear echelon of MAG-23 squadrons: VMF-224’s nineteen Wildcats and VMSB-231’s twelve SBD-3s.6 Then on 3 September arrived the legendary Maj.-Gen. Roy S. “Jiggs” Geiger, MAW’s commanding general. A veteran of Nicaragua, he had been the fifth Marine to get his wings, thereafter leading a Marine flying squadron in World War I. He would head what the men were calling the “Cactus Air Force.”7 Within just hours of arrival, the first echelon of SBD-3s wreaked such damage on Japanese surface vessels as to keep them away during daylight, while on 28 August, Mangrum’s SBD-3s damaged three of four transports as they attempted to bring in Japanese troops. But because the Allies’ decimated naval forces still could not put together a sufficient surface presence, once night fell, Japanese ships could enter the channel and harass at will. At noon every day, dubbed “Tojo Time,” eighteen to twenty-four planes would arrive from Rabaul to do bombing runs, accompanied by several dozen Zero fighters. Once the data from northerly coast-watchers was received and the warning alarm triggered, all flyable aircraft scrambled willy-nilly, their wings flailing precipitously as they bounced through small bomb craters on their way to the runway. By 26 August, of the nineteen F4F-4s that first flew in, only eleven remained, and of the twelve SBD-3s only nine.8 On 10 228

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September, of thirty-six F4F-4s, only eleven were functional, although twenty-two more arrived the next day from Saratoga. As of 14 September, five of fourteen P-400s were operating, four damaged and five destroyed.9 McCain spent a night on the island in late August, thereafter telling Nimitz and King that greater support was necessary and “admits no delay whatsoever,” while Arnold insisted that the new Lockheed P-38 Lightning interceptors, featuring a speed and rate-of-climb superior to the Zero, were nevertheless reserved for North Africa. Forrestal, also visiting in late August, reportedly told Ghormley: “if the people at home knew the real situation down here on this Army fighter aircraft situation, there would be a revolution.”10 Of twenty-four F4Fs of the famous Fighting Five squadron present on 11 September, by 15 October air combat as well as nightly shelling and bombing had destroyed sixteen.11 King, faced with an appalling aircraft attrition-rate of 57 percent, told Marshall that replacements were “imperative” and should take priority over TORCH.12 Although on 9 August much-needed construction equipment had sailed away, a separate issue was that of construction workers and ground personnel. The 1st Engineer Battalion had been working on the field from the beginning. The four APDs that arrived in mid-August from Espíritu Santo offloaded Major Charles Hayes and 120 aviation ground personnel of “CUB One,” as well as ammunition, spare parts, 400 drums of aviation fuel and 282 bombs.13 On 1 September came 392 members of the 6th Naval Construction Battalion, Seabees, professional construction men sent in response to Forrestal’s pleas for such specialists. Most of the volunteers were over a decade beyond draft age, many of them old enough to be the Marines’ fathers.14 The daily bombing and nightly shelling necessitated a maintenance crew of one hundred, aided by up to a hundred local casual laborers. Men lacking shovels moved dirt with their helmets.15 One day the runway featured fortyseven unfilled craters, and on another a total of eight planes crashed on takeoff. Once all functioning planes were away, support crews high-tailed it for shelter as the Japanese bombs whistled down. When the battle happened to be directly overhead, 50-caliber shell casings became a skullcracking rain. The plain between the Lunga and Tenaru Rivers was covered by 18 inches of dark mud, described by a pilot as “black gumbo,” covering a substratum of clay. To make a hard runway surface the Japanese had shaved off the mud to expose the less porous clay, an expedient which put the entire runway surface below grade. Although gravel and coral debris built it back up, individual pieces of gravel and coral chips would be swept up in the prop wash, turning them into small-caliber bullets. SBDs that had been inherited from the flat-tops featured the hard rubber tail wheels appropriate for carrier decking; on this very different surface they tended to act like plows. Eventually 10-feet by 14-inch strips of perforated steel planking, “Marston 229

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Matting,” arrived, comprising a hard surface that could be quickly installed.16 The interlocking panels mangled when hit by bombs, slashing tires during takeoffs and landings until such time as the jagged panels could be ripped out and replaced. Replacement parts came haphazardly, although spares could always be cannibalized from the steadily growing inventory of busted planes bordering the field. The mechanics were skilled, salvaging everything – it was said – but the bullet holes, although at one point Cactus could scramble only one divebomber. At times so little ammunition was left that men scrounged in the brush for rounds that might have been discarded. Fuel had to be pumped manually, and with no bomb-dollies or bomb-hoists, bombs had to be mounted with hand cranks (wittily called “the Armstrong System”).17 Each C-47 could carry only enough avgas (twelve drums) to keep a dozen F4Fs flying for under an hour. At one point the field was down to one day’s supply. The pilots flew high-stress combat missions all day, then spent each night in ground-combat conditions, an unprecedented regime of twenty-fourhour stress. When John Smith flew in, he pulled off his goggles and asked: “Where’re the billets?,” to which Vic Croizat responded: “You can dig your foxhole wherever you like!” Up at 0445 each morning to warm up their planes, in the air many hours of the day, they slept under the Lever Brothers’ palm trees, otherwise hung out in a “Ready Tent” next to the field. “No PX’s . . . no candy . . . no gum . . . not even soap.” An ice-cold Coca Cola was a notable experience. All but three of the men in Bob Galer’s squadron were shot down at least once. On one day three pilots made dead-stick landings within sixty seconds, one of them having been shot in both legs.18 For the F4F pilots, in particular, breathing oxygen at high altitude all day accelerated the depletion of the body’s resources. Even at lower altitudes, dehydrated pilots would open their canopies and fly into squalls just to get rained on. Pilots could be so burned out by incessant combat, sleepless nights, and scanty rations that upon landing they would crawl under the wings of their planes and sob. It was said that General Geiger at times “had to kick them – literally kick them – back into their cockpits” to make them go back up for the next engagement. By mid-September a flight surgeon decided that most of the men should be grounded. “They’ve got to keep flying,” a senior officer retorted, “It’s better to do that than get a Jap bayonet stuck in their ass!”19 While some optimists found the maximum conceivable tour of duty to be thirty days, it was capped at three weeks and by late October the Marines were requesting that men be cycled every ten days, although many stayed on for six weeks. McCain, who made two visits to the island in September, said that pilots bidding him goodbye would do so as if “taking a last farewell.” Many years later, tears welled in McCain’s eyes as he recounted to his grandson “the faces and spirit of the Marines and pilots defending the airfield.” Of forty-one SBD pilots in VMSB-141 who arrived on Guadalcanal in 230

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late September, within weeks seven were dead, eleven missing in action and nine evacuated because of injuries or illness. On 14 November the remaining fourteen were shipped out. Dick Mangrum, who spent fifty-five days on Guadalcanal, lost six of his twelve pilots and described those who survived as “all used up.”20 Of the original twenty-three pilots of MAG-23, only Mangrum would be able to walk to the C-47 cargo plane that would evacuate the unit’s survivors. Despite all of this, the hodge-podge group’s lethality became the stuff of legend. While in the fog of combat more kills are claimed than are later confirmed in a postwar tally, the Cactus Air Force, sometimes working in tandem with surface forces, did manage to shoot down so many planes that a Japanese pilot allegedly observed that no one survived two trips from Rabaul. Reportedly one of the Japanese planes shot down still had remnants of the paper wrappings glued to its propellers.21 In their first ten days, Cactus fliers claimed fifty-six Japanese aircraft, losing only eleven of their own. From 1220 to 1400 on 30 August they dispatched eighteen Zeros. The four American aircraft still functioning at that point refueled to reengage, shooting down eight more planes with no further US losses. From 25 to 28 September they claimed forty-two Japanese planes without incurring one loss, and from 27 September to 26 October they claimed two hundred and twenty-eight. In six weeks on Guadalcanal, Capt. Joe Foss made a total of fifty sorties. Unlike most other pilots, he liked to provide a running commentary over the radio for the men on the ground, such as: “Watch me pick off that little . . . on the end, you guys.” He would tie World War I ace Eddie Rickenbacker’s record of twenty-six confirmed kills, his plane sporting twenty-six rising suns. Five Marine pilots – John Smith, Marion Carl, Jim Swett, Bob Galer and Harold “the Coach” Bauer – would earn a combined seventy-seven such painted images. Five Medals of Honor awarded to Marines during the campaign went to airmen, including Smith, Bauer, Galer and Foss. Vandegrift saluted the Cactus Air Force by resorting to the understatement of the passive tense. “Odds,” he declared, “were never counted.”22 The mixed bag of aircraft involved in WATCHTOWER included various virtues and vices. The B-17E bombers, Boeing’s so-called “Flying Fortresses,” were aptly named, in that they tended to function following a myriad of wounds. They had a range of 1,200 miles with a 4,000-pound bomb load, 2,500 miles when rigged for reconnaissance. But long-range reconnaissance was MacArthur’s responsibility, and the bombing targets in which the men on Guadalcanal were interested – Rabaul, Buka, Buin, Kieta, Kavieng, Shortland and Munda – were all in MacArthur’s jurisdiction. Ground troops needed close air support applied precisely, a job for which B17s were unsuited. While audiences of Howard Hawks’ film Air Force (1943) could watch B-17s dropping bombs on Japanese ships, with an accuracy rate 231

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approaching 100 percent, in fact, a total of 828 bombs dropped by B-17s on sixty Japanese ships off Guadalcanal resulted in only four sinkings, a tally consistent with the B-17s’ performance at Midway. In the Battle of the Eastern Solomons in the third week of August, the captain of a Japanese destroyer thought being hit by a bomb from a B-17 so unlikely that when he saw the bombers approaching at altitude, he did not bother to commence evasive maneuvers. (In this instance he had the bad luck of being the exception to the rule.)23 The B-17s were thus not suited for use around Guadalcanal. They also consumed too much aviation fuel and support time. Therefore, despite Cactus’s desperate, ongoing need for replacement aircraft, its B-17s were relegated to the field at Espíritu Santo. Far more disappointing at Midway had been the TBDs, which scored no hits and were nearly all shot down. The TBD was taken out of service. Its replacement, the Grumman TBF-1 Avenger, had a ceiling of 22,400 feet, a range of 1,215 miles and a speed of 271 miles per hour. This plane too carried with it an uncomfortable report from its introduction at Midway: of six launched, five had crashed, the sixth returning badly shot up, with one of its crew dead, another wounded. (Its reputation would later improve substantially.) More impressive was the SBD-3, typically carrying one 1,000pound or two 500-pound bombs, its 70-degree dive from 12,000 feet to a release point at 1,500 feet requiring a mere 25 to 30 seconds. Having dispatched three Japanese carriers at Midway, it qualified as one of the most valuable weapons of the Pacific war.24 The Bell P-39 Airacobra featured an engine unusually positioned behind and below the pilot, designed around one innovation: a cannon whose barrel came through the hub of the propeller. The variant P-400 was originally intended for use by Britain’s Royal Air Force, but it rejected the plane. While a P-39 could attain 27,000 feet, the P-400 model, equipped with the same impressive, 1,200-horsepower, V-12 Allison V1710-35 engine, lacked the supercharger originally specified and burned out above 15,000 feet. While this by itself rendered these so-called “Iron Dogs” a/k/a “Flying Coffins” a/k/a “Clumkers” unavailable for aerial interdiction of Japanese bombers, they also lacked the high-pressure oxygen canisters the British had specified, yielding an effective ceiling of only 12,000 feet, since flying even at 10,000 feet without oxygen can cause, among other things, “a marked tendency to sleepiness.” This was a problem the chronically sleep-deprived Guadalcanal pilots did not need. Thus the Airacobras were primarily assigned to support of ground troops, and would play a significant role on the morning after the second night at Edson’s Ridge.25

The Grumman Iron Works Nicholas Ray’s film Flying Leathernecks (1951) affords us beautiful color views of the Grumman F4F Wildcat flying in formation. The film’s theme is 232

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that the new leader of Squadron VMF-247, played by John Wayne, is trying to persuade the top brass that the Wildcat, functioning brilliantly as a fighter, should also be used for close air support of ground troops. He gets his opportunity at Guadalcanal. The versatile aircraft could be used for that purpose, and the Wildcats of VMF-223 participated in the annihilation of the Ichiki Detachment and in the strafing of Maj.-Gen. Kiyotake Kawaguchi’s forces near Edson’s Ridge.26 But in general Wildcats could not be spared for use in close air support, since their service ceiling of 34,900 feet enabled them to reach the bombers. Against Zeros, Wildcats were best when they had room to dive, their weight providing the speed. The basic plan for attacking Bettys, derived from German fighter theory, was to get positioned ahead of and 5,000 feet above the bombers, descending to the prime firing distance from the target, 1,000 feet. Since Bettys had a ceiling of 28,800 feet, Wildcats needed substantial advance notice, requiring over twelve minutes to reach even 20,000 feet. The shortages of aircraft on Guadalcanal required pilots to abuse the 1,200-horsepower Pratt and Whitney R-1830-86 engine, with long climbs yielding excessive cylinder-head and oil-gauge temperatures, followed by full-throttle dives. While this shortened engine life to ninety hours, Fighting Five’s commanding officer, Lt.-Cmdr. L.C. Simpler, noted that this issue was irrelevant since on Guadalcanal ninety hours usually exceeded the life of the plane itself.27 A Zero could protect a bomber formation at 24,000 feet by flying at 29,000. The Zero, much more maneuverable and 2,000 pounds lighter than the Wildcat, could achieve a 20-percent quicker rate of climb.28 Lt.-Cmdr. Jimmie Thach, seeing reports of the plane’s extraordinary performance in China, “rehearsed” dogfights each evening by spreading matchsticks over the dining-room table of his rented house in Coronado, California, then worked out the results with his squadron at San Diego’s North Island Naval Air Station the following day. On 3 June 1942, during the Aleutian portion of Yamamoto’s Midway operation, Flight Petty Officer Tadayoshi Koga’s Zero was shot at by a PBY. With his fuel line severed and his engine about to lock, Koga sought Akutan Island, northeast of Dutch Harbor. Finding what he thought was a meadow, he put down his wheels in what was in fact a bog, which flipped the plane over, killing him. In mid-July a US plane spotted the Zero and dispatched a salvage team. Freighted to San Diego, it was made airworthy and, piloted by Captain Melville (“Boogie”) Hoffman, it underwent extensive tests of its virtues and limitations.29 (The following year it starred in a training film, Recognition of the Japanese Zero Fighter a/k/a The Jap Fighter, costarring Ronald Reagan and Craig Stevens.) Thach had developed a brilliant technique, oriental in subtlety since it rendered the Zero’s maneuverability irrelevant while making the most of the Wildcat’s six 50-calibre wing-mounted machine guns with converging 233

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fire lines. He called it the “beam defense position,” but a colleague nicely dubbed it the “Thach Weave.” Two pairs of Wildcats would fly parallel, separated by the length of the Wildcat’s turning radius. The pilots would look past one another, so that the pair of pilots farther from any approaching Zero would see it first. Upon spotting the Zero, this pair would begin to turn toward the pair of Wildcats which the Zero was about to attack. That pair, seeing the other two Wildcats turning inward, would now initiate its own inward turn. The two pairs would eventually cross, with the wingman of each pair coming under his lead plane. At about the time the Zero was positioned to fire at the tails of the pair it pursued, the other pair would have the Zero – if only for a second – targeted. As the two pairs crossed, each would reverse its turn, the resulting pattern resembling somewhat the outline of an hourglass, which upon completion would have the two pairs positioned to initiate the same maneuver again.30 Variants were perfected for use with as few as two Wildcats and as many as eight. While the Zero’s designers had sacrificed all else (including the survivability of the highly trained pilot) for speed and maneuverability, the F4F-4 had self-sealing gas tanks and carried substantial cockpit armor, yielding for its manufacturer the endearing name “Grumman Iron Works.” “A Zero can’t take two seconds’ fire from a Grumman,” a pilot noted, “and a Grumman can take 15 minutes’ fire from a Zero.” On Dog Day, Saburo¯ Sakai of the Tainan Air Corps, skilled veteran of the attack on Luzon’s Clark Field, fired his 7.7-mm guns at an F4F. Knowing that he had put 500 to 600 rounds into the plane, and seeing that its rudder and tail “were ripped to shreds, looking like an old torn piece of rag,” he was shocked that the plane was still flying. Saito pulled ahead, “slid open the canopy and turned to look back. . . . He was a big man, with an oval face and a fair complexion. We stared at each other for countless seconds; I would never forget the strange feeling.” The F4F pilot was apparently wounded and could not fire. Saito this time got behind him and opened up with his 20 mm cannon. (The F4F dropped, but the pilot managed to bail out.) Ace Joe Foss, returning to Henderson Field from an aerial shoot-out in late October, “thought affectionately of the good Grummans – they never blazed up.” Another squadron leader commented that any pilot who preferred the Zero because of its greater maneuverability ought to have his head examined.31 Some said the Wildcat was the most important factor in the whole WATCHTOWER operation. Through the course of the war, Japan turned out replacement planes, its inventory growing from 2,120 just prior to Pearl Harbor to 10,429 by 1 April 1945. Under severe pressure from the Army for numbers, however, quality control deteriorated. At one point, of every hundred new planes that managed to pass inspections at the plant, only thirty lasted long enough to get to the battle zone.32 The constant replacement of fighter pilots yielded similar quality problems. As of December 1941, Japanese carrier pilots had 234

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700 hours’ training before joining the fleet, double that of the Americans.33 These precious human assets were squandered by the Zero’s vulnerability – the price of its agility and speed. Gradually they were replaced by men so inept and under-trained that by mid-1943 most Japanese pilots were little more than students, and by 1944 kamikaze attacks became a preferred fighting method because men with just enough skill to fly their planes into a large object were easily expendable, and the planes they flew were by then far outclassed and outdated by the Hellcats and gull-winged Corsair F4Us. That only 1–3 percent of such suicide pilots successfully connected with an Allied target seemed an acceptable cost–benefit ratio.34

Edson’s Ridge Despite the victory over Ichiki and the optimistic words about “mopping up” being read by the American public, local commanders were fretting not only about the high attrition rate for aircraft, but also the fate of the lodgment itself. When on 8 September King told Ghormley to pull a regiment of Marines from Guadalcanal for MacArthur’s use, Ghormley could see (he later wrote) “that the authorities in Washington did not appreciate our situation.” The messages they could decrypt gave Turner and Ghormley the sense that major new Japanese offensives could be expected. On 12 September, Turner and McCain flew to Guadalcanal with a message (or messages) from Ghormley. Vandegrift had just moved his command post to within 500 yards of the undulating ridge south of the airfield, believing that there it would be far from any assault against the field. The message from Ghormley that has survived states that within three weeks the Japanese would mount a major ground assault, that the US had inadequate resources to repel them, and that there would be no further resources committed. Turner, while discussing this message with Vandegrift and McCain, reportedly poured three glasses of scotch and promised to bring from Samoa the 7th Marines, whose presence had been first requested by Vandegrift a month earlier.35 Vandegrift’s assistant operations officer, Merrill Twining, later said there was also a second memo from Ghormley, this one handwritten on social note paper, painting the future in even blacker terms and granting Vandegrift permission to surrender if things got bad enough, or to escape into the woods to engage in guerrilla warfare once the Japanese had retaken Henderson Field. During the meeting the note was tucked in a pocket and has never surfaced since, although Twining is a highly credible witness. Historian Michael Smith has thoughtfully suggested that it went unmentioned in the written memoirs of Vandegrift, and of Twining’s boss, Gerald Thomas, in order to spare Ghormley the humiliation of having authored it.36 It undoubtedly represented Ghormley’s attempt to avoid the painful confusion a few months before as to whether “Skinny” Wainwright had authority 235

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to surrender the Philippines.37 In any event, as Twining later recounted, the gist was that “we were being cut adrift to shift for ourselves.”38 “It was no laughing matter,” Edwin Hoyt has written, “when the commander of the South Pacific force gave up the battle before it was fought.” Another naval historian has accused Ghormley of “moral abdication.” One certainly marvels as to why Ghormley would not deliver such a message in person. But Vandegrift and Turner were made of sterner stuff. So were the others. The next day Vandegrift told his old friend, Maj.-Gen. Geiger, that if the perimeter was overrun, Geiger’s flyers were to get the planes out. Geiger responded that if necessary the planes would go, but he was staying.39 There was no time for Vandegrift, Thomas and Twining to brood over Ghormley’s bleak assessment. “Red Mike” Edson’s raid on Kawaguchi’s supply depot at Tasimboko had revealed that in a few days Kawaguchi would be launching a major, multi-pronged attack on Henderson Field from an interior bastion to the south, following some kind of complicated demarche. Intelligence soon located Kawaguchi’s men moving toward several widely spaced points of access to the airstrip, thus forcing Vandegrift into irrevocable choices. Edson believed the likeliest entrée was the 1,800yard undulating ridge below which Vandegrift had just resettled his command post. Edson was also convinced that Kawaguchi would attack at night, when Japanese ships would be available for fire support.40 There were neither enough men nor guns for every strategist to indulge his intuition as to where the main line of resistance (MLR) was located. Vandegrift remained unconvinced that it would be the ridge, and acquiesced in Edson’s request that his Raider Battalion and the parachutists occupy the ridge and its environs on a “just-in-case” basis, not because of their demonstrated ferocity (about which there was no doubt), but rather in prospect of a well-deserved rest. In addition, Vandegrift let Col. Pedro del Valle of the 11th Artillery scope out the details of a defensive barrage in that sector. That Edson’s instincts were correct became clear when on 11 and 12 September formations of Bettys chose for the first time to forgo Henderson Field and bomb the ridge, an obvious softening-up exercise for a subsequent assault. Although Bettys had been shot down almost every day by F4Fs and anti-aircraft fire, their bombardiers were sufficiently skilled that they “were able to place a string right down the center of the Ridge – no mean job.” “Some goddamned rest area,” one Marine commented (Map 10).41 The famous engagement at “Edson’s Ridge,” a/k/a “Raiders’ Ridge” a/k/a “Bloody Ridge,” beginning 12 September and not ending before dawn on the 14th, started at 2130 with an hour-long barrage from the 5-inch guns of the light cruiser Sendai, the noise of which muffled the sounds of Kawaguchi’s approaching ground troops. Sendai then focused searchlights on the ridge, discomforting the Marines and providing Kawaguchi’s approaching units, otherwise lost and with no means to contact one another, with a visual destination.42 Marine units had been planted as outposts in the 236

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Map 10 Battle of Edson’s Ridge.

jungles along the ridge’s flanks. Some of these the Japanese killed, while others they captured and tortured, their screams being heard at the ridge. Kawaguchi had told his men: It’s the time to offer your life for His Majesty the Emperor. The flower of Japanese infantrymen is in the bayonet-charge. This is what the enemy soldiers are most afraid of. The strong point of the enemy is superiority of fire power. But it will be able to do nothing in the night and in the jungle. . . . Rout, stab, kill, and exterminate the enemy before daybreak.43 Much of the fighting on both nights took place not on the ridge but in the jungles and swamps below it. On the second night, however, the ridge became center-stage. “The attack was almost constant, like a rain that subsides for a moment and then pours the harder. . . . When one wave was mowed down – and I mean mowed down – another followed it into death.”44 Capt. Kenneth Dill Bailey, whose classic American handsomeness could a generation earlier have yielded him a job advertising Arrow shirts, had been wounded in August while trying to throw a grenade into the slit of a machine-gun bunker at Tulagi, after which he was evacuated to a Nouméa hospital. Apparently sensing a significant engagement, he had stolen away 237

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from the hospital to rejoin his men. Bailey, like Edson, had and projected the personal courage required of combat leaders. John Hersey wrote: “Except for a hard knot which is inside some men, courage is largely the desire to show other men that you have it.” Both Edson and Bailey had the hard knot of courage and knew the tactical importance of projecting it. They were both clearly visible, standing erect on the southern nose of Hill 120, barking orders into command phones or dashing from exposed position to exposed position while all hell broke loose around them. For their work on these two nights, Edson and Bailey would both receive Congressional Medals of Honor. Only Edson would live to receive it, Bailey dying by machine-gun fire two weeks later. Pedro del Valle, former teacher at Quantico, former Marine observer of Mussolini’s troops in Ethiopia, commanded the twelve 105-milimeter howitzers and twenty-four 75-mm pack howitzers of the 1st, 2nd and 5th Battalions of the 11th Artillery regiment. On the night of 13–14 September he directed a total of 2,870 rounds, much of it at the extremely close ranges (1,600–2,000 yards) disallowed by the textbook but worked out by the brilliant del Valle in the hours prior to the fighting. So short was the range that at times the barrels of the 105s stood almost vertically. Joseph Alexander in his exhaustive study of the battle indicates that in this fight del Valle was responsible for more Japanese deaths than all of the grenades and rifle and machine-gun fire. An official chronicler stirringly analogized del Valle’s artillerymen to the bowmen at Agincourt.45 The battle was also a cornucopia of personal weapons: grenades, machine guns, submachine guns, rifles, pistols, and substantial hand-to-hand combat with knives and hands. Edson advised his Raiders, the 1st Parachute Battalion and the 2/5 that if they did not hold the ridge, the entire Guadalcanal expedition would be for nothing. And Bailey, too, said something like: All you fellows have buddies and friends that have been wounded and killed, and it will all be in vain if we lose the airfield. Now let’s get out, hold the line, and save the airfield. If we lose the airfield, we’re going to lose the island. Dave Taber thought it “almost like something out of a movie.” At times the milieu among the Americans was what a Japanese soldier might expect: “We were told,” a platoon leader recounted, “we had to stay until we died, to hold the line. We never felt we’d get out of it, actually.”46 Marine historian John L. Zimmerman noted that as of late in the afternoon of 13 September, it would be wrong to talk of “lines” in the battle. Rather, it was a gang fight, a general Donnybrook involving individuals and small groups. There appears to have been no control in the sense of 238

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commands given and followed. In a sense, of course, none were needed, for some time during that night everything in the nature of training and discipline and high aims – all vestige of sophistication – melted away, and everyone, Japanese and American alike, fought for his individual life in his individual way.47 American dead and missing totaled somewhere between 97 and 111, with between 34 and 37 of them among Edson’s Raiders.48 One observer the next day noted a substantial number of paratrooper boots protruding from tarpaulin-covered bodies, the 1st Parachute Battalion having lost around 21. The battle, when added to the initial brutal fighting around Tulagi, had brought the parachutists from 397 to below 90 able-bodied men, a unit so decimated that, despite the island’s desperate shortages of fighting men, Vandegrift ordered the surviving paratroopers to be shipped out for rest and reorganization.49 One of the alternative names for the famous set of hillocks, “Bloody Nose Ridge,” was coined by someone with a gift for understatement. Edson’s personal bravery and charisma, matched by the brilliance of his intuition in choosing the spot where the attack would focus and in deploying and redeploying his scarce assets so skillfully, yielded a promotion to colonel, Vandegrift giving him command of the 5th Marines, one of whose battalions had fought with Edson at Tulagi. Some Raiders were pleased to see him go, believing that without “Mad Merritt the Morgue Master” to ask for and get for them the island’s most dangerous assignments, they might have a greater chance of surviving and someday going home.50 Edson’s executive officer, Lt.-Col. Samuel B. Griffith, was now put in command of the Raiders. Among Kawaguchi’s forces, officially said to number 6,217 when the battle commenced, death estimates from battle wounds on these two days vary widely but must certainly have exceeded by hundreds the 633 officially reported. Among the units essentially destroyed was Ichiki’s second echelon, which in August had been reprieved from death by their leader’s unwillingness to await their arrival. Nor did defeat on the battlefield end the death and agony. Edson’s earlier raid on Tasimboko had not only blunted Kawaguchi’s attack capability but also deprived the Japanese of food and medical supplies in the unlikely event that they failed to capture Henderson Field and what they called the “Roosevelt meals” awaiting them there. Countless numbers died of their untended wounds, others of starvation, dehydration and exhaustion. Cases of cannibalism were reported.51 The following weeks witnessed no major engagement, both because Kawaguchi’s forces were retreating, lost and dying in the jungle, and because bad weather kept Rabaul’s planes grounded.52 Some in the long retreat came upon the bodies of some of the original Japanese garrison who had starved some weeks before. Although Kawaguchi chose not to commit suicide, some 239

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at Imperial General Headquarters must have thought this just one more of his many misjudgments. The Marines recovered the trunk containing the 35th Infantry Brigade dress whites he had planned to wear when accepting the American surrender which Ghormley had granted Vandegrift permission to provide.53

Commitment Edward Lincoln Smith II, MD, debarking with the 1st Battalion on 18 September, was greeted by men who were “bearded, gaunt, hungry and lonely-looking,” exhibiting to the men arriving to reinforce them “no outward show of emotion.”54 Regulations against beards meant little to men who no longer had razor blades. Young Marines had signed up with the idea of spearheading assaults and then handing over the newly conquered territory to the Army for occupation, some proudly referring to themselves as the Army’s “can-opener.”55 A generation of training in amphibious assault underscored that “cutting edge” mentality. But those who had served in World War I knew that the Marines, regardless of what the recruiting posters suggested, could also be bogged down in one place for a very long time. Such an assignment had its particular stresses. Contemporary authorities associated high rates of psychological breakdown with placing men in perpetually defensive positions.56 Although Vandegrift sent out patrols, the paucity of infantrymen and of long-range artillery necessitated a dug-in perimeter defense. One could be assured that the Japanese were constantly landing reinforcements at night with impunity, in preparation for retaking Henderson Field. One could be assured of little else, the lack of positive scuttlebutt and the seeming inactivity of the US Navy yielding among many a conviction that the Guadalcanal outpost had already been written off. On 20 September Gen. Delos Emmons, flying to Honolulu to meet with Nimitz and Arnold, opined that the island simply could not be held. One of Vandegrift’s young officers, deeply impressed by the “miracles” Vandegrift worked with the morale and spirit of his troops, nevertheless wondered to himself that the US, with a population of 135 million, had so far committed only one single division to combat in a worldwide conflict. He made sure he did not communicate such thoughts to subordinates.57 Although failed radio communications in an area extending only a few miles had played a significant role in the Savo Island disaster, news from the US was easy to pick up over short-wave radio. Six months earlier, the Battling Bastards of Bataan got their news from KGEI in San Francisco. In the film Bataan, a GI played by Desi Arnaz, in a touching contrast between the bleak reality of an isolated combat unit and the world of dreamy glitter, is delighted to pick up bandleader Tommy Dorsey’s live broadcast from Hollywood. On Guadalcanal, reception was sporadic. Maj. Mangrum noted 240

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that the best time was after dark but before the evening programming from Australia overwhelmed the more distant US signals. At 1900 Guadalcanal time one might pick up the 1 A.M. news from the powerful CBS affiliate in Los Angeles, KNX, 5,300 miles away. Another high-wattage station was KIRO in Seattle, while sometimes the vagaries of the ether would yield WCKY from Cincinnati, Boston’s WBZ, or Charlotte’s WBT.58 Listening to US news broadcasts commonly provided a touch of irony to the local situation. Wayne Kelly recalled how he and the other pilots would “lie in foxholes at night and laugh at the broadcasts from San Francisco about how secure the place was,” when in fact the pilots “never knew if tomorrow would be their last day.” But there were also broadcasts with a different spin. Dr. E.L. Smith noted the “shocked silence” of men who, about to go out on what might be their last night watch, heard on the radio that war production was being hindered by outbreaks of absenteeism and the taking of “long weekends.” With no promise of relief and inadequate naval support, men so disposed now had the leisure to contemplate what the US had let happen to the Marines in the Philippines, Guam and Wake. A captain remembered “an awful lot of talk about Bataan,” where the men had waited for promised relief, all in vain. “You are being forgotten,” Tokyo Rose would intone, “like the men of Bataan and Corregidor were forgotten.” Journalist and 1st Division historian George McMillan described a growing “feeling of expendability,” defined as “a feeling of being abandoned,” a “loneliness . . . as if events over which you have no control have put a ridiculously low price tag on your life.” George Baird said: we got more and more the feeling that we would never get out of there. That we were a sacrifice to try to slow the Japanese down and that’s all that would happen because they kept getting stronger and stronger.59 Mournful stateside radio commentators, too, would on occasion suggest that Guadalcanal might be another Bataan. While to such prophecies “[t]he boys gave the ‘Bronx cheer’,” any knowledgeable Marine who contemplated Bataan or Wake might ponder whether the US government was prepared to save Marines whom it had placed in harm’s way. “I know I had a feeling,” wrote Sergeant Kerry Lane, and I believe a lot of others felt the same way . . . that we’d never get off that damned island alive. Nobody said this out loud at the time, mostly for fear that if we did say it . . . it would come true.60 Among MacArthur’s egotistical faux-pas during the siege of Bataan was his refusal to mention the contribution of the Marines under his command, a refusal so chronic that when at one point they were mentioned, the US public 241

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thought that the Japanese blockade had been broken and the Marines had just landed.61 Marines had always considered themselves superior to Army soldiers, to whom some referred disparagingly as “Doggies,” and MacArthur was of course the quintessential Army man. Needless to say, none of the Marines on Bataan would find their way to Guadalcanal to teach their younger brethren the song “Dugout Doug.” But the 1st Division had its own lyricists, and they composed a cruel ditty for the men to sing, to the tune of “Bless ’em All”: They sent for the Army to come to Tulagi But General MacArthur said, “No. It isn’t the season, besides There’s a reason, You don’t have a U.S.O.” This did “Dugout Doug” one better, portraying MacArthur as effete and spoiled, a Gilbert-and-Sullivan buffoon with his outlandish pipe, airplane glasses and crumpled hat with a “scrambled-egg” pattern of gold braid – his own design.62 Given what had happened to Army as well as Marine units on Bataan, it would have been absurd to suggest that the Army’s common man, the classic “dogface soldier,” had had it soft. And the Marines on Guadalcanal could not know that MacArthur, far from ducking the combat assignment in which they found themselves, had wanted to lead it, only to be outmaneuvered by King. Further, in the autumn of 1942 it was not MacArthur but Ghormley who kept available Army units in reserve. For the Marines, choosing as their rhetorical target someone who in fact had precious little to do with their plight, tended to “blow off steam” that might otherwise be more closely – and appropriately – directed. But the Marines’ little rhyme served the psychological purpose of recasting their own deprivations as indicative of their greater toughness, made manifest by picking on the haughty and distant MacArthur. He was slow to depart Australia, then chose a white cottage at Port Moresby, miles removed from the Australian and American ground forces under his command who struggled through Papua’s diseaseinfested jungles, swamps and ravines.

A meeting engagement MacArthur, despite instructions to integrate the American and Australian command structures, snubbed the Australians. Curtin acquiesed since he had publicly hitched Australia’s wagon to America’s star. Australians noted MacArthur’s odd refusal to visit the New Guinea battle zones for which he was responsible. Knowing nothing first-hand of actual conditions, he now demanded of the Australian forces unrealistic and unduly dangerous goals.63 242

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Lt.-Col. Gerald Wilkinson, Churchill’s liaison officer with MacArthur, noted in his journal that MacArthur “mistakes his emotions and ambitions for principles. With moral depth he would be a great man; as it is he is a near miss which may be worse [by] a mile.”64 On 7 July the commander of MacArthur’s ground troops, General Sir Thomas Blamey, the Australian commander-in-chief, ordered young conscripts, wearing summer khakis, to ascend New Guinea’s Kokoda Track to stop the Japanese. In August they were reinforced by more experienced troops of Australia’s 7th Division, but still the Japanese advanced. On 17 September MacArthur asked Curtin to dispatch Blamey himself to New Guinea to “energize” Australia’s troops.65 Blamey, underestimating what his troops had been up against, publicly berated them for acting like rabbits. But the Japanese, having suffered enormously to get as far as the Ioribaiwa Ridge, just 32 miles from Port Moresby but beyond their own disintegrating supply lines, were now told that their operation was being cancelled in order to concentrate troops at Guadalcanal.66 Maj.-Gen. Harmon, chief-of-air-staff of the Army Air Forces, was sufficiently worried about the Japanese build-up on Guadalcanal that on 6 October he recommended to Ghormley postponing the American invasion of Ndeni in favor of further reinforcements, adding that without them, Japan would soon retake the island.67 Three days later, Vandegrift finally got the thousand Marines who had not made it off the transports back on 9 August. Guadalcanal was becoming, as Morison would later observe, a classic “meeting engagement” like Gettysburg, a battle neither side had originally intended. On 9 October, aerial reconnaissance counted fifty-plus Japanese vessels in Rabaul’s harbor. Many moved south, and on 16 October forty were observed at Shortland. Three days earlier, Turner had brought in substantial food supplies, along with Marine aviators and a contingent of the 164th Infantry Regiment, part of the Army’s Americal Division, under Lt.-Col. Bryant Moore, carrying on their shoulders .30-06 caliber M1-Garand rifles. It was said that the transports also offloaded 200 stowaways from other Army outfits who had gone AWOL to join the fight. Some Marines, their socks and underwear long since disintegrated, now donned fresh Army stuff, while others stayed in their tatters as a point of personal pride.68 US troops on the island now numbered 23,000. While these reinforcements helped, the five regimental sectors were still numerically inadequate to stop one massive incursion. Among the expedients now adopted, some SBDs were lined up with their tails pointing to the jungle and a gunner in each rear cockpit manning the plane’s twin 30-calibre machine guns, backed up by men on the ground ready to feed them ammunition. Meanwhile, the various forces defending Edson’s Ridge and the nearby jungle lowlands, predominantly elements of the 7th Marines and the 164th Infantry, now had the full panoply of weapons and defensive 243

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preparations the textbooks called for: a double-apron of perimeter barbed wire; several dozen 30- and 50-caliber machine guns set up in strong bunkers, aimed into well-defined fire lanes; mines; infantry rifles and grenades; 37-mm anti-tank guns loaded with anti-personnel canister pellets; 60- and 81-mm mortars; two battalions of artillery; well-placed jungle outposts; and the up-to-date M-1 rifles issued to the 164th. While King demanded from the Joint Chiefs more men and logistical support, TORCH was now just weeks away and thus nothing was done.69

The Bombardment The midday aerial attack of 13 October was particularly intense, twentyfour Japanese bombers in one wave, another fifteen two hours later, with anti-aircraft fire exploding impotently 2,000 feet below them. The craters left on the runway were quickly filled, but at dusk Japanese 150-millimeter Type 96 howitzers, collectively called “Pistol Pete,” capable of sending a 79pound projectile over 7 miles, began opening new holes.70 In the early hours of 14 October the battleships Kongo¯ and Haruna (standard displacement 32,156 tons each) steamed by Henderson Field, their sixteen guns in the process lobbing a total of 967 shells, most over 14 inches in diameter, weighing 1,400 pounds. Two-thirds of them were armor-piercing, inappropriate for shelling a land installation, although their horrific concussive effect could raise a mountain of earth. Paul Moore noted that the shells not only sounded like New York’s old 6th Avenue El, but probably were, since it had been sold to Japan for scrap.71 John Wheeler of the Chicago Daily Times, summarizing useful knowledge from the South Pacific, wrote: “A good foxhole is only deep enough to permit its owner to crouch below the level of the surrounding terrain. The occupants of deeper foxholes have been smothered by bombs which otherwise might only have jarred them.”72 Men buried by the earth-moving power of these shells were dug out by hand, some alive, others suffocated or crushed to death. Halsey described the slow but inexorable rounds of shelling as “so obviously unhurried” as to be “contemptuous.” More efficacious was the thin-skinned shell designed for maximum surface burst, sending hundreds of small projectiles which acted like “daisy cutters,” yielding maximum human carnage as well as the decimation of exposed aircraft and equipment. Still others contained magnesium pellets which ignited upon detonation, starting fires wherever they landed. Raizo Tanaka, watching from one of the ships, likened the explosion of shells, parked planes, ammunition dumps and fuel supplies to a “fireworks display” that “baffled description.” Bud De Vere, who had arrived only a day before, was bivouacked in an area where the ground was coral, it being all he could manage to dig a foxhole to the depth of a mere 18 inches. Once the shelling began, there he lay, a few inches below grade. The next day the pieces of 244

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coral he had dug out and left on the ground were pock-marked by the shrapnel that might otherwise have found him. Some said that to sleep above ground-level was to invite death.73 The following day, 14 October, began with Japanese field artillery, followed by two waves of bombers.74 While a gunnery officer on Yamamoto’s staff noted: “All planes on Guadalcanal believed destroyed,” that was wishful thinking. Although eight of the TBFs were gone and thirteen of the forty-two F4Fs, of ninety US planes then present on the island, forty-two could still fly, including a handful of the three dozen SBD-3s. The airstrip, however, was now a moonscape.75 The next night featured another horrendous barrage, over 700 rounds of 8-inch and 6-inch shells between 0149 and 0216 from the heavy cruisers Chokai and Kinugasa. Soon Henderson Field was attacked by two more waves of Japanese planes, a total of sixty. The Americans shot down seventeen. Then, at 0027 the next morning, the heavy cruisers Myoko and Maya fired 915 rounds from their 8-inch guns, backed by 300 rounds from supporting destroyers. By the time they were done, Cactus was reduced to twenty-nine functioning aircraft. Geiger sent Ghormley a pointed radio message: “AVGAS ON HAND ZERO,” then discovered and dug up in far-flung locations 400 archived drums, having theretofore forgotten a piece of paper he had carried in his pocket for two months specifying where they had been buried.76 The deaths and destruction wrought those nights were bad enough. But there was an injury of a qualitatively different kind. Wayne Kelly described a feeling, as each shell was heard coming, that your luck was running out, your number getting near the top. Most of the Marines had been now living for two months under a regime of daily and nightly bombing and shelling, punctuated by periods of actual combat, much of it fierce, some of it terrifying. But of these experiences, Ben Yerger later recalled, the shelling was the worst. And this three-night fusillade was the worst of the worst, spoken of throughout the war as “The Bombardment,” as if “there had never been any other.”77 It would be the most severe shelling inflicted on Americans in World War II, beckoning back to the trench warfare of the 1914-18 war, when “shell-shock” was a credible term to describe the condition of men who had become somehow unhinged, who by any human standard had simply been subjected to too much concussive terrorizing. One man noted: “Nothing seems real anymore.” Even the local animals were in a daze.78 Vandegrift, asked about the Bombardment at a news conference many months later, engaged in characteristic understatement: Well, it would be silly to say that anybody could be bombarded by fourteen- and eight-inch shells for two and three-quarters hours and come out of it like out of a motion picture. It left us stunned – a bit stunned – for a day or two. . . . There’s something about the 245

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explosion of a navy shell that no thousand-pound bomb can equal. . . . But there was never a let-down in morale. Not everyone would concur in that last phrase. Dr. E.R. Smith noted that the combination of bombing, shelling, sleeplessness, heat, dysentery, rain, malaria and fear, together caused not only loss of weight “but a disturbance of the whole organism – a disorder of thinking and living – or even wanting to live.” Lt.-Cmdr. John E. Lawrence, an air combat information officer, wrote of hopelessness, the feeling that nobody gave a curse whether we lived or died. It soaked into you until you couldn’t trust your own mind. You’d brief a pilot, and no sooner had he taken off than you’d get frantic, wondering if you’d forgotten to tell him some trivial thing that might become the indispensable factor in saving his life.79 While defeatism and depression were unthinkable in Chesty Puller’s 1/7, one of his lieutenants noted that it was the shelling that taught him how the men at Wake and Bataan must have felt. Novelist/journalist Ira Wolfert said that on the nights of the Bombardment, “the earth shook like a hammered gong.”80

The religious perspective Young men consider themselves indestructible. If then trained as warriors, they also consider themselves invincible. While the experience of battle might unhinge that idea, others found it life-affirming. Wolfert wrote in the 23 January 1943 number of The Nation: I have thought all my life that no good ever comes to a man from war, but I was wrong. I, for example, came out of the battles I saw feeling surer of myself and with a special kind of self-respect. That seemed to be true of practically all the men once the disorganizing impact was over and thoughts began to flow normally again. Each seemed to see his qualities as a member of the human race in a new light. Even the minds least capable of generalizing were startled into an awareness of what a remarkable thing a human being is and what powers he has for bearing up under the unbearable and doing the work he has to do. Battle can also alter one’s relationship with the universe. Paul Moore recalled attending mass at Tulagi’s cricket pitch on Sunday, 9 August, with “[t]he musty smell of the tropics and the sweet smell of decaying corpses” filling the air, everything being “rotten.” Filthy after two days of combat and 246

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extremely upset by his first experience with the death of comrades, he noted the chaplain’s vestments and the white linen draped over a makeshift altar to be the only clean things on the island. “God in his purity was present in the midst of the filth,” Moore observed. “I had a real sense of assurance.”81 Walter Bayler said there must have been some “spiritual angle” to the Bombardment, since “undoubtedly a lot of marines came out of the affair more thoughtful Christians than they had been since childhood.”82 Dr. E.L. Smith recalled the communal life of a bunker built for thirty, brimming with nearly a hundred men, many of them hospital patients, with no room to sit and not enough head room to stand.83 Any bombing can be sufficiently overwhelming to be deemed “biblical” in scope. Cpl. John Joseph Conroy of Brooklyn wrote to his parents that just after he and his buddy successfully ambushed five snipers, I heard my first thousand-pound bomb falling with a gigantic ssssh. I was paralyzed. It sounded as if hell was opening to swallow us for what we had just done. The bomb exploded seventy-five yards away. We were thrown to the ground and bounced around until I thought I was dead. I learned then how cheap life is, how we take it for granted, and so quickly and brutally it’s taken away. Let me tell you that sudden death is horrible and absolutely inglorious.84 But if bombing could be biblical, the nights of the Bombardment were apocalyptic. Gene Keller was among the many who recalled the surfaces of the shells being red-hot as they came in.85 Clifford Fox said the shells sounded like freight trains coming through the sky. The earth shook like it was going to open up and swallow us all. I thought it was the end of the world. I’m Protestant and was praying. The guy on top of me is reciting all these Catholic prayers, while others “were going crazy.”86 Some men, Robert Leckie wrote, “prayed with lips moving silently across the backs of others against whom they lay huddled, prayed in confusion – mentally murmuring Grace.”87 Artillery sergeant John Settedugati said his men “prayed [and] smoked cigarettes,” finding solace in the knowledge that if they were hit, “we would not feel it.”88 Bud De Vere said that the night before arriving, his buddy would talk only of all the Japs he was going to kill, while the next night, with bombs dropping, he was in a foxhole praying: “Oh, please, God, let me live through the night. I’ll go to church every Sunday.” Patients at the 1st Marine Division hospital, converted from a Japanese barracks, lay on stretchers so they could be immediately moved in case of attack. As soon as the shelling began, they were laid out in long slit trenches, which served as avenues for the concussion from shell blasts. Some, William Whyte recounted, “simply went mad.”89 247

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A man showed up at sick bay believing he was Saint Peter. Then another arrived believing he was Saint Paul. A psychiatrist observed: There was some consternation between these two saintly figures, but fortunately their delusions meshed very nicely and they spent the rest of their time on Guadalcanal prior to evacuation walking up and down the beach in front of the psychiatric ward discussing early Christian mysteries. A former coal miner from Pennsylvania said God had tripped him four times in one night, since each time he tripped a bullet whizzed through where he would have been if he had not fallen.90 Some maintained their agnosticism, such as the DC-3 pilots, with their credo: “In clouds we trust.” But chaplain Wyeth Willard was pleased to see, as a sign of spiritual efficacy, that his supply of several hundred Gideon New Testaments was quickly exhausted. These gospels apparently had talismanic power: Willard reported three different instances of bibles in chest pockets stopping shrapnel and bullets. The spirit was ecumenical: Catholic boys asked a Congregationalist chaplain to bless their Miraculous Medals before they went into battle, a notion that would have made stateside conservatives in both denominations cringe.91 The chaplains were generally lucky or blessed: Of sixteen Navy chaplains involved at one point or another in the campaign, none died and only one, M.F. Keough, was wounded. Nor did the chaplains’ good fortune derive from overcaution. They were neither passive nor perfunctory, never limiting themselves to Sunday services and comforting the wounded. Father Keough received not only a Purple Heart for his wound but also a Bronze Star for guiding reinforcements into battle. The citation for his Bronze Star describes the night of 25 October: Courageously volunteering to act as guide for a reserve battalion ordered forward to reinforce our lines . . . Keough skillfully directed the battalion’s night advance to the front and, despite the hazards presented by difficult terrain and heavy rainfall, promptly brought it to the designated position thereby preventing a possible serious penetration. Another priest, Frederic Gehring, “the padre of Guadalcanal,” acted as Halsey’s driver during the latter’s visit, since, like Keough, he knew the perimeter, knowledge gained by the repeated exercise of personal courage. He would later be awarded the Legion of Merit. The citation read: Voluntarily making three hazardous expeditions through enemyoccupied territory, Chaplain Gehring, aided by native scouts, evacuated missionaries trapped on the island. In addition to his 248

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routine duties, he frequently visited the front lines and was a constant source of encouragement to the Marine and Army units under continual attack by the enemy. Brave under fire, cheerful in the face of discouragement, and tireless in his devotion to duty, Chaplain Gehring lifted the morale of our men to an exceptional degree.92 Missionary work on the island had been so extensive that half the population identified itself as Christian. A Dutch Marist priest on the island, Father Emery De Klerk, who headed a guerrilla band of seventeen young men, was made an honorary second lieutenant in both the Marine Corps and the US Army, and in 1948 was presented with the Medal of Freedom. Another moral exemplum was the priest at the Ruavatu mission, Father Arthur Duhamel, an American from Methuen, Massachusetts, who directed the Marines to a Japanese position by drawing a map in the sand, stating: “You boys go there and clean ’em out, and God be with you.” Since he was nowhere near the American lines, he would well have known that by cooperating with his countrymen he was putting himself at risk. On 3 September he, another priest and two nuns were tortured and murdered by a Japanese intelligence agent who had previously posed as an itinerant carpenter.93

The Hollywood perspective Father Gehring reported the appearance one night of natives carrying a girl of 5 or 6 who had been slashed with bayonets and hit in the head with a rifle butt, the only survivor of a slaughter committed by the Japanese against anyone thought supportive of the Allied cause. Only by a night of prayer and – as Father Gehring put it – help from “the Great Physician,” did the girl live. The Seabees fashioned dolls for her, the Marines bringing her flowers and fruits, as well as “pogie bait” (i.e., candy, “pogie” meaning girl). Actor-turned-PT-boat commander Robert Montgomery, finding himself on Guadalcanal, commented that this little orphan, one of 200 local residents of Chinese ancestry, had potential to become a South Seas Shirley Temple, at least once she learned how to smile again.94 Gene Markey, who produced the Shirley Temple vehicles Wee Willie Winkie (1937), The Little Princess (1939) and Blue Bird (1940), on Guadalcanal as a naval intelligence officer under Halsey, first saw the girl when he jumped into foxhole during an air raid and found her sitting next to him. Markey, the best person in the world to make a judgment about the girl’s potential for film stardom, declared that no movie could be made about how she was saved by Father Gehring and “the Great Physician,” since the public would dismiss it all as mere Hollywood fantasy. In John Farrow’s Wake Island, released just as the Marines were settling 249

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in on Guadalcanal, William Bendix plays the avatar of the Old Breed, his character having spent a goodly portion of his long Marine career in the brig. Now stationed on Wake Island, he finds his hitch is up just prior to the Japanese attack. With a seat reserved for him on the last Pan-American clipper heading out to safety, he engages in small talk with the men at the gun emplacements, wanders around looking for his dog, then tells the commanding officer that he wants to reenlist. He knows he is volunteering either to die or be captured, but knows too that he would make a preposterous civilian, as shown by the garish clothes and outdated straw hat he had donned in preparation for civvy street. The film’s first screening in Detroit yielded 350 Marine recruits and $1.5 million in war bonds.95 Tregaskis’s non-fiction book Guadalcanal Diary was turned into a fiction film directed by Lewis Seiler, giving the public its first Hollywood rendition of the campaign, held together by crisp working-class badinage between William Bendix and buddy Lloyd Nolan regarding the comparative merits and faults of the Yankees and Dodgers. Bendix, although the son of the Metropolitan Opera violinist and concertmaster Max Bendix, came by his working-man persona honestly enough, having run a grocery story in Newark and played minor-league ball. (He would later play Babe Ruth.) Nolan, as earlier in Bataan, hid his Stanford pedigree by a nasal timbre which delivered the required urban-Everyman effect. Also thrown into Guadalcanal Diary is the stock character of the All-American-footballplayer-turned-padre, played by stalwart Preston Foster, a suitable element for a film released at Thanksgiving 1943 (Figure 12.2). In his review James Agee noted that although the film was “unusually serious, simple, and honest . . . it would be a shame and worse if those who made or will see it got the idea that it is a remotely adequate image of the first months on that island.”96 True enough, but there is some real power, as when Bendix, dug in with his buddies during the Bombardment, utters a Brooklyn-style doxology so perfect to God’s ears that even the omniscient priest has nothing to add. And a scene in which all but one in a platoon are picked off on the beach during the night, so at dawn the tide comes in to wash over their bodies, still packs a wallop.

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Figure 12.2 Scene from Guadalcanal Diary © Twentieth Century Fox.

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“Don’t they know we got Marines on this island?” The Bombardment was all the more terrifying because it was clearly a “softening up” in preparation for a ground offensive. In Washington, Navy intelligence had decoded messages showing a prospective attack by the 2nd (Sendai) Division, with plans for Lt.-Gen. Harukichi Hyakutake, who had taken command following Kawaguchi’s failure, to bring his 17th Army headquarters down from Rabaul. A light cruiser and eleven destroyers had sailed south, and at first light on 15 October Marines could see six transports unloading thousands of Japanese soldiers up the beach beyond the mouth of the Matanikau. US carrier-based planes were called in, although 1,100 men reached shore and melted into the interior, several thousand more landing later that day. Soon Japanese troops on the island would total 22,200.1 Vandegrift, prone neither to panic nor overstatement, now flatly told Nimitz: Our troops are in no condition to undertake the prolonged campaigning needed to secure the island. Steps must be taken to gain control of the seas around Guadalcanal to prevent enemy landings and the bombardments we have experienced in the last three nights. Nimitz too was worried: It now appears that we are unable to control the sea in the Guadalcanal area. Thus our supply of the positions will only be done at great expense to us. The situation is not hopeless, but it is certainly critical. MacArthur wrote Marshall:

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If we are defeated in the Solomons, as we must be unless the Navy accepts successfully the challenge of the enemy surface fleet, the entire Southwest Pacific will be in gravest danger. . . . I urge that the entire resources of the United States be diverted temporarily to meet the critical situation; that shipping be made . . . available from any source; that one corps be dispatched immediately; that all available heavy bombers be ferried here at once; [and] that urgent action be taken to increase the air strength at least to the full complement allotted for this area.2 A battalion commander on Guadalcanal later recalled that the men, sitting around listening to radio broadcasts from the US, would hear “these people make a statement, well, they hoped we could hold Guadalcanal. One Army Air Forces general even said it was foolish to try.” On 16 October Marshall, although preoccupied with TORCH, told MacArthur that the situation on Guadalcanal was “most critical,” requiring from MacArthur greater bomber support. On the same day, asked publicly if Guadalcanal could be held, Knox gave a disturbing response: I certainly hope so and expect so. I will not make any predictions, but every man will give a good account of himself. What I am trying to say is that there is a good stiff fight going on. Everybody hopes that we can hold on. The Marines picked up Knox’s ambivalent comments on the radio from San Francisco. “[A]in’t he a tiger?”, one quipped. Chesty Puller, whose men had heard Knox on a radio they had ripped out of a wrecked plane, reportedly commented: “Well, I’ll be a sad son-of-a-bitch! Don’t they know we got Marines on this island?” The wife of a young Marine officer serving on Guadalcanal, having just given birth to their first son, found the official statements coming out of Washington to be reminiscent of those issued just prior to the fall of the Philippines a few months before.3 The New York Times braced the public: The enemy has been reinforced. We know that these American young men will do all that humanly can be done to stand their ground and to advance. While we at home work, sleep, amuse ourselves – and what else can we do? – they fight. The next day the Washington Post sensed an impending catastrophe, saying military men in Washington deemed the situation “serious” and the public should prepare for news of the Marines being “dislodged.” On 17 October Harmon informed Marshall that “without more naval support,” defeat was a

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distinct possibility. Rumor now had it – whether from Ghormley’s note of early September or otherwise – that Vandegrift had been granted permission to surrender if and when he saw fit. Reportedly the US Joint Chiefs readied a draft statement to the effect that Guadalcanal was being abandoned. Edson, apparently gleaning enough information about how Guadalcanal was being bandied in Washington to feel a bit betrayed, wrote to his wife: “In my opinion, the present headlines should never have been printed because they could have been avoided by proper action by others than the officers and men here.”4 A mantra being passed around, “Say a prayer for your pal on Guadalcanal,” seemed prophetic of impending tragedy. Fortunately no one on the island could hear President Roosevelt, who in private was as negative about an aggressive Pacific war as King was positive, now tell representatives of the Allies that, in retrospect, it seemed “questionable whether [Guadalcanal] was not too far from a supply base to be permanently tenable,” indeed, “it was no use saying that we were not in a hole.” On the other hand, no one on the island could know of Roosevelt’s handwritten message to the Joint Chiefs, drafted on 24 October: FOR LEAHY, KING, MARSHALL AND ARNOLD only. My anxiety about the S.W. Pac. is to make sure that every possible weapon gets into that area to hold Guadalcanal, and that having held it in this crisis that munitions and planes and crews are on the way to take advantage of our success. We will soon find ourselves engaged on two active fronts [TORCH was only two weeks off] and we must have adequate air support in both places even tho it means delay in our other commitments, particularly to England. Our long range plans could be set back for months if we fail to throw our full strength in our immediate and impending conflicts.5 Halsey asked Nimitz to get the British to commit some carriers to the area but, with TORCH immediately in prospect, none were available.6 Some men made pacts with buddies to avoid being captured, the Japanese having successfully instilled in their enemy a preference for suicide over surrender. Some wrote more letters home, while others stopped altogether. Some became chronically jumpy. One man could hear nothing when spoken to, fixated on possibly hearing Japanese aircraft. Another would suddenly fall on the ground, writhing in agony from some shrapnel wound, wholly imagined. “Among the most significant reasons why the morale ebbed so low in October,” psychiatrist Theodore Lidz concluded, was the growing conviction that the utmost personal effort was useless in averting total disaster. Defeat in terms other than total

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annihilation was scarcely considered, particularly as surrender was believed to mean death by torture. During this period, the men, relatively inactive, were prisoners sentenced to death. . . . When deprived of hope to which they could cling, death was found unacceptable and waiting for it intolerable.7

Leadership Fear is heightened by fatigue and by ignorance of the overall strategy one is being called upon to serve. Even worse, presumably, is the common soldier’s belief that those formulating strategy do not know what they are doing, or do not care about the men whose lives they hold in their hands. In “Psychiatric Lessons from World War II,” a speech to the American Psychiatric Association’s Chicago convention in May 1946, chief Navy psychiatrist Francis Braceland, MD, said one of the most significant determinants of psychiatric problems is the status of “group morale,” which accounted for the fact that following a battle one unit would have a high rate of psychiatric problems, another a low rate. Dr. Braceland wrote: “Some of the most potent factors which contribute to high morale in military groups are: sureness of purpose, confidence in their own ability, and trust in their leaders. When one of these attributes is absent, morale suffers.” Julius Schreiber, MD, chief psychiatrist at the Army’s artillery training center at Camp Callan near San Diego, told soldiers: Morale is a state of mind which enables a soldier to carry on and persevere in his mission in spite of the most adverse conditions. It can come only when he fully understands the very fundamental issues at stake – only when he feels that he is an integral part of everything he is fighting for.8 While no empirical study traced in detail the relation of psychological distress to leadership on Guadalcanal, it is worth noting that the Battle of Edson’s Ridge, two nights of unmitigated hell sufficient to unhinge any welladjusted person, produced among Edson’s hand-picked men only one case diagnosed as shell-shock. And when another great leader, Chesty Puller, was hospitalized with a piece of imbedded shrapnel (he refused evacuation to have it removed), on the cot next to him was a Marine diagnosed with battle fatigue. Puller told him there was no such thing, that he had seen none of it following combat in Haiti and Nicaragua, that if the young man persisted in having it the Marines would put his picture in the Post Office and when he got home his girlfriend would spit on him. A corpsman got wind of this and put Puller on report. But the boy returned to his unit and was later decorated for bravery.9

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Vandegrift About Vandegrift’s leadership there was no question; 55 years old, said to be the Marines’ best field commander, Vandegrift had served in Shanghai, Beijing and Haiti, in the famous Vera Cruz incident of 1914, and with Edson in 1928-31 against Augusto Sandino’s guerrillas in the uncharted wilds along the Rio Coco bordering Nicaragua and Honduras. While he could not be said to come from a military tradition (his father was an architect, his mother an artist), his grandfather had served the Confederacy for four years, although rising no higher in rank than captain. Vandegrift, who reportedly lost interest in the University of Virginia after an injured knee took him out of football, joined the Marines in 1909, having failed the physical for West Point. His grandfather was appalled that Archie would be fighting for Yankees.10 Vandegrift’s commander and mentor in Nicaragua and China, the legendary Smedley Butler, had nicknamed him “Sunny Jim,” after a popular breakfast cereal. On 9 August 1942 Vandegrift was not about to let the departure of Fletcher and then Turner spoil his gentlemanly mien. As most of his food and equipment and some of his men sailed off, Vandegrift turned to assistant operations officer Merrill B. Twining and asked: “Bill, what has happened to your Navy?” Twining, both an Annapolis graduate (1923) and a lawyer, came back with an even more contained response: “I don’t believe the first team is on the field yet, General.”11 “Sunny Jim” was a positive thinker. On 11 August, just two days after the transports had left, he insisted on having a picture taken of himself with forty of his senior staff, noting in a later memoir that by ordering the group photo, he wanted these men to know that he did not intend to fail and that, despite everything, he was planning to have happy memories of his time on Guadalcanal. The next day he sent Turner a dispatch asking for more supplies and men, closing with: “We are all well and happy,” a sentiment probably not universally shared, but the right idea for a commanding officer to project.12 Journalist and 1st Division historian George E. McMillan wrote: “Throughout the entire operation, no intimation of a doubt ever passed his lips. Success . . . [was] taken for granted; there would be no time wasted in an appraisal of our somewhat brilliant prospects for failure.” Another subordinate commented: when nothing’s doing, he’s one of the mildest men I’ve ever known. In battle, however, he’s consumed with curiosity. . . . He just can’t wait to see what’s going on. He believes in getting out in front with his men, and we had a hell of a time keeping him from getting shot by snipers. In the dark days of September, New York Times military analyst Hanson Baldwin (Annapolis 1924), having already heard the nay-sayer Ghormley in 256

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Nouméa, asked Vandegrift: “Are you going to hold this beachhead, General? Are you going to stay here?” He replied: “Hell, yes! Why not?” Fellow Times correspondent Foster Hailey applied to Vandegrift Ernest Hemingway’s definition of courage: “grace under pressure.” He recounted that officers would enter Vandegrift’s tent physically exhausted and emotionally burned out, but would later emerge laughing as they savored some farewell joke.13 Vandegrift would not have men attack, even if they gave up the element of surprise, without an initial softening up by artillery. He told a correspondent: “We could do this a lot faster if we wanted to lose the men, but I don’t intend to.” While Vandegrift’s men contracted malaria, dysentery and dengue fever, and lacked certain weaponry and equipment, a significant factor in the key battles was the more severe deterioration of Japanese strength and abandonment of weapons and equipment before getting into position for attack, all due to their struggles in the unforgiving environment. Thus, in answer to Turner’s original suggestion that Vandegrift should fight the Japanese as they arrived at Taivu before they could disperse into the jungle, Vandegrift could well reply that one should let the unforgiving island be one’s ally.14 In place of the regime of hierarchical sadism comprising Japanese military training, the Marines instilled a sense of family. Maj.-Gen. Lejeune issued a relevant order in 1920: The relation between officers and enlisted men should in no sense be that of superior and inferior nor that of master and servant, but rather that of teacher and scholar. In fact, it should partake of the nature of the relation between father and son, to the extent that officers, especially commanders, are responsible for the physical, mental and moral welfare, as well as the discipline and military training of the men under their command. Lejeune thought such paternalism toward enlistees “vital to the well-being of the Marine Corps,” since officers owe to those in their charge, “to their parents, and to the Nation, that when discharged . . . they should be far better men physically, mentally, and morally than they were when they enlisted.”15 Chesty Puller, who shared with Vandegrift a reverence for Stonewall Jackson, underlined in his copy of G.F.R. Henderson’s biography of the Confederate general: He demanded . . . that the rank and file should be treated with tact and consideration. . . . His men loved him . . . because he was one of themselves, with no interest apart from their interests; because he raised them to his own level, respecting them not merely as soldiers, but as comrades. 257

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Vandegrift took this great Civil War leader as his model. Shortly after the battle with the Ichiki detachment, Vandegrift, like a proud father, wrote to Commandant Lt.-Gen. Thomas Holcomb: “These youngsters are the darndest people when they get started you ever saw.” Psychiatrist Theodore Lidz, having interviewed dozens of unhappy men harboring profound disturbances as well as sad-sack gripes, could nevertheless report that Vandegrift “was immune to criticism for he lived with the men, shared their danger, and by example was a strong force to cohesion and faith.” In the 1970s a Maryland judge recounted that as a Pfc. on Guadalcanal, he was told to report to his platoon leader, who in turn directed him to the company commander, who sent him to the battalion, who sent him to the regiment, who sent him to the Division Command Post, where he was directed to Vandegrift. “Son,” the General said, “you haven’t been writing to your mother. I have a letter from Congressman X who tells me your mother is worried about you, and asking to hear about you.” The Pfc. replied: “Well, General, we’ve been pretty busy, but I promise I’ll write to her as soon as I can.” Vandegrift answered: “You certainly will. Sit right down there at that desk, write her a letter, and I’ll see that it gets mailed.” The Pfc. later described the General as firm, friendly and not accusatory.16

Ghormley Robert Lee Ghormley had been flag lieutenant to the commander-in-chief of the Pacific Fleet before World War I, had commanded several ships, then served as aide to Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. when the latter was assistantsecretary of the Navy. As Special Naval Observer in London, he was dubbed the “mystery man” because his job was to absorb all that happened around him while revealing nothing of what he or the Navy might make of it, “but still convince you of his good will.”17 His very different assignment in the South Pacific required no mystery man but a can-do operator and an inspiration. Ghormley, having disagreed with King’s rushed plans, had abdicated responsibility for the initial landing, which became a logistics fiasco, then a supply problem, then for some a morale problem. At Nouméa on New Caledonia, described as a “a semi-decadent colonial town,” the pro-Axis, Vichy governor had been chased off well before Ghormley’s arrival. The only signs of the conflict between the Vichy and Free French were some half-sunken boats in the harbor and a few pro-Axis locals still lurking around. Ghormley might have taken a page from MacArthur’s book and demanded a billet worthy of his status, such as one of the several villas whose Pétainist owners could by rights be discommoded. Or he might have settled on l’Hôtel du Pacifique, or the less-than-grand Hôtel Grand, which the Army and Navy Intelligence services had picked for their offices. But he declined to exercise these prerogatives, choosing instead the stifling heat of a converted merchant ship, Argonne, one of the 258

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many vessels he turned into floating warehouses in Nouméa’s harbor. There he buried himself in paperwork, week after week, his only distraction reportedly being the pain of bad teeth. “He worried about everything,” his chief-of-staff Daniel Callaghan remarked years later, “and I can’t say that I blame him.” Ghormley seemed not to be on best terms with the Gaullist now in control, Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu, who resented not being consulted about the Americans’ plans, believing it his right as the Free French high commissioner for the Pacific. And on 12 August prime minister Peter Fraser flew all the way from New Zealand, apparently for no better reason than to berate Ghormley for not having told him about WATCHTOWER.18 War cannot be conducted, Moltke once wrote, from the “green table,” that is, from a far-off headquarters.19 Arnold visited Ghormley on 23 September, and was shocked to hear that he had so swamped himself with details that he had not been off Argonne in a month and had not even visited Guadalcanal. Nimitz flew to Nouméa on 28 September to meet with Ghormley, Turner, Harmon, Callaghan and MacArthur’s chief-of-staff (MacArthur himself having found reasons not to come). Nimitz’s private agenda included an assessment of Ghormley’s performance. During the meeting, staffers would enter and hand Ghormley priority dispatches. Upon reading each he would mutter things like: “My God, what are we going to do about this?”20 The 2,818-man 164th Infantry Regiment, a National Guard outfit from North Dakota for whose predominantly Scandinavian members the word “strapping” may have been invented, was bivouacked outside Nouméa, part of the New Caledonia Task Force that had arrived back in March under the command of Brig.-Gen. Patch, restructured in late May as the Americal Division. By autumn, the 164th having been there for half a year, visiting Marines would reportedly stroll past Patch’s house near Nouméa chanting: “Why doesn’t the Army fight?”21 Ghormley’s refusal to order them to Guadalcanal – over Patch’s objections – seemed to betoken on Ghormley’s part a belief that to add these men to the mix was merely to increase the size of the prospective defeat, akin to reinforcing Dunkerque. But now Nimitz ordered Ghormley to deploy them. On 30 September Nimitz visited Guadalcanal, stayed overnight, handed out some medals, visited the perimeter, promised support, then waited for the departure of his B-17 while the portion of the runway not covered by Marston Matting dried out (Figure 13.1). He returned to Nouméa on 2 October, met again with Turner and Ghormley and, knowing that Ghormley had not yet visited Guadalcanal, ordered him to go.22 In May 1942 there had been talk of Americans replacing the New Zealanders in the Fijis so they could go home to defend their country. In June, King told Walter Nash of the New Zealand Legation in Washington that he and Marshall wanted the New Zealanders to be replaced, not to repatriate them but to ready them to join the Marines in the Solomons. In 259

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Figure 13.1 Adm. Nimitz, with Maj.-Gen. Vandegrift looking on, decorating Lt.-Col. Evans Carlson, 1 October 1942. Behind Carlson are, from left: Brig.-Gen. William B. Rupertus, Col. Merritt A. Edson, Lt.-Col. Edwin A. Pollock and Maj. John L. Smith.

late July Ghormley had discussed the matter with Lt.-Gen. Edward Puttick of the New Zealand chiefs-of-staff. Nimitz now asked Ghormley why the New Zealanders had not been brought in. Ghormley demurred, suggesting that they were not battle-ready. Nimitz replied: “If we can’t find a formula for using them, it is Japan’s gain. We should use all resources that are available to us.” On 6 October Harmon, now chief-of-air-staff of the Army Air Forces, shared with Ghormley his sense that without an increased Allied commitment, Japan would soon retake Guadalcanal.23 The Kiwis would not appear on Guadalcanal until the 1st Marine Division had left. Nimitz found his meetings with Ghormley unsatisfactory and, back in Hawaii on 15 October, he polled the officers who had been with him at Nouméa, who voted unanimously for a change.24 Nimitz shared with King his perception that Ghormley “lacked the personal qualities needed to inspire American fighting men in a tough spot.” King immediately affirmed. On 11–12 October a Japanese naval force was caught in a nighttime surprise as stark as what Mikawa had inflicted at Savo Island. The Battle of 260

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Cape Esperance, driven in large part by US radar, failed to stop the influx of Japanese troops. Nevertheless, as a marginal Allied victory it seemed to offset the news of the actual losses of men and ships two months earlier at Savo Island, now publicly released for the first time. The Navy suggested that it had postponed the news of Savo pending the replacement of the lost ships. Ghormley, relieved of command just as this bad news came out, griped that the public would blame him for Savo Island, when in fact he was not even there. And in fact the 24 October AP story related that Ghormley was relieved “after a campaign which had cost the Navy three cruisers, five destroyers and five other vessels.” In the Los Angeles Times the Ghormley story appeared in the column next to “Solomons Mistakes Analyzed by Expert,” wherein military analyst Hanson Baldwin described the Savo Island disaster as “unnecessary” and almost causing the US to lose its “foothold in the Solomons.”25 Despite this unfortunate coincidence, Ghormley’s complaint was not well taken. It sometimes happens that a decision-maker commits five errors with impunity, then gets blamed “unfairly” for a sixth. In fact Ghormley had had nothing to do with Savo Island because he had absented himself from the entire operation, having chosen to be 860 miles away. King and Nimitz, meeting in San Francisco back on 8 September, had indeed considered relieving Ghormley because Savo Island had occurred – in a technical sense – on his watch. It has been suggested that the only reason he was not relieved then was because of the ill health of his putative replacement.26

Halsey and the two-dollar tour Navy policy required carrier commanders to understand aviation, and in 1934 King gave Halsey command of Saratoga on the condition that he take an air observer’s course. Although Halsey was then 51, he managed instead to wangle a place in the pilot’s course and, after somehow finessing the physical, earned his wings. While not a skilled airman, “[t]he worse the weather” – his instructor said – “the better he flew.” This was characteristic. He had been in charge of the audacious Doolittle raid, as well as daring early attacks on Kwajalein, Roi, Wotja, Tarawa, Jaluit, Wake, Makin and Marcus Island. He shared with Vandegrift, Edson and Bailey a rallying spirit in the face of adversity but, having operated at high stress for months, he had been stricken with a case of shingles so severe that he was flown to Virginia for treatment, thus being scrubbed from – to his great disappointment – the epochal Battle of Midway. But now he was rested and ready for a new assignment. He had been ordered to fly to Nouméa, where on arrival he was stunned to be handed orders to relieve his lifelong friend. He lacked Ghormley’s academic record, graduating forty-third out of sixty-two in the class of 1904, versus Ghormley’s twelfth in the larger class of 1906. Although they had both played football, it was Halsey whom admiring journalists 261

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would call “Bull.” Knox commented to Nimitz: “Men of the aggressive fighting type must be preferred over men of more judicial, thoughtful, but less aggressive characteristics.”27 If Ghormley passively reacted to events and let himself be swamped in immaterial details, Halsey had a genius for seizing the initiative and accomplishing the unexpected, using improvisations thought up and executed spontaneously. His assumption of command radically altered perceptions among the men: “Then we got the news,” one said, “the Old Man had been made COMSOPAC. I’ll never forget it! One minute we were too limp with malaria to crawl out of our foxholes; the next, we were running around whooping like kids.” While the morale factor, by its nature, cannot be quantified, some now gleefully tried. “I remember two Marines working up to a brawl,” an officer recounted. One of them was arguing that getting the Old Man was like getting two battleships and two carriers, and the other was swearing he was worth two battleships and three carriers. If morale had been enough, we’d have won the war right there. Nimitz upped the ante, telling the press that on a morale basis alone Halsey was worth “a division of fast battleships.”28 Now the men in the foxholes could say, as had the men in Enterprise’s wardroom prior to the attack on Marcus Island: “Haul out with Halsey!” He ordered Vandegrift to Nouméa to meet with Turner, Harmon and Holcomb, as well as Ghormley. Halsey later recalled: Archie Vandegrift and “Miff” Harmon told their bitter stories. It was quite late when they finished. I asked, “Are we going to evacuate or hold?” Archie answered, “I can hold, but I’ve got to have more active support than I’ve been getting.” Kelly [Turner] complained of an inadequate number of ships. When Kelly had finished, Archie looked at me, waiting. . . . I told Archie, “All right. Go on back. I’ll promise you everything I’ve got.” Holcomb, speaking on Vandegrift’s behalf when it would have been acceptable but unbecoming for Vandegrift himself to do so, urged on Halsey that WATCHTOWER’s command structure had been unsound, that since the goal was landing men and supplies, Vandegrift should never have been subordinated to Turner. Halsey wrote to King, who subsequently invoked “parallel command,” a doctrine espoused years earlier in the Marines’ Tentative Manual of Landing Operations, revised by the Navy in 1938 as Fleet Training Publication 167, whereby the commander of the ground 262

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forces, once he hit the beach, would not be answerable to the amphibious commander.29 While Ghormley had never been to Guadalcanal, Halsey now went. He described the men as having faces marked by “a nightmare of years,” that is, “the most fatigued looking men I have ever encountered”(Figure 13.2).30 He provided in his memoir a good sense of what everyone had endured for months, by frankly admitting that the single night he spent on the island was more than enough. On 8 November: Archie [Vandegrift] put us up in his shack. . . . Soon after we turned in, an enemy destroyer somewhere near Savo Island began lobbing over shells, and our artillery started an argument with the Japs’. It wasn’t the noise that kept me awake; it was fright. I called myself yellow – and worse – and told myself, “Go to sleep, you damned coward!” but it didn’t do any good; I couldn’t obey orders.31 Halsey, as if auditioning to play himself in a movie (James Cagney would later win the role), asked Catholic chaplain Frederic Gehring: “What’s the morale situation, Padre? You’re a man who ought to know. Let’s have it straight – no soft soap.” Gehring, who was Halsey’s driver during his inspection of the perimeter, gave it straight:

Figure 13.2 Exhausted Marine, Victory at Sea © 1952 NBC/The US Navy.

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These boys have shown a courage and spirit that’s almost unbelievable. But they’re not superhuman. They know we’ve been running low on ammunition, guns, everything. Our food is down to Spam and Japanese rice. We’ve still got enough Atabrine and quinine, but there are plenty of malaria cases anyway. What hurts most of all is that we keep watching the Japs land more troops and more supplies, while we see almost nothing coming for us. Tokyo Rose says Admiral Yamamoto is all ready to come here and accept our surrender, and although we laugh at her when we’re in a group, some of the boys privately believe her. Their big fear is that what happened on Bataan will be repeated here. “This won’t be another Bataan, dammit,” Halsey snapped. Moving his hand in a grand gesture around the island, he declared: “You’re not going to be sitting ducks much longer,” later adding: “I didn’t just come here for a twodollar tour of your jungle.”32

The battle for Henderson Field we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night. Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach Any member of the six battalions of the Sendai Division who may have forgotten the message of the ancient anthem Umi Yukaba could take instruction from their commander, Lt.-Gen. Masao Maruyama, who on 1 October told his troops: The ensuing operation for the capture of Guadalcanal island, engaging the attention of all the world, is the decisive battle between Japan and America that will confer success or failure upon the empire. If we are unsuccessful in its capture not even one man should expect to return alive.33 Maruyama and the commander of the 17th Army, Lt.-Gen. Harukichi Hyakutake, composed a complicated attack plan in which the Sendai and other units would march for up to six days through the often trackless jungle, coming at Henderson Field from different directions but striking simultaneously. The plan proved to be so fine-tuned that it could not be coordinated among its far-flung contingents. When all forces failed to be in position for a coordinated attack on the night of 22 October, the attack was postponed until the following night, then again to 1900 on 24 October. Some

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units on the western flank failed to get word of the second delay and started fighting on 23 October. On 24 October the eastern flank for a time appeared capable of a general breakout, but it failed. A Japanese naval log recites: “25 October 0020 Received report that Army had captured Guadalcanal at 2100 the 24th. Sent planes from carriers to investigate. Army report false.” Then, within minutes of that report emerged a fierce battle, lasting into the small hours of 27 October, fought at and near Edson’s Ridge, pitting a Japanese force larger than Edson had faced, against (among others): Chesty Puller’s 1/7, Lt.-Col. Herman Hanneken’s 2/7, and the 3rd Battalion of the Army’s 164th Infantry under Lt.-Col. Robert Hall, with the Americans initiating a succession of ad-hoc tactics as necessary to respond to each surprise. Some Japanese units that managed to break through were tracked down and crushed, while others died in the jungle from artillery and mortar fire, or at the wire from machine guns and grenades which the Americans merely rolled down the hill. Here, as in earlier battles, profligacy of human life simply could not make up for tactical ineptitude. The Japanese lost not fewer than 2,500 men, the Americans 71.34

Sang froid Soldiering, John Hersey wrote, “is a methodical flirtation with death.” During the worst of the fighting, Gunnery Sergeant “Manila John” Basilone, 26, personally carried ammunition belts along the line, the first enlisted man in the war to win the Medal of Honor. It was said that in the early hours of 25 October, when the firefights got so intense and constant that the red-hot barrels of the water-cooled machine guns steamed off all the water, Basilone told his men to urinate into the water jackets. On 1 November along the Matanikau, Corporal Anthony Casamento of Company D, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, with more than twelve machine-gun bullets in him and uncounted shrapnel fragments, heard the Japanese yell, in English, “Retreat, Marine – Tojo says you must die!” He stood up and tried to respond: “You come and get me, you little yellow bastards!,” but one of the bullets had grazed his vocal cord so he could not speak. He too won the Medal of Honor. “Muscles” Liephart, so called because he had no muscles, “died by bayonet rather than give up the yard of ground on which he stood, on the ridge by the Matanikau.”35 A rifleman from Able Company, Pfc. John Ahrens, In a foxhole in the center of the tenuous line he had done much to hold . . . lay quietly, his eyes closed, breathing slowly. Ahrens was covered with blood. . . . Next to him lay a dead Japanese sergeant, and flung across his legs, a dead officer. Ahrens had been hit in the chest twice by bullets, and blood welled slowly from three deep puncture wounds inflicted by bayonets. Around this foxhole

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sprawled thirteen crumpled Japanese bodies. As Capt. Lewis W. “Silent Lew” Walt gathered Ahrens into his arms . . . the dying man, still clinging to his BAR, said, “Captain, they tried to come over me last night, but I don’t think they made it.” “They didn’t, Johnny,” Walt replied softly. “They didn’t.”36

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Enemies within Guadalcanal would be the military’s first opportunity to employ in battle conditions a variety of novel drugs and procedures. The widespread use of the new sulfa drugs made infection from war wounds and resulting deaths “the lowest in military-medical experience” up to that time, with tetanus toxoid and antitoxin combining to yield no reported cases of tetanus and only one or two cases of the dreaded gas gangrene. In treating the badly wounded, physicians minimized shock by pioneering the so-called four-way infusion of plasma, saline, glucose and blood.1 Dysentery had been one of the scourges of Bataan. To avoid it one had to be scrupulous in abiding by protocols that had not been sufficiently taught, or in maintaining a degree of cleanliness that conditions did not permit. Among the supplies that never made it off the cargo ships was toilet paper. The Japanese had built several latrines, at least one of which had been blown up by naval bombardment. Some Marines constructed good, fly- and mosquito-proof latrine facilities, using available Japanese lumber. But most men squatted over a makeshift “one two three straddle-trench,” one foot wide, two deep, three long, one trench to be built for every ten men, with the removed dirt at one end, along with a can or shovel so that each man could cover his excrement. Within a week of arrival, diarrhea was for many sufficiently severe as to render trips to the latrine or slit trench impossible. Some ripped open the seats of their trousers to eliminate the precious moments needed to pull them down. The incidence of diarrhea decreased when a basic procedure for cleaning mess gear was finally imposed: a pot of soapy water, two pots of rinse water, and a final pot of boiling-hot water for sterilization. Among the published “Lessons of Guadalcanal” was that men on patrol should not even carry mess kits if they had no means of washing them.2 In the first three months on the island the average weight loss from various ills was 20 pounds, although some men lost more than twice that. Since many had already lost weight on the voyage from the US, some were 267

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now painfully thin. All were medically vulnerable. Inadequate rations invited anemia and “general debility.” A lack of vitamin A was linked to night blindness, no mere inconvenience for men fighting an enemy that relished the terror-value of fighting in the dark. While medical supplies had been correctly combat-loaded at Wellington, during the maneuvers in the Fijis some supplies, including refrigeration equipment, had been re-stored in the bottoms of the holds and thus were not unloaded. Biologicals requiring refrigeration were ruined.3 The codename for the counterthrust to start in the Lower Solomons, PESTILENCE, now seemed ominously double-edged. Under the pressure of arranging the invasion and believing that the Navy would be retaining control of the seas, planners at first had no formal arrangement for the air evacuation of wounded. The first air “medevac” was informal, when on 12 August two men were put aboard a PBY flown by one of McCain’s aides.4 In late August medical personnel established the policy that any man who remained unfit for duty after ten to fourteen days, for whatever reason, would be sent south.5 Following the disaster at Savo Island, fourteen C-47s of the South Pacific Combat Air Transport Command, “SCAT,” became crucial vehicles for resupplying the island from the rough strip at Espíritu Santo. Once these planes started coming in with their cargos of ammunition, food and “avgas,” common sense dictated they be loaded with something for the leg out, and medevac was invented, the first SCAT C47 lifting off on 7 September.6 They generally flew to the hospitals at Espíritu Santo (520 miles away) or Efate (680 miles), so as to avoid if possible the longer trip (835 miles) to Nouméa. While the Spanish Civil War had seen the first air evacuation of wounded soldiers, Guadalcanal’s C-47s were the first planes specially equipped for that purpose. Because the idea was so new, participating physicians thought it worthwhile to inform colleagues about the effects of air evacuation on wounded men. It was found, for instance, that a patient with a serious head injury could be safely flown for eight hours at from 6,000 to 10,000 feet, and without oxygen. On the other hand, one patient accumulating air and blood in his left lung could not be stabilized, even by descending to 500 feet and administering oxygen and plasma; an autopsy revealed that he had hemorrhaged during flight. Another, suffering from generalized peritonitis derived from a bullet wound, went into shock and died when weather required the plane to ascend to 7,000 feet for an hour.7

Atabrine The other crucial medical factor in the collapse of Bataan was malaria. The 1939 Hospital Corps handbook recommended a healthy diet as a factor both in “maintaining resistance” to malaria and in a “spontaneous recovery,” but on Guadalcanal such a diet was not to be had. The Aedes aegypti mosquito gave a few cases of dengue fever, apparently none of them fatal. An 268

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estimated one mosquito in ten carried malaria. Dimethyl phthalate, later used as a rocket propellant but then known primarily as an insect repellent under the brand-name “Skat,” could not ward off every one of millions of mosquitoes, even if religiously applied. And Skat was not distributed to all units.8 Malaria did not seem to be an issue among the natives. The Marines had no reason to know that this was due not to an absence of malaria-carrying mosquitoes but to an acquired immunity, a high concentration of IgG antibodies derived from repeated infections. A paucity of malaria symptoms in the first few days on the island seemed a good augury, one tough-as-nails officer remarking: “We are here to kill Japs and to hell with mosquitoes.” Given that attitude and the press of other concerns, little was initially done to eliminate puddles of standing water where the insects bred, and the Lever palm plantation where most men lived became known as “Mosquito Gulch.” With an incubation period of thirteen to seventeen days, the first cases of the common variant, Plasmodium vivax, started appearing at sick bays in late August: chills, then high fever, pain, vomiting, then sweating. Although all the men had been inoculated for yellow and typhoid fevers and injected with tetanus toxoid, physicians had had little training in tropical disease. The Marines had had some practice in malaria control back at New River, and while allegedly some health-care personnel on Guadalcanal were trained in malaria prevention, several other medical people claimed never to have seen them, much less had they seen any medical manifest discussing the disease, its etiology and prophylaxis. To add insult to injury, a false rumor had it that the mosquitoes had first acquired the disease by stinging the Japanese, whose exposure had predated the Marines’ by a month.9 The extent of the problem was variously reported. By one count, August saw 900 recorded malaria cases, then 1,724 in September, 2,630 in October, 2,413 in November, rendering 16 percent of the combat troops ineffective. Of 10,635 cases requiring medical treatment in the 1st Division through 10 December, only 1,472 were from wounds, two-thirds of the illnesses treated involving disease. The official percentage of men in the 1st Division infected with malaria would eventually reach a catastrophic 85 percent. With an insufficient number of troops to man the perimeter, a man’s temperature had to exceed 103°F before he could be relieved of duty. At times, no one capable of walking was admitted to sick bay. Since, Paul Moore later said, no one could be relieved unless he was essentially burning up, “you had men in the foxholes, shaking with fever, ears ringing, trying to hold the line in total darkness, with strange sounds coming out of the jungle. It was really an incredible situation, morale-wise.”10 Malaria had no cure. The traditional suppressant had been quinine, an alkaloid found in forty species of evergreen trees native to South America, generically called the “cinchona,” which were eventually planted on various islands of the Far East. Eventually the East Indies enjoyed over 80 percent 269

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of world quinine production, a monopoly particularly hard to crack since each cinchona tree takes fifteen to eighteen years to reach maturity before its quinine can be harvested, with the extraction process requiring the destruction of the tree.11 In the spring of 1942 Japan’s annexation of the East Indies included the cinchona plantations of Java, thus placing production in Axis hands.12 The US War Production Board, having foreseen this possibility, had hoarded available supplies while attempting to fabricate the synthetic substitute. That story would have some ironic twists. During World War I the Allies had cut off German access to Javan quinine production, while the Treaty of Versailles stripped Germany of the cinchona trees previously planted in Germany’s African colonies.13 It was to secure an antimalarial that was cheaper than quinine and not subject to the Dutch monopoly that Germany began experimenting with synthetic equivalents. Now that Germany’s ally, Japan, was blocking the natural original, the Americans looked to what the Germans – an adversary once more – had accomplished. In 1927 chemists at I.G. Farbenindustrie had evolved plasmochin, a chemical sixty times more powerful than quinine in controlling the nonlethal variety of malaria, although it proved to be very toxic. After tests on 12,000 compounds, in the early 1930s Farben chemists introduced atabrine (quinacrine hydrochloride), which seemed to work at least as well as quinine although, as with plasmochin, toxicity was a problem.14 While Farben’s patent application published the formula, the company did not share with its US and other licensees the secrets of the manufacturing process.15 To fabricate their own, American chemists at Winthrop Chemical Company thus had to find all the ingredients domestically and to replicate the steps the Germans had taken to synthesize the side-chain intermediates. They managed that intricate process, using up a total of 30 pounds of chemicals for each pound of atabrine produced. In March 1940 they built a factory, and by October they were producing atabrine in commercial quantities. The first atabrine synthesized in the US was sold in 1941, with little known about appropriate administrations. Supplies were available in Bataan, but the Americans had never administered it to large groups before, and guesswork dosages resulted in adverse reactions among the men, the vast majority of whom were already very sick with malaria and other debilitating ills. Prewar reports of delirium proved well founded, with isolated incidents of catatonia, of a man declaring himself Jesus, etc.16 To be effective, atabrine needed to be taken in large initial doses or regularly at least two weeks prior to the first exposure.17 Thus, for most men on Guadalcanal it was already too late. Many took it only fitfully, some not at all. Tokyo Rose, interested in keeping the men from taking their pills, claimed that atabrine caused impotency. Since atabrine made one’s skin “yellower than a Jap,” it seemed reasonable to believe her, a hostile source but often in possession of startlingly accurate information, when she 270

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ascribed the jaundice to liver damage. (In fact it turned the skin yellow because it derived from an acridine dye.)18 Following oral administration of the pills on the chow line, mess personnel noticed hundreds of the tablets on the ground, the Marines having spat them out.19 Soon corpsmen were assigned to make sure that the pills were swallowed. The original recommended dosage had been 0.2 grams twice a week.20 With hundreds of malaria cases incubating insidiously, on 10 September the order was issued for 0.12 grams of atabrine twice a day, two times a week. In mid-November one medical officer increased the dosage to one 0.1 gram tablet per day, and by the end of the month malaria admissions had dropped by 50 percent.21 The hoarded quinine, meanwhile, went to the ten men in a hundred who could not tolerate atabrine’s toxicity.22

The bus to Poughkeepsie An enlisted man was assigned the task of transcribing nightly US radio broadcasts and posting their highlights on the bulletin board (Figure 14.1). One night he posted an announcement that, in keeping with a nationwide rationing scheme, Mrs. Roosevelt would no longer be serving butter at

Figure 14.1 Blackboard featuring baseball scores (the double-header between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Boston Braves was played on 14 August).

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White House luncheons. “(Too God-damned bad!)”, he added.23 One of the sickbays carried the sign “Bellevue,” in reference to the famous New York psychiatric center. Many stateside bobbysoxers so swooned over actor John Payne in To the Shores of Tripoli that, believing him actually to be a Marine, they wrote intimate and compromising letters to him, c/o the Marine Corps. This fanmail eventually reached one Private John R. Payne on Guadalcanal, who read it aloud to his buddies with some gusto.24 Men confined together in unpleasant situations develop short-hand humor. Men who talked too much about their girlfriends were assigned their girlfriends’ names: “Mary,” “Louise,” etc. A man thought too proprietary about his cigar was called “Cigar.” “Fuck” and its derivatives had long since found their way into every sentence, as verb, noun, adjective, adverb and all-purpose verbal filler.25 “The shit hit the fan” was so common as to become a telephone codeword for a battle. “Semper fi,” the shortened form of the beautiful Latin motto of the Marines meaning “Always Faithful,” became diabolically twisted into its opposite, selfish. A synonym was “one-way,” so that the disappointed cigarette scrounger could accuse the wrongdoer of “Semper Fiiii!” and “one-wayeee!”26 Mental strain could be comic. A man talked to his non-existent dog so often that his captain had a physician examine him with a view to a medical evacuation. But a first sergeant intervened, demanding that the man come to see him. When he appeared, the sergeant yelled: “Now don’t bring that flea hound of yours in here or my bull dog will chew its damned head off!” The man stopped, looked down, saw for the first time in a week that there was no dog, broke into what was described as a “sobbing laugh,” and was returned to duty.27 A second lieutenant related that in late October his sea-bag arrived from Wellington, so I got it into my head to dress up and go stand down at the Division post office and pretend I was going home. . . . I even had a swagger stick. Well, naturally I provoked a lot of attention. Guys began to come up and ask me where I was going. “Why, I’m going home,” I’d answer. “Home?” they’d repeat in awe and wonder. “How’re you going?” “Why, by the Poughkeepsie bus,” I’d say. “Well,” they’d say, not quite sure whether I was nuts or whether they were nuts or – whether maybe, I wasn’t really going home. I’d look up the road like I was expecting the bus that minute. They’d look up the road with me. I’d say: “It ought to be here any minute.” Then they’d look at me queerly, still not quite sure. . . . Well, I stood there all afternoon, and a funny thing happened. 272

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Those guys would go away and come back with notes on which addresses, phone numbers and messages were written. “Call home for me when you get there, will you?” they’d ask. The following day the man managed to bring himself back to reality, to grasp that in fact he would not be catching a bus to Poughkeepsie.28

The Gooney Bird Stare So long as your men are bitching, Marine officers were told, they are all right.29 The tell-tale sign of battle fatigue was “the Gooney Bird Stare,” also called “the Thousand-Yard Stare,” “the Thousand-Mile Stare,” “the Bulkhead Stare” and “the Asiatic Stare,” synonymous expressions including “Rock Happy,” “Island Happy,” “Jungle Happy,” or, in a genteel variant first identified back in prewar Hawaii, “Pineapple Crazy.”30 Everyone could recognize it, many had it. Some must have picked up the word “gooney” from British slang, meaning a simpleton. Perhaps the look resembled the expression on the face of the albatross, or perhaps was somehow linked to the “Gooney Bird,” the nickname for the C-47s that would summarily evacuate the worst of the psychiatric cases. The affliction did not commonly come on full blown, but rather would start with inattention and daydreaming, followed by conversation fixated on one thing, such as fried eggs, then a robot-like quality. For a few, however, the Stare was a prelude to a nervous collapse.31 In April 1946 Brig.-Gen. William Menninger, MD, chief of the Army’s neuropsychiatric unit, was asked by psychiatrists to share with them the lessons military psychiatry had for civilian life. Although Dr. Menninger, who was also medical director of the increasingly influential Menninger Clinic, was generally ready with a politically astute spin on most questions of public interest, here he let slip a painfully frank conclusion following the accumulated psychiatric data of four years of war: “as yet no very good method has been found whereby to determine a man’s threshold of endurance of emotional stress.”32 Paul Moore, noting that a substantial portion of the men in his unit went crazy, posited the reason to be that they were constantly being moved from one place to another. “If a marine can dig his foxhole, and dig out a little shelf for his canteen and another . . . to put a photograph of his girlfriend on,” cover it with palm branches for shade, “and make a little home for himself,” Moore contended, this “familiarity” will keep him stable.33 No effort was made either to prove or disprove Moore’s theory. In the rush to land the first US ground forces in the South Pacific, no one had given much thought to battle fatigue. Few physicians were familiar with the published literature from World War I.34 While some of the nation’s 3,000 psychiatrists worked in veterans’ hospitals and thus attended patients 273

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from World War I still uncured, such familiarity would be little help in treating a case of two days’ duration rather than twenty-five years’, and in any event few of these psychiatrists would be resigning to go overseas. Instead, willing psychiatrists without this specialized knowledge, and even physicians from other specialties, would have to be retooled quickly to fill this medical need.35 Only the weak, it was widely thought, “crack.”36 The line officers typically took the same position as the commanding general of the Americal Division, Maj.-Gen. Patch. A neuropsychiatric diagnosis was, he said, phony, and such men should be not excused but court-martialed. The Army’s position was: Despite the unpleasant nature of many reactions to combat, soldiers whose responses are within normal limits must be subjected to normal military demands. Only thus can morale and discipline be maintained and unjustifiable leakage of combat manpower through medical channels be prevented.37 Career military men typically described men who succumbed to fear as “cowards” whose genetic inferiority or substandard upbringing disabled them from performing a universally recognized duty that was also a rite of passage by which one became a “real man.” While before the war Freudian psychoanalysis had not achieved the cult-like, quasi-religious status it would later enjoy, many people were at least willing to accept that children went through a series of psychological stages, and that failure to graduate successfully from each stage would mean regressive conflicts in later life. Since the meteoric rise of the behaviorist Robert Watson in the 1920s, a number of authorities and many lay readers who flatly rejected Freud were nevertheless willing to accept that many American boys were over-coddled, rendering them bad candidates for battle with the children of totalitarianism. An even older thread of thought, still popular in 1942 despite its profound influence on fascist race theory, was that the US was declining genetically because of the influx of “inferior” races, families who allegedly provided the lion’s share of the nation’s delinquencies and social pathologies. Military psychiatrists who absorbed such ideas sought links between “cracking up” in war and some evidence of childhood inadequacy or trauma. In John Huston’s documentary Let There Be Light (1945–48), chronicling real cases of soldiers whose psychological symptoms had to be resolved before they could be discharged to their families, a final group therapy session shows a psychiatrist informing his patients that although many children do not grow up with a feeling of safety, such assurance could be found and internalized later in life. While some authorities claimed that homes broken by death, separation, alcoholism or insanity were responsible for up to a third of the military’s psychiatric cases, others felt that a high-risk family background was no 274

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reason to deny a boy his chance to serve, fight and earn the credentials of manhood. Boys running away from something or someone, boys with something to prove or disprove, or with a score to settle, tended to be the first to say “I’ll show them” and find their way to recruiting offices. Among Dr. Lidz’s patients were many feeling guilt from having reacted to domestic problems by shipping out. The Marines had never promised recruits a garden party, and if having a “bad home life” – a bum for a father or a dipso for a mother – had been deemed an obstacle to acceptance, the Corps would have deprived itself of many who could be molded into maturity by Marine training. Some parents did not mind signing a consent form for their under-aged sons just to be rid of them, which might be a blessing for the parents, the sons and the nation they would serve. In Ray Enright’s film Gung Ho! (1943), portraying the collection of volunteers for Lt.-Col. Evans Carlson’s 2nd Marine Raider Battalion (“Carlson’s Raiders”), one of the applicants has a negative attitude because back in Brooklyn, after his mother died and his stepfather threw him out, everybody called him a “no-good kid.” The interviewer, rather than reject him for his insolence, says when he was growing up he got the same treatment; therefore, “just ’cause we’re a couple of no-good kids, I’m going to take a chance on you.” And in the Marines, as in the other services, once the first weeks of training uncovered the few egregious cases of psychological illness that had not been identified in the enlistment process, the question of just what made one man crack under extreme stress while others stayed whole was never plumbed. Moreover, no fair-minded psychiatrist who listened to what men said about the long-term conditions of living and fighting on Guadalcanal could attribute their symptoms to a “bad home,” much less to an “Oedipus Complex.” Dr. Lidz received his MD from Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1936 and, following an internship at the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic at Johns Hopkins in 1938, became in 1940 an instructor in psychiatry at Johns Hopkins before joining the military. Stationed on a secured island, he noted: little news of the progress of the fighting had filtered southward, until a group of reporters arrived by air. They had been on Guadalcanal for a few weeks in contrast to the months spent there by the marines. They were shaken and shaky, stunned and bewildered. Their conversation was filled with recrimination and resentment, and filled with frank statements that conditions on Guadalcanal were beyond endurance. They were pessimistic and considered the island lost. They had left on one of the last planes. Our first offensive of the war had [they thought] turned into another Bataan. They had been the civilian spectators and the way to leave had been open to them. 275

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A few days later the casualties began arriving, “bedraggled and emaciated youths with frozen . . . expressions on their aged faces and a far-off stare in their eyes,” suffering from anxiety and depression, unfolding stories “harrowing beyond all anticipation.” Those about to crack stared ahead, unable to hear words but seeming to hear Japanese planes. Startle-reactions and panic were so endemic that a thunderclap would clear the ward. One man repeatedly uttered “Semper Fidelis.” The only patient not miserable was manic. Another reverted to infancy, clinging to the doctor’s hand sobbing in a childish voice . . . “– they won’t get my mummy and daddy – I won’t let them – I’ll kill them all,” and when quieted by sedation he prayed, “– and God bless mummy and daddy and all the boys on Guadalcanal.”38 For some of these evacuees, the days and (particularly) the nights in the hospital were fraught with terror. They tended to reject reassurance, having learned that it did not alleviate their symptoms. Before getting off Guadalcanal, many had gone back-and-forth between the field hospital and the fighting, out of the same desperate need for manpower that put febrile malaria victims back on the line. Some rationally pieced together that it was simply time to leave, that their psyche had been exposed to too much, like a back muscle incapable of further lifting. They knew that they had fought bravely and well, and although depressed because they had left comrades behind to die, they knew that it had been impossible for them to continue to be useful. There was little real need for excuses for themselves or others. Before mid-October 1942 Guadalcanal was without a qualified psychiatrist, the 1st Division’s senior medical officer, Cmdr. Warwick Brown, MD, being a Navy surgeon. Then with the Americal Division came Martin Berezin, MD, age 30, a board-certified psychiatrist from Boston.39 By his own admission he “knew next to nothing about neuropsychiatric combat cases,” his psychiatric training having been limited to a “descriptive” understanding of schizophrenia, manic depression and organic psychoses. Now, during and after the Bombardment, he was faced with “men in varying degrees of ‘startle’ states,” such as one “who remained half-conscious, sometimes talking gibberish, who practically had convulsive seizures whenever artillery was fired or whenever a bomb dropped.” Unprepared to manage such cases, he “wrote immediately to friends and to my wife in the United States to send me literature.” While some information did later arrive, no peacetime psychiatric treatise could address the negative synergy of malaria, dysentery, dehydration, malnourishment, exhaustion from weeks or months of chronically interrupted sleep, shelling, bombing, 276

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shooting, death and stinking corpses, in the etiology of mental illness. Thus, it emerged that Guadalcanal “created a unique situation particularly suited for the study of the reactions of men of proven valor to intolerable stress.” “It was apparent,” Dr. Lidz sadly observed, that most of his patients “would have emerged from a briefer and less traumatic campaign as heroes.” Indeed, there is no reason not to call these men heroes, many of whom paid a very high price in self-image and guilt for having served their country in appalling circumstances. “[N]ever before in history,” Dr. Lidz wrote, “has such a group of healthy, toughened, well-trained men been subjected to such conditions.”40 With no published instructions regarding the management of such cases, “[i]mprovisation and empirical data,” Dr. Berezin wrote, “were the keynotes of our therapy.” He and other medical personnel developed curative protocols, beginning with as much rest as a patient could get on an island that was being bombed by day and shelled by night. Aid stations and field hospitals had thousands of 2-ounce bottles of brandy to be administered to those manifesting early signs of combat fatigue, 4 ounces in a canteen of water being enough to induce a sound sleep. Those who needed a longer break from combat were put on “PandS” (pick-and-shovel) detail for a while.41 The closest psychiatric center was the Neuropsychiatric Service of the Navy hospital on Efate, staffed by Lt.-Cmdrs. James Sagebiel and Lee Bird. Dr. Sagebiel, 40 years old, received his MD at Harvard in 1927, interned at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, did postgraduate work in neurology and psychiatry at Columbia, and had a senior consultancy in neuropsychiatry at Washington’s famous St. Elizabeths Hospital.42 Dr. Lee, 36 years old, received his MD from the University of Wisconsin in 1933, his internships including a year (1934–35) at the United States Marine Hospital in Boston.43 With understandable pride they introduced their published report as “the psychiatrist’s first opportunity to analyze the mental, emotional, and behavioristic reactions of a group of American troops under the combat conditions of their first offensive campaign in the South Pacific area.”44 Their general prescription was rest, with most patients receiving Phenobarbital, sodium amytal or Nembutal. While each of these barbiturates was known for its abreactive effects, Drs. Sagebiel and Bird do not mention utilizing them in psychotherapy sessions. Although the average period for substantial improvement was a mere four-and-a-half days and the average total stay twenty-three days, Drs. Sagebiel and Bird did not see their job as curing their patients, only stabilizing them, nor did they believe they had these men under observation long enough to risk sending them back into combat. Most were instead reassigned to non-combat duty, while others were re-evacuated to hospitals farther from the battle zone for additional evaluation. Establishing a psychiatric unit on a secured island close to Guadalcanal demonstrated an institutional memory among military physicians of what 277

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was learned in World War I, that if a man went too far from the battle line for treatment, he would tend to embrace mental illness as a long-term attribute. Data set fourth in four charts accompanying the Sagebiel/Bird study reflected triage decisions made by the care providers on Guadalcanal. One of these, Dr. E.L. Smith, noted the rule of thumb that patients would be evacuated if they were deemed unlikely to be returned to combat duty within a given number of days.45 Undoubtedly this informal rule evolved as Dr. Smith and others, coming to their task from various backgrounds but none of them specialists in battle fatigue, gained experience. Despite the informal rule and the obvious detriments to treatment presented by daily and nightly explosions, various factors, including weather, could delay the time between the onset of a psychological symptom and its presentation at a secure base to the south. One man taken by a sudden and violent psychosis might be evaluated, restrained and air-evacuated within hours, while another man might be quietly suffering in his foxhole for weeks before finally showing up at a field hospital. If his condition deteriorated or failed to improve after ten days of the rest/P&S regime, he might then have to wait a few days for a ship, then wait a few more days on that ship while traveling south. Thus, there may have been a delay of weeks between the onset of symptoms and their being first addressed by a psychiatrist in an environment under no threat of Japanese attack. These and other variables undoubtedly yielded the seeming anomalies in the flow of cases to Drs. Sagebiel and Bird, as when the arrivals in the week ending 5 September include only one psychiatric admission and the week ending 21 November shows only four. Such vagaries notwithstanding, their tabulated graph shows a dramatic spike in admissions following the Bombardment, with thirty-two psychiatric admissions for the week ending 24 October (41 percent of all admissions that week) and thirty-four psychiatric cases for the week ending 31 October (30 percent of that week’s total). In the text of their report the authors neither refer to the sudden upturn nor indicate any awareness of the underlying event, the devastating effectiveness of the Bombardment undoubtedly being censorable information when the article was submitted for publication. One way to avoid the stigma of a psychoneurotic diagnosis was simply for the psychiatrist not to give it. Most of the 1st Division’s official medical annexes omit the issue, October being an exception, listing 110 cases. Dr. Berezin scrupulously refused to write up any officer with other than a somatic diagnosis, liberally choosing “blast concussion.” This was a reversion to the “shell-shock” theory of World War I, and defensible enough as a “cause” of a somatic “injury” since bombs and shells landed virtually every day and night.46 Later in the war, General Patton slapped two different men he thought to be cowards. One had been diagnosed “psycho-neuroses [sic] anxiety state – 278

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moderate severe.” This was apparently in error. The man was subsequently rediagnosed with dysentery and malaria, obviously non-psychosomatic explanations for why he felt so utterly unstrung and why he had blurted out to Patton: “I can’t take it,” a phrase Patton found loathsome. All of this of course happened in Europe, and well after the 1st Division had left Guadalcanal. Physicians who knew anything about conditions on Guadalcanal would grasp that there was no bright line demarking just where “somatic” malaria or other debilitating illness ended and “neurotic” problems began. Yet in his quasi-official history, Morison, a highly decorated Navy officer as well as a Harvard historian, noted that Nouméa saw the almost daily arrival from Guadalcanal of “wounded men and neurotics.” In Morison’s estimation the psychiatric casualties were to be expressly differentiated from those who were truly – that is, somatically – injured. Significantly, malaria goes unmentioned by Drs. Sagebiel and Bird, perhaps, as with their failure to mention the Bombardment, because of censorship. It is inconceivable, however, that they would not grasp malaria’s significant role in the deterioration of a man’s mental as well as physical health. The “real ordeal” of Guadalcanal, as veteran William Manchester nicely put it, was “psychological and malarial.”47

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The Battle of Guadalcanal The naval Battle of Cape Esperance in early October failed to stop the Japanese from putting troops ashore, while the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands several weeks later did at least give them pause. But the great test of which side had the naval and aerial clout to protect the delivery of troops was the Battle of Guadalcanal of 12–15 November. The Japanese commitment included four battleships, seven cruisers, twenty-one destroyers and the carrier Junyo¯ supporting eleven transports, while Turner and Halsey gathered two battleships, eight cruisers, twenty-one destroyers, fourteen submarines and Enterprise supporting seven transports. Each side also coordinated with land-based planes. On Thursday night, 12–13 November, Turner directed a force of five cruisers and eight destroyers under RAdm. Callaghan to meet an approaching Japanese force. Callaghan, formerly aide to Roosevelt and then Ghormley, lacked tactical experience, and thus placed Helena, with its advanced SG and SC-1 radar, back in the eighth position of his column. At 0123 on 13 November, Helena picked up at 32,000 yards a huge blip which had to be a battleship. One of the Japanese lookouts realized he was not looking at friendly ships and directed fire. Callaghan’s order, as if in the old days of ships-of-the-line, was for odd ships to fire to starboard, even ships to port. The battle started at 0148. By 0200 it was complete anarchy, a Marine watching from the shore calling it a “gigantic ping-pong game using fire balls.” By 0222 it was over, with several destroyers sunk and several ships disabled, much of the death and destruction caused by friendly fire. Nimitz called it “a half-hour melee which for confusion and fury is scarcely to be paralleled in naval history.” Commanding the cruiser San Francisco as its bridge was decimated by 14-inch shells, Callaghan had just issued his last order: “Commence firing; give ’em hell, boys!” Also dead was Norman Scott.1 American planes harassed an approaching Japanese convoy all day on 14 November, sinking or disabling six transports, leaving only four, as VAdm. 280

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Nobutake Kondo¯’s four cruisers, nine destroyers and the Ko¯ngo-class battle cruiser Kirishima steamed to intervene against RAdm. Willis A. “Ching” Lee’s battleships Washington and South Dakota and four destroyers, approaching from the south. They clashed starting at 2317. Men on Guadalcanal heard a reprise of the Battle of Savo Island. While the failure of South Dakota’s electrics made it an obvious target, the Japanese concentrated too much on sinking her, not noticing that Washington had trained its guns on Kirishima, destroying it. With insufficient forces to shell Henderson Field or protect the unloading of transports, Kondo¯ ordered them beached at Tassafaronga. Starting at first light, the transports and the supplies being piled up on the beach came under attack by American planes, then by ground artillery from within the American perimeter, then by an American destroyer.2 The tide of battle had turned. “They brought down everything they had,” Nimitz commented several days later, and thus lost everything, “a major victory . . . by a gallant force,” so that now “[t]hings are looking up all the time.”3 Halsey later wrote: This battle was a decisive American victory by any standard. It was also the third great turning point of the war in the Pacific. Midway stopped the Japanese advance in the Central Pacific; Coral Sea stopped it in the Southwest Pacific; Guadalcanal stopped it in the South Pacific. Now [1947] . . . I can face the alternative frankly. If our ships and planes had been routed in this battle, if we had lost it, our troops on Guadalcanal would have been trapped as were our troops on Bataan. We could not have reinforced them or relieved them. Archie Vandegrift would have been our “Skinny” Wainwright, and the infamous Death March would have been repeated. (We later captured a document which designated the spot where the Japanese commander had planned to accept Archie’s surrender.) Unobstructed, the enemy would have driven south, cut our supply lines to New Zealand and Australia and enveloped them.4 Within a week of winning the battle, Halsey received word that Roosevelt had elevated him to the rank of full, four-star admiral. His home town, Elizabeth, New Jersey, declared a holiday. His face appeared on Time’s 30 November cover. Japan now found itself to have been engaging in a piecemeal war of attrition and to have lost it. Vandegrift told a reporter: “It is no longer possible for the Japs to land enough strength at any one time to take Guadalcanal away from us.” Between 15 November and 1 December the number of aircraft in the Cactus Air Force jumped from 85 to 188, including contingents from the US Navy, Marines and Army and from New Zealand.5 There was still some vicious fighting. West of the Matanikau between 18 and 23 November, the 164th and 182nd Infantries lost ninety-two men, the 281

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8th Marines forty-two. The Japanese had given up trying to deliver men or supplies by transport. In one last naval engagement, the Battle of Tassafaronga on 29-30 November, eight Japanese destroyers attempted to deliver floating drums of supplies. They were interrupted by four American heavy cruisers, one light cruiser and six destroyers. The Japanese prevailed, by virtue of their Long Lance torpedoes, sinking three of the American heavy cruisers, and losing only one of their own destroyers. But Allied air power was now reaching Japanese destroyers far to the north in daylight, thus disabling them from making their nocturnal deliveries. The Americans were receiving an average of 400 tons a day, the Japanese almost nothing.6 In late November the Japanese resorted to trying submarines for resupply, a measure whose inefficient desperation is reflected in the fact that the Americans had been compelled to use it at Corregidor. A Japanese staff officer, returning to Rabaul from an inspection of Guadalcanal on 19 November, reported that there was little chance of victory. A similar report came from another officer five days later. Richard B. Frank has written that of 31,493 Japanese landed on Guadalcanal since the decision to build the airfield, at this point only 13,325 were still alive and capable of combat. In one regiment of 3,000, this translated into 60 to 70 men. Those who could still contribute were on one-fourth normal rations, while the sick were relegated to a preposterous one-twelfth. With not enough litter bearers, those too sick or wounded to get to a field hospital on their own died where they lay, with no one expending the calories necessary to bury them. A novel approach to resupply was now essayed, even more desperate than submarines. At Shortland the Japanese placed food and medicines in storage drums, leaving enough of an air pocket to maintain buoyancy, then dumped them at night at designated points off Guadalcanal’s coast, to be pulled to shore by small boats or by swimming out to retrieve them. Of 1,500 drums so deposited by seven fast destroyers on the night of 3 December, only 310 made it to shore, some having drifted off after being dislodged on coral heads, while the 1,190 still floating the next morning were sunk by US planes and artillery, as well as the PT boats now establishing themselves at Tulagi. Yamamoto’s chief-of-staff had already concluded that it was time to get out. Destroyer squadron commander Raizo Tanaka conveyed the same frank assessment to Mikawa. Submarines now fashioned supply rafts, powered by torpedoes, with one man at the helm.7 Some got through, but not enough. It was over.

The right to leave In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud: Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. William Ernest Henley (1849–1903), Invictus 282

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Halsey insisted that Thanksgiving include not only turkey but also cranberry sauce. While the Japanese desperately engaged in cannibalism, within the American perimeter corned beef was now in such abundance that the unopened cans were being used to fill bomb craters on the runway. But the accumulated effects of three months could not be cured by some palatable meals. A report drafted by Vandegrift and/or Merrill Twining included the shocking notation that dysentery and malaria had rendered the men “no longer capable of offensive operations.” A naval physician saw in some men a reduction in the will to live. On 29 November the 1st Division was informed that it would be “relieved without delay . . . and will proceed to Australia for rehabilitation and employment.” On 8 December the 132nd Infantry, third regiment of the Americal Division, arrived. The following day Vandegrift transferred command to Patch.8 Viscount Slim, in his brilliant memoir of the Burma campaign, wrote: The only test of generalship is success. . . . The soldier may comfort himself with the thought that, whatever the result, he has done his duty faithfully and steadfastly, but the commander has failed in his duty if he has not won victory – for that is his duty.9 Vandegrift was a success. His last order was a beautiful and stirring “Letter of Appreciation for Loyal Service”: In relinquishing command . . . I hope that in some small measure I can convey to you my feelings of pride in your magnificent achievement and my thanks for the unbounded loyalty, limitless selfsacrifice and high courage which have made these accomplishments possible. To the soldiers and marines who have faced the enemy in the fierceness of night combat; to the pilots, Army, Navy and Marine, whose unbelievable achievements have made the name “Guadalcanal” a synonym for death and disaster in the language of the enemy; to those who have labored and sweated within the lines at all manner of prodigious and vital tasks; to the men of the torpedo boat squadrons slashing at the enemy in night sorties; to our small band of devoted Allies who have contributed so vastly in proportion to their numbers; to the surface forces of the Navy associated with us in signal triumphs of their own; I say that at all times you have faced without flinching, the worst that the enemy could do to us and have thrown back the best that he could send against us. It may well be that this modest operation, begun four months ago today has, through your efforts, been successful in thwarting the larger aims of our enemy. . . . The fight for the Solomons is not yet won but “tide what may” I know that you, as brave men and men of 283

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good-will, will hold your heads high and prevail in the future as you have in the past.10 It was short. It was simple. It was somewhat Churchillian. It was a textbook study in the rhetoric of inclusiveness, without sounding political. And above all it was utterly selfless; note his mentioning “soldiers” before “marines,” when MacArthur on Corregidor managed to neglect mentioning the Marines altogether. Note also Vandegrift’s never using the word “we,” giving all the credit to the men. Some 80 percent of the 1st Division was under 21.11 Paul Fussell has written: “men will attack only if young, athletic, credulous, and sustained by some equivalent of the buddy system – that is, fear of shame.” Knowledge of what war is all about “will come after a few months, and then they’ll be used up and as soldiers virtually useless – scared, cynical, debilitated, unwilling.”12 While this may have been true of other recruits, it did not happen to the Marines. These men were neither scared, cynical nor unwilling. For now, however, they had become “virtually useless” by being “debilitated.” Al Bonney, 20, had arrived on 7 August at 176 pounds. He left weighing 111. Of 186 men in his company, only 20 were now both alive and able to stand.13 Elements of the 5th and 11th Marines were the first to re-embark, “haul[ing] themselves, sometimes with difficulty, up the cargo nets to the decks of the transports,” “weary, disease-ridden, bedraggled,” so-called “raggedy-ass marines,” the latter observation a literal fulfillment of a nickname formed two years earlier during amphibious training. At first the sailors of the President Jackson were amused to see these reputationally “tough” men dangling and snarled at various levels of the cargo nets, unable to lift themselves one more rung. Laughter quickly gave way to compassion, however, and they scrambled over the side to help. When Ore Marion was finally pulled across the rail and got to the galley he wolfed down some macaroni soup, only to throw it up again. As more Marines came on board, units of the Army’s 25th Infantry Division, arriving directly from Hawaii, disembarked. As Robert Leckie entered the galley, a fellow Marine asked a newly arrived GI if he had ever heard of the island. “Hell, yes! Guadalcanal. The First Marines – Everybody’s heard of it. You guys are famous. You guys are heroes back home.” The two Marines turned away to hide their tears.14 Patch now commanded two Army divisions and the 2nd Marine Division, the whole group of 50,000 called the XIV Corps. While there would be several more substantial engagements, some Army officers were unhappy that the Marines had been there first, thus getting an outsized portion of the glory.15 The 7th Marines were the last of the 1st Division to pull out, on 7 January. On 27 December, Japan’s Army and Navy agreed that further reinforcement would be futile and by 31 December the Emperor approved a secret evacuation from Cape Esperance and Kamimbo Bay. On 30 January 1943, 284

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US newspapers carried an AP dispatch: “Japanese soldiers surrendered voluntarily in response to a broadcast over a loudspeaker from the American lines. They were the first Japanese on Guadalcanal to give themselves up without compulsion.” A day later the Americans found on the body of a Japanese lieutenant a diary memorializing the starvation of his comrades. He had remained optimistic, noting on 30 December: “in two months all of Guadalcanal will return to our hands.”16 On 1 February, Japanese transports and destroyers arrived under cover of darkness, boarded 5,414 troops and within two hours were gone. More ships arrived the night of the 4th, taking off 4,977, still more the night of the 7th, retrieving 2,249, for a total of 12,640.17 As the sun rose on 8 February, one week after the collapse of the German Army at Stalingrad, fourteen months after Pearl Harbor, and six months after the Marines first hit Beach Red, the Japanese had extracted from Guadalcanal the last live soldiers they could find. A PT boat that morning found 500 Japanese soldiers floating in the water, having failed to get picked up. Despite the substantial number of ships involved in this operation, and despite the recent effectiveness of Allied forces in finding and destroying Japanese ships in the Slot, the Allies’ half-hearted attempt at interdiction failed.18 Not until the afternoon of 9 February did the Americans realize that the Japanese were gone. Three days later VMF-124 flew into Henderson Field with the new gull-winged Vought Corsair F4U-1s, one of several new fighters for which the Zero would be no match. New Guinea too was being “mopped up.” By 19 November, the Australian 25th Brigade was outside the Japanese perimeter at Gona, a fortress of camouflaged palm-log bunkers, commanding fields of fire across plains from which the tall kunai grass had been mowed down. The Japanese tried to bring reinforcements down the coast from Lae and Salamaua, but were stymied by Allied planes. By 9 December Lt.-Col. Ralph Honner, commander of the Australian 39th Battalion, could declare: “Gona’s gone.” Before sending the untried 32nd Division to New Guinea, MacArthur had said: The psychological factor is three times the material factors. . . . the fellow wins who fights to the end, whose nerves don’t go back on him, who never thinks of anything but the will to victory. That’s what I want of you men – and that’s what I expect.19 Weeks later, upon hearing tales of green American troops throwing away their weapons, MacArthur chose not to visit the front itself, but sent Lt.Gen. Robert L. Eichelberger, giving him instructions any Japanese officer might appreciate: Take Buna or don’t come back alive.20 Of 10,960 casualties in the 32nd Division, 8,286 were from disease. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” the song went, “If the Jap’s don’t get you, malaria must.”21 On 17 December 285

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command of the Americans and of three Australian battalions went to an Australian, Brig. George Wooten. By 2 January 1943 it was all over at Buna, and by 23 January at Sanananda.22 While US troops on Guadalcanal suffered the casualty rates that might be expected in a defensive situation, on New Guinea the Allies were in an offensive mode, yielding 2,165 Australian dead and 930 Americans.23 Japan had adhered to its doctrine of do-and-die, generating some appalling statistics. Japanese losses on New Guinea totaled perhaps 12,000. Regarding Guadalcanal, the Japanese multivolume Senshi So¯sho¯ states that 31,358 Japanese soldiers were landed on the island since the early summer of 1942, with 10,665 evacuated alive. It reports 12,507 dead in action, 1,931 from injuries, 4,203 from disease, 2,497 missing in action, with total deaths somewhere between 20,800 and 21,138.24 When asked after the war when the turning point came, a number of Japanese said Midway, others Guadalcanal, some both.25 Although Japan’s carrier losses at Midway were of course strategically significant, if Japan had retaken Guadalcanal’s airstrip, it is difficult to imagine any critical mass among US decision-makers to commit more men and assets to counterthrusts in the Pacific until the European war was well in hand. If no American troops were committed to the Pacific for two or three years, one might ask whether the US public, following the battles to defeat Germany, would have retained enough residual hatred to support the great human sacrifices necessary to dislodge Japan from dug-in positions in these southern islands, and then start moving up toward Japan. More likely, a stabilized Russia would have entered the Pacific war, and from Siberian bases American planes would have bombed the Home Islands. The Pacific war as we know it simply would not have happened. Just as happened after Midway, the military avoided repatriating enlistees from Guadalcanal so that no one in Japan would know of the enormity of the defeat and humiliation. The Imperial Army refused to speak of the evacuation as other than an instance of tenshin, “changing course.” The Japanese press, inculcating delusion, later described Guadalcanal as “a grand and sublime operation.” One of those rescuing the remaining Japanese from Guadalcanal on the night of 1 February observed that they “had no expression” although “they must have been happy” to be evacuated. But such happiness must have been muted by contemplation of the warrior codes of bushido¯ and senshi, which did not tolerate survival from a losing battle. Nor was the agony something people in Japan wanted to understand. When Akio Tani, a career artillery officer known to the Americans as “Pistol Pete,” became an artillery instructor in Tokyo in 1943, no one wanted to hear about Guadalcanal. Lt.-Col. Kumao Imoto, staff officer of the 8th Area Army, was incensed about the lack of sympathy for the men on the ground who, diseased and starving, could not fight as they would have if they had been properly supplied.26 286

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The Imperial Army, trained for generations to fight the Russians, had never understood what it was up against. A Japanese document dated 22 November 1942, “Comments on Guadalcanal Fighting,” noted: “A characteristic of most Americans is that they have optimistic views, but they lack fortitude.” The author of a similar document from March 1943, well after the American victory, could still claim: “There are no indications that [the Americans] have the ability for close-combat or possess spiritual power.”27 Raizo Tanaka, whose naval career would not be ruined by the chronic failure of resupply and reinforcement which on the tactical level had been his responsibility, blamed the Japanese loss at Guadalcanal on six factors: ●

●

● ● ● ●

having to coordinate Army and Navy plans that had been worked out separately; making ad-hoc arrangements that threw together whatever ships, crews and troops were available, pursuant to no overall plan; having to take orders from three different naval commands; poor communication; Japanese hubris and underestimations of US forces; and US air superiority.

These were issues – he insisted – which Imperial General Headquarters failed to deal with.28 In contrast with Tanaka’s comments, in 1968 Akira Yoshimura, a writer and novelist who was 15 years old in 1942, told Japanese readers that the American victory on Guadalcanal derived from: ● ●

●

having more soldiers; not being saddled with the meager weaponry distributed to the Japanese; and the Americans’ “demonstrated . . . ability to supply themselves abundantly.”

It was as if, he said, “a conveyor belt had been laid between the U.S. mainland and Guadalcanal.” Having premised the Japanese loss solely on the Americans’ allegedly superior material capability, Yoshimura draws the world-historical conclusion that the US victory at Guadalcanal started “[t]he tragedy of the dominance of materials [mono] over humans [ningen],” that is, by beating the Japanese on Guadalcanal, the US led the world into an era in which material things are esteemed more than human values. But such a conclusion is not credible. It is to an American reader all the more odd because it comes near the end of Yoshimura’s book-length paean to the Zero, a weapon which sacrificed everything – including the lives of Japanese pilots – 287

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to cutting-edge technological performance.29 Yoshimura seems to have carried into the 1960s vestigial traces of Japanese myth-making about spiritual superiority and the derogation of America’s supposedly decadent, materialist values. Richard B. Frank recounts American losses on the ground as 1,207 Marines and 562 Army troops, a total of 1,769, while 55 Marine aviators died, plus another 365 from other services. By the end of the six major naval confrontations, the Allies would lose a total of 4,911 men at sea, the body of water triangulated by Guadalcanal, Savo Island and Tulagi, the permanent resting place of 40 Allied and Japanese ships, thereafter named “Iron Bottom Sound.” Five members of the 1st Division would get Congressional Medals of Honor, 113 the Navy Cross. Altogether, the four months on the island could be legitimately counted as the longest battle in US history, the only arguable competition being in the trenches in World War I. In a broader perspective, Japan’s failure to retake the island could be called that nation’s first ground defeat in 2,400 years.30 In January 1943 McCain’s chief-of-staff, Capt. M.B. Gardner, proclaimed that the lesson to be learned from Guadalcanal was that you’re not licked until you admit yourself that you are licked. I think that, viewed dispassionately, there were at least three occasions when the chances of our holding Guadalcanal were not worth five cents. But the Marines on Guadalcanal didn’t figure that way, and we still have Guadalcanal!! In his multivolume history of the war, Churchill quoted Morison’s conclusion: “For us who were there, or whose friends were there, Guadalcanal is not a name but an emotion.” Churchill then added: “Long may the tale be told in the great Republic.”31

Thanks for the memory Priest Frederic Gehring, actor Robert Montgomery and producer Gene Markey would all leave Guadalcanal on the same plane. Upon arrival in New Caledonia, each collapsed, Father Gehring with dengue fever, Montgomery with malaria and Markey with blackwater fever, a dangerous complication of malaria characterized by hemoglobin in the urine, associated by some with taking quinine.32 Vandegrift had urged that the malarial problem was unlikely to be lessened by a bivouac on another tropical island, adding that Nouméa lacked facilities for the social recreation that comprised a proper part of the rehabilitative process the 1st Division had earned. So the men sailed to Australia. MacArthur had wanted them in Brisbane in case he needed them 288

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in New Guinea. Arriving at the dock of this “hick town,” many of the men still wore remnants of the same clothes they wore on 7 August. About one in ten was too weak to get down the ladder unassisted. The first billet, Camp Cable, about 30 miles south of town, had already been set up by the Army and had its own hospital. It also bred its own malaria problems. One man commented: “Hell, if this is the best they can do, why didn’t they leave us on Guadalcanal?”33 Atabrine cured the malignant tertian variety of malaria, Plasmodium falciparum. Presumably this was what Desi Arnaz’s character had contracted in the film Bataan, since – without atabrine – his chills and fever were quickly followed by death.34 But atabrine only suppressed the benign tertian form, Plasmodium vivax. Once a man stopped taking his pills, the disease took over and ran its course.35 A man came from the battle zone to Australia, the saying went, to “have his malaria.” An Australian officer, looking at the 7th Marines, commented: “Had I room I would suggest we send this whole regiment to the hospital.”36 Many knew they were too sick to take liberty on the one daily train into Brisbane, while some who thought they could manage it, with six months’ pay in their pockets, “simply fell down from exhaustion” on Brisbane’s streets. Soon Brisbaners heard that one could catch malaria from a sick Marine. The 1st Division surgeon, Dr. Warwick Brown, recommended a move, and Vandegrift thought the men deserved some actual fun, so in midJanuary they negotiated for the more beautiful destination of Melbourne on Australia’s south coast.37 On arrival a local newspaper declared them “The Saviours of Australia.” While those who fought and died in the Philippines, in the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, and on New Guinea, all deserved the same accolade, these men were now at hand, and those well enough to be social were treated as the heroes they were. The cinemas played not only “God Save the King,” its melody known to all Americans as their own patriotic song, but also the equally beautiful Marine Hymn. Some told them just what Curtin had said a year earlier: Australians would prefer some kind of alliance with the US to their traditional tie with Great Britain. A camp was set up at Melbourne’s cricket grounds, where the 1st Marines would stay. While the 1st Battalion, 11th Marines went to the inland town of Ballarat, 75 miles to the west, the 5th and 7th Marines went to the Balcombe Army Camp near Mount Martha, a beautiful resort town on the Mornington Peninsula. Vandegrift was first billeted in a downtown hotel, then switched to the villa of an American businessman, before returning to the US. Mike Edson was assigned a fashionable country house, getting a car and driver for his evening trips into Melbourne for the many social events he was now required to attend, given his new rank of colonel and his new position as the Division’s acting assistant commander. He received his Medal of Honor in a ceremony with “many local big shots.”38 289

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Arthur Glasser graduated from Cornell with an engineering degree in 1936, worked as an engineer in Pittsburgh for two years, then went to the famous Bible institute in Chicago named for the great nineteenth-century evangelist Dwight Moody. Graduating in 1939, Glasser moved on to Faith Theological Seminary in Delaware, where in 1942 he received a bachelor’s degree in divinity, just prior to being shipped off to the South Pacific as a US Navy Reserve chaplain. Arriving in Nouméa when the 1st Division was on its way to Melbourne, he was told by the desk sergeant that if he wanted to he could follow them there, and he did. “Chaplain,” he was told, “you’re in a man’s outfit.” Arriving at Balcombe Camp, Glasser asked those now in his pastoral care why, if (a) they had “prayed during those many hopelessly despairing weeks when they were being bombed day after day and shelled night after night,” and (b) they also knew that “God and God alone had turned back the enemy tide,” they were nevertheless not now attending church services. One young man, hospitalized with malaria, replied: Chaplain, while on the island during those awful naval shellings and bombings I used to pray like the rest. In my foxhole, I guess I made about a million promises and vows to God that if he would somehow get me out of the place alive I’d join a church and do anything He asked me to. But when we came to Australia, well, you know how we’ve been carrying on down here, I somehow forgot all my vows and promises. I can’t go to a service now. I’d be such a hypocrite if I did. Chaplain Glasser, a fundamentalist, believed that if a man prayed to God only to save his skin, the connection with God disappears once the crisis is past. Only a different kind of prayer, including a personal undertaking to repent sin, could in his view maintain the bond. Few of the men, he sadly concluded, had undertaken on Guadalcanal this second kind of prayer.39 Whatever their spiritual failings, the men found in the secular life of summer in Melbourne several earthly rewards. Many were pleased to find that Tokyo Rose’s rumor about atabrine causing impotence proved false. For some months they had the town to themselves, pending the return of elements of the decimated 9th Australian Division from El Alamein. Upon their arrival they helped the Marines drink the pubs dry and get back into shape by some friendly brawling. Together they confected “Austus,” a compromise football game with rules drawn up by the baseball editor of the Melbourne Sporting Globe, combining the Australian stress on kicking with the American reliance on the forward pass. The Marines adopted Australian slang by calling the girls “sheilas.” “One Yank,” it was observed, “and they’re off.” Someone complained to Eleanor Roosevelt, in Australia on a goodwill tour, that the Yanks were overly aggressive in their pursuit of local 290

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diversion, as when one leaned over to the woman sitting in front of him on the bus and asked: “Hello, angel, what heaven did you drop from?” Chaplain Glasser rued: During each week and on the week ends, the unending alcoholization of the First Marine Division continued on its dull, deadly round. And this was not all. Liquor, the germ seed, has always its spawn of evil companions. After it saps the moral vigor of the men, it readily introduces its grim crew to them. Men lost their sense of values. Their speech became coarse and impure. The name of the Lord Jesus – the only name under heaven, that is given among men whereby they might be saved – that name was blasphemously introduced again and again into their conversation, fair or foul. Naturally this led to moral carelessness, then promiscuity, and finally disease. How these destructive by-products of war . . . dominated . . . ! My heart felt sick.40 Not surprisingly the liquor also unleashed other pent-up feelings. A physician invited two clean-cut young Marine officers for a drink: “A chill went down my back,” he wrote, as they began assuming the look of “killers,” with “horror in their glazed eyes, a mixture of rage and disgust.”41 The Marine presence led to a hit song, Jack O’Hagan’s “When a Boy from Alabama Meets a Girl from Gundagai,” sung by Joy Nichols. Two female Red Cross workers created new lyrics for Bob Hope’s signature tune, the Leo Robin/Ralph Rainger song “Thanks for the Memory” (1938): Thanks for the memory Of “Serenade in Blue” That little beard you grew I’m awfully glad I met you And all the others too, ... I know I never should have hoped That you could love me too But all the same darling Thank you so much!42 Lt.-Col. Merrill Twining, one of the officers about whom one heard words like “brilliant” and “genius,” on a plane from Guadalcanal to Australia, sketched out an official shoulder patch for the 1st Division. He handed it to Vandegrift, who scribbled “aprvd AAV” and handed it back. As adjusted, it featured the Southern Cross, albeit customized by using all five-pointed, American-style stars, with the configuration slightly skewed to accommodate 291

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the design. It was quickly manufactured locally and distributed to the men. On a Melbourne street an old lady stopped a young Marine, “put her trembling hand on his Guadalcanal shoulder patch and then, after a short, heart-touching pause, thanked him with tears in her eyes.”43 Twining and Capt. Donald Dickson, adjutant of the 5th Marines and a highly accomplished artist who invented the cartoon character “Sgt. Stony Craig,” also struck an “unofficial” Division medallion, named the “George Medal” in mock imitation of British tradition. Said to have been cast in metal “not honestly come by,” it featured a cow’s buttocks next to an electric fan, the combination portraying visually the common expression “the shit hit the fan.” Those words also appeared in the pseudo-formal certificate accompanying the medal. The obverse was festooned with an arm dropping a hot potato on a Marine next to a cactus. While the original design featured admiral’s stripes on the arm, in an act of prudent discretion the stripes were removed prior to casting, leaving only the single star featured on every Navy line officer’s sleeve. The caption read: Faciat Georgius, a Latinate “Let George Do It,” a common expression for not wanting to be bothered, said by some to derive from the glory days of the Pullman car, when every African American porter dutifully answered to the name “George” and did – invariably and unceremoniously – whatever he was commanded to do.44 Thus there was humor here, but with a bite. The men felt solidarity, but it did not seem to flow beyond the Division itself. Novelist James A. Michener later wrote: “I am proud – vengefully proud, if you will – of what my generation accomplished at Guadalcanal.” Another man said: “we felt about Guadal – that this whole war was our war, that later it was taken over by a bunch of strangers.” The government did a documentary film, This is Guadalcanal, written and hosted by Dickson, his stated purpose being to tell American workers what they were fighting for. The film en passant alludes to a shortage of barbed wire, but mentions neither the various other privations nor the departure of Fletcher’s carriers and Turner’s transports. When some months later Capt. Herbert Merillat published his memoir of the 1st Division on the island, the dedication page read: “To George . . . Who Did It.”45 Guadalcanal became a staging area for further thrusts to the north, with the harbor at Tulagi becoming a base for PT boats. On 7 April 1943 Lt. (jg) [junior grade]) John F. Kennedy arrived, two weeks later taking command of one of these craft. In the early hours of 2 August his boat was cut in half by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri in a channel off the Slot. Kennedy led the survivors into hiding until they were rescued.46 Eleanor Roosevelt, whose name the Marines had invoked to counter screaming Japanese oaths of allegiance to the Emperor, had visited California hospitals housing wounded from Guadalcanal and from her son Jimmy’s raider battalion. This put her in mind, as part of a planned August 1943 Red Cross trip to Australia and New Zealand, to visit the places “where 292

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these men had left their health or received their injuries.” After repeated prodding, her husband consented so long as she “did not interfere with the conduct of the war,” a sort of back-handed compliment to her personal power. In fact Halsey had warned the president that the Marines would probably react negatively to her presence, following rumors that she had publicly called them “savage killers” with tropical diseases for which they must be “quarantined” before they return home. This of course was not the sort of thing Eleanor Roosevelt would actually have said, and Halsey assumed that the calumny had been started by Tokyo Rose. FDR’s informing Eleanor of this significant image problem among the Marines only confirmed her desire to visit Guadalcanal. But FDR, political to the core, was in the business of manipulating people and events. After granting her permission to fly to Henderson Field, he told his top brass that once his wife was in Australia, she was to be barred from any side trip to the Solomons. Landing in Nouméa on 25 August, she was told by Halsey that any trip to Guadalcanal was unlikely and that she should proceed to Australia and New Zealand, although things might change by the time she got back to Nouméa. She wrote to her confidante/assistant Malvina Thompson that Halsey sounds so doubtful that I am discouraged and really sorry that I came. I simply never will face another hospital at home for I will always feel that the men are thinking that I was afraid if I do not go. But then her powers of persuasion with Halsey apparently trumped her husband’s military orders, in part because Halsey and Nimitz were both particularly interested in having her visit “their” island, after MacArthur adamantly refused her request to go to New Guinea on the grounds that he could not assure her safety there.47 At first, the faces of the men on Guadalcanal showed “complete surprise”; then one proclaimed something like: “Gosh, there’s Eleanor.” She confessed she never knew whether the common use of her first name was to be taken as a compliment or not, but in this instance she laughed and waved.48 That her name had also been used as a battle cry she either did not know or did not think appropriate to acknowledge. One hospitalized Marine wanted her escorted out, but after she explained that Tokyo Rose had lied about her and that her son Jimmie was a Gyrene, he changed his mind and partook of a photo opportunity with the First Lady. Bob Hope landed at Henderson Field in July 1944 and did several USO (United Service Organization) shows, his troupe including bug-eyed comic Jerry Colonna as well as the beautiful songstresses Frances Langford and Carole Landis. At war’s end, the indigenes regretted seeing the Yankees go, having become accustomed to the lavish compensation for such services as tracking down Japanese stragglers. “English we no like,” they told Lt. 293

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Kennedy, since the British had paid them a mere 17 cents a day. Lever Brothers and other copra planters filed a total of $7 million in claims for the war’s ravages to the commercial value of their palm groves.49 Guadalcanal had become a huge storage depot and when the war ended the Americans left behind many tons of equipment, albeit keeping it out of local hands by dumping it at sea or burying it. In 1967 a British demolition team found 11,000 bombs stored in a 1,200-foot strip near Henderson Field, and proceeded to dispose of them.

A ghost or a god Eleanor Roosevelt had seen many hospitalized men, including those who were suffering from battle fatigue. In the report of her trip she complained that the Pacific was still a “forgotten” front, with inadequate supplies, particularly medicines. Some of the medical evacuees from Guadalcanal remained outside Nouméa at a transit camp, called “the Casual Camp,” long after the 1st Division had departed for Australia. Chaplain Glasser, who spent time at the camp prior to flying to Melbourne, found it “a depressing sight. On a windswept hill, there were long lines of drooping tents, sodden with rain and surrounded by a sea of mud,” inhabited by hundreds of souls, remnants of miscellaneous units that had been evacuated for some reason or other from the combat areas. Sick, weary, depressed – they were pathetic illustrations of the human misery that war always brings. Despite heroic efforts to help them get to more civilized areas, inadequate shipping space unfortunately doomed them to this dreary place. How long they were to remain here, no one knew.50 Following its rest in Australia, the 1st Division went on to other vicious campaigns: at Cape Gloucester on New Britain, then the Palaus and Okinawa. On Peleliu in September and October 1944, 1,262 Marines would die in an operation of dubious strategic value because it was off the main island-hopping line to Japan. The casualty rate in Chesty Puller’s 1st Marines there was 56 percent, giving rise to some suggestion that Puller’s instinct for battle at times outdistanced his instinct for self-preservation.51 More than 100,000 Americans would die fighting the Japanese, a fourth of all US deaths in World War II. Of a total of 599,693 who served in the Marines during the war, 528,479 served outside the US. Total Marine deaths in battle and in POW camps reached 21,590, meaning that of every twentyfive Marines who shipped out, one would not come home. As the fighting went on in the Pacific, island after island, some Marines who had engaged in battle after battle came to grasp that they had transgressed the laws of statistical probability. A veteran of Guadalcanal and Tarawa, about to land on Saipan in June 1944, gave a friend his pen and pencil set, saying: “Here, I 294

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won’t be needing these any more.” Before reaching the beach he was decapitated by Japanese artillery.52 Judging the Pacific war only from the Marines’ dramatic casualty statistics, it is difficult to grasp that Guadalcanal, although at the very beginning, had also been the turning point, that thereafter Japanese capitulation was only a matter of time. Contrasted with Marine deaths in five weeks on Iwo Jima (5,931) and in under three months on Okinawa (3,238), Guadalcanal seems relatively contained. Compare it with 480,000 British and Commonwealth deaths in the war, 2.3 million Japanese, 15.6 million Chinese deaths, 20 million Russians, 55 million total deaths, and it becomes nothing. Such is the absurdity of numbers. The collective hero-worship that had previously, faute de mieux, focused on MacArthur, centered for a time on Vandegrift, whose brilliant and gutsy leadership had already yielded the 2 November 1942 cover of Time and now merited a Congressional Medal of Honor and an appointment as Marine Commandant. Nimitz and Halsey both enjoyed even greater and more lasting fame. The US fully grasped the world-altering significance of what had been accomplished, even if the public knew little about the nay-saying and the logistical snafus that had made success by the “Georges” all the more impressive. Some of Guadalcanal’s malaria sufferers remained so sick that they were shipped back to California’s Imperial Valley for special treatments. For some Marines the disease would recur for years. As the US moved forward to other islands, the experience gained on Guadalcanal yielded multiple kinds of environmental controls and protections. In July 1944, almost two years after the Marines first hit Beach Red, a daily atabrine administration of 0.1 gram per day became the official US dosage.53 Some whose orders transited them through Honolulu were quickly reembarked for the US Mainland, authorities seeing that it was “hard for the Leathernecks, fresh from the savage kill-or-be-killed cruelties of the jungles,” to walk down Fort Street and pass the hundreds of Japanese whose parents and grandparents had settled there before the US had taken over. United Press war correspondent Joe James Custer, in Honolulu after taking a shrapnel fragment in the Battle of Savo Island, heard about the Marines coming back from Guadalcanal, some of them nerve-shocked – not shell shocked, as in the last war. This was something new the psychiatrists were working on. They were ill, physically, mentally, spiritually; they had undergone agonies of body and mind that were impossible to contemplate except by those who had actually been there. . . . Some day [Guadalcanal’s] detailed, barbaric history will awe the civilized world. The clock had been turned back thousands of years, back to the primitive.54 295

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The journalist’s perception was soon confirmed. Some cases went to the huge naval facility at Mare Island, northeast of San Francisco. While the three-week voyage back from the South Pacific had been a therapeutic period of rest, a few of the men had needed to be restrained during the testfiring of deck guns. Some arrived at Mare Island with cotton in their ears, still unable to tolerate any noise. A senior psychiatrist, Lt.-Cmdr. Edwin Rogers Smith, MD, 51, of Indianapolis, was sufficiently humbled by what the men told him that in a speech to the American Psychiatric Association in May 1943 he coined a new medical term: “Guadalcanal Neurosis,” describing it as something “that has not been seen before and may never be seen again.”55 Dr. Smith’s speech was covered by both Time and Newsweek, the two articles perhaps stimulating some public awareness of the particular psychological terrors of the Pacific war. In William Dieterle’s I’ll Be Seeing You, released in January 1944, Joseph Cotton plays a Guadalcanal veteran suffering from shell-shock, who is visibly disturbed when a little boy launches a toy plane his way. When in Preston Sturges’s Hail the Conquering Hero, released in August 1944, Eddie Bracken screams during a nightmare, the Guadalcanal veteran who comes running in says: “You’re lucky you don’t have them all the time, like some guys.” Psychological readjustment could be difficult. Although by 1945 there would be a host of books and pamphlets about how to deal with the presumed “problem” or “issue” of “the returning veteran,” the nation dealt with earlier returnees without a script. One veteran commented: “My family, all my buddies and my girl friend treated me as if I were a ghost, or a god.” Another later remarked: “We came back old men.”56 The vast majority regained their youth and lived out happy and productive lives. But in a few instances, even decades later, comments by a loved one or friend might include the words: “He was never the same.” In Hail the Conquering Hero, Bracken plays a civilian who is so embarrassed about being dismissed from the Marines because of his hay-fever that he seeks oblivion, runs away, never tells his mother that he is not in fact overseas, writes to his sweetheart that he has found another girl, etc. A veteran of Guadalcanal, a man said to be “a little wrong in the head,” “nuts or something,” finds out that Bracken has let his mother worry needlessly and telephones her to say her son will be home in 24 hours. That telephone call sets up the slapstick mayhem that comprises the rest of the film. Sturges was a daring comic genius, witness The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, released seven months earlier, premised on the taboo theme that a respectable young girl-next-door cannot remember the name of the soldier who impregnated her at a dance one night. But in neither of these mid-war films could Sturges be accused of ribbing the military. In Hail the Conquering Hero the final dissolve is to the Marine Corps emblem. This was a funny story, but nobody was making fun of the conquering heroes whose gritty presence contrasted so sharply with that of the hapless Bracken. 296

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Righteous might Evans Carlson was a remarkable person. A “China Marine” under Gen. Smedley Butler, then the assistant naval attaché in China in the 1930s, he was also for a time the head of the Marine unit protecting President Roosevelt during his visits to Warm Springs, Georgia, where FDR befriended him, thereafter seeking his first-hand perspectives on China.57 In preparation for fighting in the South Pacific, Carlson trained his 2nd Raider Battalion according to premises of comradeship learned by observing Mao Zedong’s Eighth Route Army, whose phrase Gung-Ho (“industrial cooperative,” more freely: “work together”) he adopted.58 On Guadalcanal in October and November, his men acted independently of Vandegrift’s command, roamed the jungles, living off the land. They killed close to five hundred Japanese, losing sixteen. “He may be red,” Col. David Shoup said of Carlson at Tarawa, “but he’s not yellow.” The film Gung Ho!, released 31 December 1943, offers a fictionalized rendition of the training of Carlson’s Raiders and their deployment in the Gilberts in August 1942. Each applicant to the unit is asked why he wants to join, and each answers in some fashion that he wants to “kill Japs.” One wants to avenge a brother’s death at Pearl Harbor. Another says he is an ordained minister of the gospel but feels that his best contribution to the war effort would be killing Japs. A third says: “I just don’t like Japs.” A countryboy, asked whether he is prepared to kill, sheepishly admits that back home he killed a member of a rival clan, and now he has to make sure that he kills more Japs than they do. The actual mission of Carlson’s Raiders in the Gilberts was to thwart Japanese attempts to resupply Guadalcanal. In the film, however, the stated mission is to kill as many Japanese as possible. One character describes the Raiders as “a team for killing.” Much of this work is done with knives, director Ray Enright and producer Walter Wanger tapping in their audience a vicarious bloodlust. And while the film includes the Japanese tricks typical of such fare, pretending to be dead, pretending to surrender, etc., the Raiders pull their own trick, painting an American flag on the Japanese headquarters, then watching with glee as Zeros bomb the building and strafe the fleeing soldiers as they try to unfurl a Japanese “meatball” flag. When in Tay Garnett’s film Bataan, the Japanese taunt a young sailor by stringing up the corpse of his buddy, he goes apoplectic and can spit out nothing more than an infantile “dirty dirty dirty,” thus leaving to the audience the task of articulating how best to seek revenge. When the film was released in June 1943, news of the fall of Bataan and Corregidor was over a year old, although nothing was known about the subsequent fate of the US and Filipino forces taken prisoner there. Capt. William Dyess, commander of the 21st Pursuit Squadron on Luzon prior to being captured, had escaped a Japanese prison camp, fought alongside the American-led

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guerrillas of Mindanao, reached Australia, informed MacArthur about how his men were being treated in captivity, and was sent on to Washington with two other escapees to tell officialdom what happened. It had begun with a nine-day “Death March” from Mariveles to San Fernando and on to the prison at Camp O’Donnell, with Japanese atrocities committed during every mile. As many as 650 Americans died on the road, another 1,565 in the weeks after reaching the destination, where further horrors were to follow over the next year. An early count of Filipino deaths totaled a staggering 26,000. In September 1943 the Chicago Tribune led a consortium of newspapers seeking to publish Dyess’s account, promising him a combined circulation of 10 million. MacArthur was among those wanting the story revealed, albeit some wondered if the public would or even could believe what Dyess had to say. For a time the War Department blocked the story, fearing it would make things worse for those in captivity. But pressure mounted, and in late January 1944 the War and Navy Departments relented. The published account was prefaced by Cordell Hull’s warning that the US would hold individual Japanese soldiers responsible for the deaths Dyess had witnessed. The first page of the 28 January 1944 New York Times headline spanned six columns. One subsequent article was entitled: “Ruin Japan! Is Cry of Aroused Nation.” House Foreign Affairs committee chairman Sol Bloom (D-NY) said: “We’ll hold the rats – from the Emperor down to the lowest ditch-digger – responsible for a million years if necessary.” Acting Senate minority leader Wallace White (R-ME) declared: “there is a law of retribution for violence against the laws of God and man, and I hope it will be visited not alone on the Japanese Army, but on the authorities and the people of Japan.” Senator Bennett Champ Clark (D-MO), known before Pearl Harbor for his membership in Senator Gerald Nye’s isolationist committee and for accusing Hollywood of trying to lead the US into war via pro-British movies, now urged that Japan be bombed “out of existence.” New York mayor Fiorello LaGuardia said “We cannot stop until we wipe out the vermin entirely.”59 In the marketplace of popular culture, hatred of the Japanese mingled freely with patriotic and often sentimental portrayals of “our boys” at war, boys some social scientists had previously considered too “soft” to challenge the Axis. The Fighting Sullivans, released in February 1944, was a factually based film of five brothers who insisted on being assigned to the same ship (the Navy complied, thinking it good public relations) and who all died in connection with the Battle of Guadalcanal.60 While it might be hard for the average citizen to grasp the wanton murder of 450,000 Chinese civilians or even the deaths of 683 Americans on one ship, the demise of five brothers was deeply affecting. As the film opens, the foreknowledge that the boys are all destined for martyrdom deprives the audience of the simple sentimentality that would 298

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otherwise be the reaction to the opening scenes of childhood pranks and small-town tribulations. People went to the film to indulge a feeling of desolation, safely mixed with the Aristotelian comfort that this time the martyred kids were somebody else’s sons. Director Lloyd Bacon, intolerant of even one dry eye in the house, ends his film by projecting the five scrappy, diaphanous boys marching together on a cloud, four of them waiting for the one who always lagged a bit behind. February 1944 also saw the release of a similarly emotive war film. The Purple Heart, directed by Lewis Milestone and written by Darryl F. Zanuck, depicts the grotesque Tokyo show trial of a crew of Doolittle’s raiders, captured in China. In the end, tortured and maimed and about to die, they spontaneously belt out “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” to the fiendish, monkey-like judges. The soon-to-be executed captain, played by Dana Andrews, declares that more Americans will come and “burn your cities to the ground and make you beg for mercy.” To the average American who had heard the news on 7 December 1941, who had read Dyess’s account of Japan’s treatment of the Bataan prisoners, who had a family member overseas, who knew a Gold Star mother, who saw The Fighting Sullivans, Bataan, The Purple Heart and a dozen other films of the flag-waving genre, the prospect of invoking what Wake Island had predicted to be a “just and terrible vengeance” was not unattractive. Thus, the Japanese people were about to reap the whirlwind from what their leaders had sown. In September 1942, the Marines’ second month on Guadalcanal, Boeing flew the first problem-ridden prototype of what would become the B-29 Superfortress strategic bomber, the plane that would fulfill Marshall’s promise in November 1941 to burn Japan’s paper cities to the ground. Once US naval and land forces secured bases within range, Japan’s fate was sealed. A B-29 night raid on Tokyo in March 1945 ignited over 250,000 dwellings and killed between 83,000 and 100,000, leaving 1 million homeless. The Japanese euphemistically referred to the frequent visits of “B-san,” “Mr. B.”61 The one card Japanese leaders still had to play was the one with which they had begun, the long since discredited idea that the “soft” Americans would fear Japanese ferocity. That now meant that US leaders would not mount an amphibious assault on Japan because they or their constituents would find the projected US casualties, perhaps over 1 million, unacceptable.62 But the US planned its amphibious assaults, with OLYMPIC, the invasion of the southern island of Kyu¯shu¯ (its principal city being Nagasaki) to begin in November 1945, followed in February 1946 by CORONET, the invasion of Honshu, spearheaded by what was now six divisions of Marines, organized into Corps “III” and “V,” with the 1st Division, assigned to III Corps, bound for Tokyo.63 With a domestic uniformed force of 2.5 million, Japan prepared for the invasion.64 In August the US dropped a uranium bomb on Hiroshima, then a 299

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plutonium bomb on Nagasaki. Nor was this Wagnerian ending enough to quench every American’s thirst for revenge. Fortune reported in December 1945 that more than 95 percent of the US population approved the use of atomic bombs against Japan and that 22.7 percent (30 percent in the southwest) thought the US should have immediately dropped many more, depriving Japan of a chance to surrender. When in 1946 Douglas MacArthur, governing Japan, requested food to avoid mass starvation, some Americans openly wondered why the Japanese people should have it. MacArthur replied that the US was not like the Japanese leaders it was then in the process of trying and executing as war criminals.65 Despite the American cries of exacting punishment on every Japanese, the vast majority of the Japanese people neither carried nor even could carry any sense of moral accountability or “blame.” After the war a journalist for the Japanese news agency Do¯mei Tsu¯shinisha noted: The conception of a people being responsible for its leaders is utterly foreign to a people who have been subjects of a “divine ruler” for more than two thousand years. They can understand that their leaders might be called to account for what the people have done; but that the reverse is true they have not yet been able to grasp. With no concept of individual moral responsibility, the Japanese shifted “guilt” up the chain-of-command, and when it reached the Emperor, it evaporated, with Hirohito portrayed as a passive onlooker and even as a victim of a small band of militarists. If the entire population owed anyone an apology, it was said, it owed Hirohito an apology for losing the war.66 Hidenari Terasaki, who had served as first secretary to Japan’s Washington embassy in the autumn of 1941, was repatriated to Japan and at war’s end became an intermediary between the Emperor and Japan’s new ruler, Douglas MacArthur. When Terasaki died in 1951, his wife Gwen and daughter Mariko returned to the US. In 1990, a year after Hirohito died, it was announced that Mariko had kept Terasaki’s transcription of part of Hirohito’s 1946 “Soliloquy” about his role in the war, which would have been the basis of his testimony if (as several US congressmen wanted) he had been tried as a war criminal. Hirohito had stated, among other things, that if he had vetoed the Japanese military’s decision for war, there would have been a coup d’état and the war would have proceeded anyway. Hirohito’s death dispelled what Carol Gluck has called “a ‘chrysanthemum taboo’ on straight talk” about him. Polls taken just after his death revealed that onefourth of the Japanese people in fact thought he bore some measure of war responsibility.67 The Japanese took as prisoners a total of 132,134 American and British servicepeople. Of these, 35,756 died in captivity, a death rate of 27 percent, 300

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over six times the rate in the prison camps run by the Germans and Italians. The death rate among American prisoners was said to be higher: 38 percent. A total of 5,472 Japanese were tried for war crimes, with 4,353 convictions and 920 death sentences.68 Lt.-Gen. Masaharu Homma, the conqueror of Bataan and Corregidor, was tried for the numerous atrocities committed by his men. The theory of his defense: that he knew nothing, was unavailing, and he was executed. Although Prince Konoe had washed his hands of Japanese war plans before hostilities commenced, he committed suicide rather than face charges. Hideki To¯jo¯, widely identified as “the Hitler of Japan,” tried to kill himself as he saw Allied soldiers approach his house. He botched the attempt, was tried and convicted of seven war crimes, and was executed. Tomoyuki Yamashita, the so-called “Tiger of Malaya,” was tried and executed.69 Kiyotake Kawaguchi, one of the several commanders whose reputations would be ruined by failing to retake Henderson Field, would be sentenced to six years’ hard labor for having murdered the Philippines’ chief justice. The image of the devious and cruel Japanese soldier could not be spontaneously erased from the mind of the American public. But journalistic accounts of MacArthur’s occupation of Japan and of a new war against the communists in Korea, coupled with journalist John Hersey’s sympathetic account of Hiroshima survivors, had facilitated in many Americans a change in attitude toward their erstwhile enemy. In 1957 British director David Lean’s Bridge on the River Kwai included a Japanese officer demonstrating some humanity, over the objection of ex-POWs who had actually worked on the Burma Railway and experienced unmitigated brutality. In the role was the aging Sessue Hayakawa, who four decades earlier had become an overnight star as the treacherous Japanese villain in The Cheat (1915). Writer Ian Buruma adopted Ruth Benedict’s observation that Japan is not a “guilt culture” like Germany, but a “shame culture”, concerned not with atonement but with perfecting an amnesia about having been exposed. The Japanese, he wrote, liked Bridge on the River Kwai, focusing neither on Hayakawa’s complex character, nor on the Japanese prison camp for Allied POWs, but on the handsome American movie star also acting in the film, William Holden.70 Although the white imperial powers had won and the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, “Asia for the Asiatics,” was dismantled, the British, French and Dutch could not pick up where they had left off in the Far East, in part because the US, which had always been ambivalent about colonies, provided no support for a return to the status quo ante. While the Allied victory ended Japan’s presence in China, America’s Open-Door policy would not be revived. With no common enemy, Chiang and Mao resumed their civil war, each side using against the other matériel the US had intended for their common cause against Japan. Mao had made millions of friends among the rural peasantry, while Chiang, still backed by the 301

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Americans, now looked like another foreigner. In 1949, driven from the Asian mainland, Chiang established a Nationalist government on Formosa, from which the Japanese had attacked the Philippines. Mao now allied China with the Soviet Union, making some wonder whether, as a matter of Realpolitik, it might have been better back in November 1941 for Cordell Hull to have ignored Chiang and negotiated a modus vivendi with the anticommunist Japanese. After several decades, the economics of Chinese communism would be dropped in favor of capitalism, although this was not on the Western model. Some Japanese would claim that the economic prosperity of the entire Pacific Rim derived from Japan’s having engaged in a war of liberation.71

Bless ’em all In March 1944, Turner was promoted to the rank of vice-admiral and became commander, Amphibious Force, Pacific Fleet, despite the bitter objection of Rep. Maas, who was still complaining about Savo Island. Turner remained in command of most of the Pacific’s major amphibious operations, receiving from Radio Tokyo in February 1945 the kind of positive notice Halsey might have envied: “This man Turner must die! . . . being responsible for the killing of countless numbers of our . . . brothers on various islands throughout the Pacific.” Three months later he was promoted to full Admiral and ordered to plan the invasion of the Japanese home island of Kyu¯shu¯. Turner had gone to the Pacific only because Eisenhower and Marshall had secretly forced his ouster from Washington. King could thus now cleverly call him “the Army’s greatest single contribution to the war in the Pacific.”72 Turner retired in 1947 and died in 1961. Through the course of the war King and MacArthur both lobbied for a unified Pacific command, MacArthur arguing that it should be his, King that it should go to Nimitz. In December 1944, in an interesting example of two military careers marching – or sailing – in tandem, Nimitz was awarded the five-star rank of Fleet Admiral while MacArthur (along with King, Marshall, Leahy and Arnold) also received five stars.73 Their commands remained for a time geographically separate, and then in May 1945 they were separated in a different way, Nimitz taking charge of all naval forces in the Pacific, MacArthur of all land-based forces. When on the morning of 2 September 1945 MacArthur and Nimitz together accepted Japan’s surrender papers on the deck of the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Harbor, they were joined by two men who had suffered grievously at the hands of the Japanese, Lt.-Gen. A.E. Percival, who had surrendered Singapore, and Lt.Gen. Jonathan “Skinny” Wainwright, who had surrendered Corregidor. MacArthur would for a while rule Japan, then command US troops in Korea, until he was fired by President Truman for repeated insubordination. King convinced Truman to appoint Nimitz to succeed King as chief of naval 302

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operations, over the objections of Navy secretary Forrestal. King died in 1956. When Nimitz died ten years later, his biographer noted: “He was aggressive in war without hate, audacious while never failing to weigh the risks.” One could not similarly say that “Bull” Halsey was without hate. When on Guadalcanal in 1942 Halsey was asked whether winning the war would require invading the Home Islands. He responded: “I hope so and I want to be there to see it.” In August 1945, directing additional conventional bombing of Tokyo following the two atomic blasts, Halsey was handed a dispatch stating that Japan had just surrendered. He issued an order: “It looks like the war is over. Cease firing, but if you see any enemy planes in the air, shoot them down in a friendly fashion.” During the signing of the surrender papers in Tokyo Bay, he kept the carriers offshore, poised to react to any Japanese trick. Four months later, presenting the flag of the battleship Nagato to the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, he remarked, “If anybody wants to spit on it, he is perfectly welcome.”74 In 1960, a year after Halsey’s death, came Robert Montgomery’s interesting tribute, The Gallant Hours, co-produced with and starring the Halsey-like actor James Cagney. It avoids the Japanese-hating side of Halsey’s personality, containing nothing verbally harsher than an occasional reference to “Japs,” an expression that had not yet faded from polite conversation. In a ceremony on the steps of the Capitol in March 1942, Joseph Lockard, the private at the Opana radar installation who on the morning of 7 December had tried to talk his trainee out of calling in the unusual radar blips to the Information Center, was nevertheless awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, becoming four months later a second lieutenant in the Signal Corps. Lockard was demobilized in 1945, worked as a trackman for the Pennsylvania Railroad, then became an engineer for AMP Incorporated in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he patented one of the switches used in electric garage-door openers.75 He retired in 1986. After the war, Lockard’s trainee, George Elliott, who had insisted that the sighting be called in despite Lockard’s objection, worked as a construction clerk for the New Jersey Bell Telephone Company. In August 1946 he was awarded the Legion of Merit but refused to accept it because it was less prestigious than the medal Lockard had received. In February 2000, Hawaii’s Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers had a plaque made honoring Opana as the site of an “electrical engineering milestone.” The plaque could not be installed in the right place, however, since Opana was now part of a secured military communication center.76 Lt. Kermit Tyler, the man at Fort Shafter who told Lockard not to worry about the unusual echo he saw on his radar screen, flew thirty combat missions and later was assigned to the Air Defense Command at Ent Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, as chief of the interceptor missile division. He retired as an Air Force lieutenant-colonel in 1961, thereafter managing 303

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real estate in San Diego. He gave the keynote speech at the 1999 Pearl Harbor remembrance service, and in 2001, in a sixtieth-anniversary publication, commented that his career may have been “held back” because of what had happened on 7 December.77 Tadao Fuchikami, the 24-year-old messenger who had delivered Marshall’s telegram to Fort Shafter on 7 December, became a civilian worker at Hickam Field, renamed Hickam Air Force Base. He was retained as a technical advisor on a blockbuster film about Pearl Harbor, Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), later retiring to the Kalihi district where he had delivered the telegram. On 22 November 1963 John F. Kennedy, who had once plied the waters between Tulagi and Lunga commanding PT-109, was assassinated, providing another generation with a new date to remember above all others. In 1995, at the urging of Admiral Kimmel’s family’s, Congress undertook yet another investigation of Pearl Harbor. The resulting report by Edwin Dorn, under-secretary of defense, affirmed that Kimmel and Short (who died in 1949) had committed several errors of judgment and thus that neither should be restored posthumously to the rank he enjoyed prior to Pearl Harbor. The report clearly stated that errors were also made in Washington, the combination characterized as “a tapestry of failure.”78 Despite Dorn’s report, in May 1999 the US Senate by 52/47 resolved to restore both men to their earlier ranks. Sen. John Warner (R-VA), who had served in the Navy in World War II, then in the Marine Corps, then as assistant-secretary and secretary of the Navy, voted against the measure, seeing it as “one generation trying to provide revisionist history upon another.”79 An effort to enact the resolution as positive law failed. The bill would languish on President George W. Bush’s desk. On 11 September 2001 another generation would have a new date branded on its memory. Shortly thereafter, historian Michael Gannon observed about the requested restoration of Kimmel and Short that the president “might not be in the mood right now to exonerate people alleged not to have been alert.”80 By the time Guadalcanal was secured in February 1943, the US was in a frenzy of carrier-building. A total of forty-eight orders were generated and most of the carriers were built, while there were only fifteen orders for battleships, and of these only eight were completed. Wisconsin, commissioned in 1944, proved to be the last battleship commissioned. Among carriers commissioned after 1955 were those named for Nimitz, Eisenhower, Theodore Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and congressman Carl Vinson, who had been so instrumental in getting FDR’s naval construction projects funded. Enterprise, protected by a retinue of warships, would participate in almost every major Pacific battle. Although an aging Halsey would try to have it made a public monument, in 1958 it was sold for scrap, with a new carrier taking its name three years later. Saratoga, also surviving the war, would be 304

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chosen in July 1946 as one of the targets for the famous atomic-bomb tests at Bikini Atoll, thereafter achieving a sort of immortality – once the radioactivity faded – as the world’s only carrier wreck available to scuba divers. The thirty-nine Douglas TBD-1 “Devastator” torpedo-bombers still functioning after Midway served for a time as trainers, then as cadavers for training aircraft-maintenance workers. Today, two of Yorktown’s TBD-1s rest at the bottom of the lagoon at Jaluit, one of them visible from the surface.81 Although Grumman’s F4F Wildcat fighter would be replaced by that company’s F6F Hellcat, the Wildcat remained sufficiently respected to stay in production up to V-J Day, the last models being fabricated by General Motors’ Eastern Aircraft Division. At war’s end, the US had a mere 5,424 Japanese POWS.82 When on 14 August 1945 Hirohito announced that he would order all soldiers to surrender, some worried that many warriors would not comply, since they would think it impossible for the Emperor to concede defeat. One soldier first surrendered on Bougainville in August 1945, then escaped into the jungle rather than be repatriated. He was recaptured and taken to Guadalcanal, where he escaped into the jungle, to be found in 1947 and arrested while trying to steal food from a local constabulary. His uniform hanging in shreds, his hair uncut and matted, he carried with him items he had found in the jungle: a water bottle, a broken bayonet, and a shovel of the kind the Marines had taken from the dead of the Ichiki Detachment.83 The New York Times reporting in February 1943 that the Japanese had left behind on Guadalcanal many men still alive. But for starvation as well as malaria and other local pathogens, more of these so-called “holdouts” might have been found. In 1975 some schoolchildren outside Rabaul reported seeing a man with long black hair. A team of ninety Japanese policemen flew in and hoisted a huge Japanese flag, played Japanese march music and announced via a loudspeaker: “The war is over, come out, we have come to take you home.” But no one emerged from the jungle. Some thought perhaps the children had made the whole thing up and that a local politician had indulged them since the publicity might lure Japanese tourists. Even later, native reports of other Japanese soldiers wandering around were thought sufficiently credible that Japanese veterans’ organizations would fly to the place of the alleged sighting, play popular Japanese music of the 1940s on loudspeakers, and leave 1940s Japanese cigarettes around, all in an attempt to show putative returnees that by coming in they would not be surrendering to the enemy. In 1972 Corporal Sho¯ichi Yokoi was found in a cave on Guam, along with eighty different items this ex-tailor had fabricated for use in his daily life. He stated: “I am ashamed to say that I returned home having prolonged my life” and “I am ashamed that I failed to serve His Majesty one hundred percent,” meaning apparently that only by dying in 305

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combat was one’s service complete. Two years later 2nd Lt. Hiro¯ Onoda, an intelligence officer, was found in the Philippines, his subordinate having recently died in a battle with the local police. Only after the rescue team brought Onoda’s aging commander from Japan to order his surrender did he give up, handing over his rifle as well as 500 rounds of ammunition and some grenades. At home he was treated not just as a historical curiosity but as a combination hero/fool, which among some older citizens was no contradiction.84 Onoda and the others had served, not by dying on the battlefield but by living a wasted life of obedience to pseudo-mystical principles long since abandoned. For Japan had passed through the MacArthur regency and was now a “modernist” nation in the process of establishing a huge surplus with its trading partners by manufacturing superior products at a cheaper price. It still obtained raw materials from abroad, but now also did much of its manufacturing abroad. Its companies became the most important employer in a number of areas of Asia, then eventually in the US, teaching local workers and managers the techniques by which Japan had taken a comparative advantage. In 1991 appeared a book, The Coming War with Japan, whose title was intended to jolt Americans, as similar titles had many decades before, by asserting that the same Japanese martial and business traditions responsible for World War II were still at work. Kazuo Sakamaki, who escaped from his midget submarine and swam ashore at Waimanalo Beach on 8 December 1941, spent the war in internment camps in the US. His midget sub, Ha-19, was sent on a tour of the US to stimulate the sale of war bonds. Although by surrendering he was seen by many as disgraced, after the war he obtained an entry-level job at Toyota, where he continued to work, in posts of increasing responsibility, until his retirement. In 1991 he attended a conference on Pearl Harbor held in Texas, and died in 1999.85 Naval intelligence officer Takeo Yoshikawa, who had worked as a clerk in Japan’s Honolulu consulate under the alias “Tadashi Morimura,” was repatriated to Japan with the rest of the consulate’s staff. In 1960, following his announcement that he had been a spy, the producers of Walter Cronkite’s Sunday television show, The Twentieth Century, arranged for Yoshikawa to come to Hawaii to point out where he went and what he did in the weeks before Pearl Harbor. While local FBI agents tracked him, the Justice Department refused J. Edgar Hoover’s request to detain him. A Honolulu resident, hearing that a former Japanese spy was back in town, and understanding that there was no statute of limitations for espionage, prepared to make a citizen’s arrest. Yoshikawa heard of this and was on the first plane back to Japan.86 On 13 April 1943 US intelligence specialists intercepted a JN-25 message indicating that two Betty bombers, accompanied by six Zeros, would fly from Rabaul to a small island airstrip off Shortland on the morning of the 306

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18th, with Yamamoto as a passenger, to arrive around 1000. P-38 fighters from Henderson Field, flying just 30 feet above the sea in a clockwise arc west of the Slot to avoid detection and using drop tanks to extend their range, located and shot down Yamamoto’s plane as it passed over Bougainville. His body would be thrown clear of the wreckage, a bullet from one of the P-38s having entered his left lower jaw, exiting at his right temple. His hand was clutching the hilt of his sword.87 VAdm. Chu¯ichi Nagumo, who had won at Pearl Harbor and lost at Midway and the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, was placed in command of the defense of Saipan, the key to getting within bomber range of the Home Islands. On the night of 7 July 1944 he committed suicide, as 3,000 troops under his command carried out a massive but fruitless banzai charge against the US Marines. Prior to Midway, intelligence officer Edwin Layton had guessed, with uncanny accuracy, where and when Nagumo’s fleet would appear, yielding absolute surprise. Although Rochefort’s and Layton’s combined intuition regarding both the place and time of the Japanese attack had been as great a tour-de-force of intelligence as Pearl Harbor had been a catastrophe, their success embarrassed those in Washington who had guessed wrong about Midway. Moreover, the Rochefort team’s rapidly expanding skill in decrypting JN-25B in 1942 gave rise to the strong inference that they could have cracked it prior to Pearl Harbor, if Washington had only assigned it to them on a top-priority basis. Thus, Rochefort’s mere existence as a brilliant and successful cryptanalyst comprised a bureaucratic threat. Nor did Rochefort have any friends in the Washington establishment, being a “mustang,” commissioned as an enlistee rather than as an Annapolis graduate.88 When Nimitz recommended Rochefort for a Distinguished Service Medal, King’s chief-of-staff sent King a memo recommending that it be turned down, adding (without a scintilla of evidence) that King’s own personnel deserved “equal credit . . . for the correct evaluation of enemy intentions.” In October 1942 King, either in league with or merely accepting the advice of intelligence officers John and Joseph Redman, told Nimitz that Rochefort, aided by Layton, “has been actively opposing the successful functioning” of naval intelligence, as if they were somehow fifth-columnists for the Axis. King thus ordered that Rochefort be kept under the Redmans’ scrutiny, Rochefort’s unique linguistic and cryptological skills for a time being employed in command of a floating dry-dock in San Francisco. Since King had put Layton’s punishment in Nimitz’s hands, Nimitz simply ignored King, later inviting Layton to join him on the deck of Missouri for the Japanese surrender, the only senior officer present who had also been at Pearl Harbor on 7 December.89 Layton retired as a rear admiral in 1959. While those who understood Rochefort’s achievement repeatedly tried to obtain for him appropriate recognition, none was forthcoming from the Navy. In 1976 he died, his contribution getting its first appropriate public 307

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acknowledgement that year by Hollywood, when Hal Holbrook played his quirky persona in a blockbuster film recounting the Battle of Midway. Layton died in 1984. His famous tell-all book, And I Was There, appeared a year later, recounting Washington’s conscious effort to discredit Rochefort. It noted, among other things, that the daily records of King’s intelligence people, and even the White House summaries, for the period before Midway ended up missing, as if their later perusal would reveal just how baseless the Redmans’ charges had been. Layton’s account, amply assisted by Roger Pineau and John Costello, forced a change, and Rochefort finally received the Distinguished Service Medal – posthumously.90 During MacArthur’s postwar administration of Japan, Minoru Genda, the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack, became the commander of Japan’s Self-Defense Air Force. Mitsuo Fuchida, who led the aerial attack force against Pearl Harbor and radioed “Tora! Tora! Tora!” to indicate that surprise had been achieved, believed himself to be the only Pearl Harbor pilot still alive after the Japanese surrender. He drafted an extensive report on the Battle of Midway, although not until 1951, six years after V-J Day, would more than a handful in Japan be privy to the report or know just what had happened.91 Having seen American missionaries feed the starving in postwar Tokyo, Fuchida converted to Christianity and became a missionary himself, stating in 1952: “Christianity has opened my eyes, and I hope through Christ to help young people of Japan learn a great love for America.” He told Col. Paul Tibbets, who had piloted the B-29 bomber that dropped an atom bomb on Hiroshima, that it had been the right thing to do. During one of several trips to the US, Fuchida lectured at the US Naval Academy. He died in 1976. In 1991 the US Navy, while dredging at Pearl Harbor’s Battleship Row, found a Type 91 aerial torpedo buried in the mud, removed it and detonated it under controlled conditions.92 Shiro¯ Ishikawa, the downed Japanese pilot who responded to Lt. J.E. Conger’s attempt to pull him out of the water by trying to shoot Conger in the face, became a lifetime employee of the Tokyo branch of the Chase Manhattan Bank. In April 1990 he and Conger were reintroduced and had dinner. Saburo¯ Sakai, who had managed to bring his shot-up Zero back to Rabaul on 7 August 1942, never recovered use of his right eye. Nevertheless, after extensive hospitalization he returned to combat duty, shooting down two US planes over Iwo Jima. These, when added to the four he had shot down on 7 August prior to being hit, yielded a total of over sixty. Later he defended the Home Islands against B-29s.93 Ambassador Kichisaburo¯ Nomura, following his last meeting with secretary-of-state Hull on 7 December, suffered through such incongruous US internment camps as the Greenbrier and Homestead resort hotels, where golf was forbidden to him because the FBI feared locals might shoot any Japanese on sight.94 A collective POW exchange was worked out, and on 18 June 1942 Nomura, Mr. and Mrs. Terasaki, and 1,000 others were shipped 308

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on the Swedish liner Gripsholm from New York to Mozambique, to be exchanged upon the arrival there of the Japanese cruise ship Asama Maru and the Italian liner Conte Verde, bringing from Japan and Japanese-held Asia a total of 1,500 interned American diplomats, missionaries and journalists. During three days of milling around on shore in the Mozambique capital of Lourenço Marques, Nomura spotted his American counterpart, Joseph Grew, and through an intermediary tried to arrange a meeting. Grew declined.95 Upon their repatriation to Japan, neither Nomura nor Kurusu would again serve in the Japanese government. Kurusu died in 1954, Nomura ten years later. On the morning of 7 December 1941, Lewis Robinson, a crew member of Arizona, was spared, having been waiting for a liberty boat to return him to his ship. He died in 1997, and on 7 December 2000, pursuant to his wishes, his ashes were interred by divers within Arizona’s hull, the sixteenth instance of a surviving member of Arizona’s crew exercising the option to rejoin his buddies.96 Of the Doolittle raiders who survived the Tokyo raid, thirteen would die later in the war. Four would become prisoners of the Germans. Of those who survived and stayed in the service, five would rise to the rank of general: John Hilger, Everett Holstrom, David Jones and Richard Knobloch, as well as Doolittle himself.97 After Jack Fletcher’s hasty retreat on 9 August 1942 to the safe waters south of Guadalcanal, his flagship, Saratoga, was ordered back to Pearl Harbor for repairs. Fletcher, who had been slightly wounded, was on it. From there he went to San Diego, where RAdm. McCain in late September found him in good health, albeit noting that odd aspect everyone seemed to have when returning from the battle zone. Several days later McCain told Nimitz: “Two or three of these fights are enough for any one man. A rest will do him good.” King, among those remembering the abandonment of Wake and finding in Fletcher a lack of aggressive instincts, refused Nimitz’s request to give Fletcher another combat command. Fletcher would never again serve at sea, although he would for a time command the occupation forces on Japan’s northern Home Islands. In 1946 he was assigned the chairmanship of the General Board, the senior think-tank King had successfully avoided in the months before Pearl Harbor. Only after King retired and Nimitz took his place would Fletcher be promoted to four-star rank.98 He retired in 1947 and died in 1973. Another member of the General Board was Robert Ghormley. After being relieved in October 1942, he had been assigned to command the Fourteenth Naval District, based in Hawaii. Subsequent assignments would include service as the commander of US naval forces in postwar Germany. He retired in 1946 and died in 1958. Robert Moore, a BAR man with the 1st Parachute Battalion, survived 309

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Dog Day’s vicious fighting on Gavutu but was wounded on Guadalcanal and returned to the US. Unable to reenlist because he failed the medical exam, he joined the Merchant Marine. In December 1945 his ship visited Iwo Jima, where the makeshift cemetery contained friends he had fought beside on 7 August 1942.99 Pfc. Robert Brown of the 17th Pursuit Squadron, sent to a POW camp in Manchuria after the fall of Bataan, observed a high mortality rate among fellow prisoners who talked about how much they missed their wives and loved ones back home. Upon coming home in late 1945, he told his parents that he had survived by convincing himself that he hated them.100 Merritt Edson became assistant commander of the 2nd Marine Division at Saipan and retired as a major-general in 1947, moving back to his native Vermont, where he organized a state police department which became a model for other jurisdictions. Later he led the effort to preserve the Marine Corps as a distinct service branch, prevailing over those who were uncomfortable with the notion of an elite ground force distinct from the Army. He then served as executive director of the National Rifle Association. In 1955 he was found dead of carbon monoxide, parked in his car in his closed garage.101 Chesty Puller commanded the 1st Marines at Korea’s Chosin Reservoir, where he won an extraordinary fifth Navy Cross. It was during that terrifying battle that he was reported to have said: “We’ve been looking for the enemy for several days now. We finally found them. We’re surrounded. That simplifies our problem of getting to these people and killing them.” He retired as a lieutenant-general in 1955, but was recalled the following year to testify in favor of preserving the Marines’ rigorous training methods, after a drill instructor was held responsible for the deaths of six recruits. In 1966, at age 68, Puller asked to return to duty so he could fight in Vietnam, but was turned down as too old. He died in 1971. In 1945, a year after Vandegrift succeeded Holcomb as Marine commandant, he was promoted to the rank of four-star general, the first Marine to hold that rank while on active duty. Vandegrift was also the first Marine to receive both the Medal of Honor and the Navy Cross. He retired in 1949 and died in 1973. Joe Foss, featured on the cover of the June 1943 Life as “America’s No. 1 Ace,” remained in the public eye, becoming governor of South Dakota, then head of the American Football League, then – like Edson – becoming president of the National Rifle Association. He died in 2003. Al Schmid married his girlfriend (played by the gorgeous Eleanor Parker in the film depicting Schmid’s life), made an unsuccessful try at politics, then moved to Florida, where he died in 1982. Paul Moore, who had seen so many Japanese bullets hitting the water around him in the Matanikau River that he thought they looked like rain, was later told that a bullet that traversed his lung had missed his heart only 310

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because at that moment it was in the contracting stage of its pumping cycle. Moore thought: you know, if I get out of this, maybe it means I should do something special. There was a feeling – I don’t know if it’s good theology, whether it’s superstition or what, but certainly I felt that I had been extremely fortunate, and that I was, in a sense, living on borrowed time, and that this was another good reason to give my life to the Lord, and it seemed that being a priest was the way. When at a Yale reunion Moore mentioned his intended career, a classmate replied: “Gee, Paul, I didn’t know you had that hard a time in the war!”102 In 1945 Moore entered the General Theological Seminary in New York, being ordained four years later. His succession of achievements in the inner-city environments of Jersey City, Indianapolis and Washington eventually led to his appointment as Episcopal bishop of the Diocese of New York, where he became an early advocate of the poor, minorities and gays. His many achievements included being the first bishop to ordain a declared lesbian as an Episcopal priest. He observed that the “sense of interdependence” he learned as a Marine may have been “the emotional bedrock on which I came to understand the meaning of the Body of Christ – the Church – and why I found myself preaching with vehemence in later years that our salvation could not be a solitary matter.”103 He died in 2003. Roy Geiger, as brilliant and inspiring a leader on the ground as he had been in the air, became commanding general of the Marine effort at Bougainville, Guam, Pelelieu and then Okinawa, where he eventually led not only the 1st, 2nd and 6th Marine Divisions (the III Amphibious Corps) but the 10th Army, the first Marine to be assigned such an ecumenical command. On Okinawa he was well known for showing up at forward outposts, even for “borrowing” an observation plane so he could see the Japanese positions for himself. He was the senior Marine on the deck of Missouri at Japan’s surrender ceremony. Following his death in January 1947, Congress granted him a posthumous promotion to four-star rank. Victor A.C. Crutchley, the last British subject to command His Majesty’s Royal Australian Squadron, would be knighted in 1946, despite grumblings by a few Americans that he had failed in his command of the Savo Island defense screen. The Chicago Tribune, as anti-British as it had been antiRoosevelt, obtained a copy of a letter by King accompanying Hepburn’s confidential report about Savo Island, and on 6 June 1946 proclaimed: “Navy Refuses to Act Against British Admiral,” a decision with which the Trib strenuously disagreed. On 27 November 1949 the Trib’s Book Magazine featured Lloyd Wendt’s review of Morison’s volume on Guadalcanal, wherein Wendt noted that Turner “did not order Crutchley to take his cruiser out of the battle line,” that is, Crutchley could have left Australia in 311

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place in the southern screen and taken a launch to meet Turner. The mother of a son killed on Quincy that night, upon reading the review, wrote a heartrending letter to Morison, despairing of not knowing anything about the circumstances of her son’s death, and agonizing that perhaps her son’s life would have been spared, but for Crutchley’s decision to pull Australia from the screen for his own convenience. Morison made appropriate inquiries regarding her son, comforting the woman by saying that the review carried the anti-British bias of the Trib’s owner, Robert McCormick. Just as Roosevelt – pace McCormick – was not responsible for Pearl Harbor, Morison noted, so Crutchley was not to blame for Savo Island. “The people responsible for both,” the historian told her, “were the Japanese.”104 Samuel B. Griffith II of the 1st Marine Raiders became a brigadiergeneral and received a doctoral degree in Chinese history at Oxford. Among his scholarly contributions were translations of Mao Zedong’s On Guerrilla Warfare and Sun-Tzu’s Art of War, published in 1961 and 1963, respectively. Dr. Theodore Lidz was appointed to Yale’s psychiatry faculty in 1951, specializing in schizophrenia. He became chairman of his department in 1967. Broadly humanistic in his approach, he wrote among other things Hamlet’s Enemy: Madness and Myth in “Hamlet” (1975). In 1977 he received one of Yale’s twenty-five prestigious Sterling professorships. Chaplain Arthur Glasser would go on to a distinguished career as a missionary in China, later as a leading figure in the evangelical movement. Silas Sitai, who as a young boy had returned from school in Fiji to serve as an interpreter and scout to the Marines invading Guadalcanal, served in 1973–74 as chairman of the Solomon Islands’ Government Council. Jacob Vouza, for his extraordinary efforts in aid of the Allied forces, would be awarded a Silver Star by Vandegrift, who also made him an honorary Marine sergeant-major. Innumerable honors would follow from the British government whose commonwealth he had served so well, including the George Medal (a real one) and a knighthood. Since during his torture a Japanese bayonet had sliced his tongue, his speech remained somewhat unclear. Aging Marines who ventured to return to Guadalcanal as tourists felt obliged to pay courtesy calls on Sir Jacob. When in 1972 his house was destroyed by a hurricane, Marines came up with a check.105 Among the noblest Marine traditions is that of taking care of their own. In the first week of November 1942, a stretcher-bearer took a US Naval Academy ring off a dead Japanese soldier near the Matanikau River. Knowing that Capt. Gordon Gayle was an Academy graduate, he gave it over to his care. The ring turned out to be that of Gayle’s 1939 classmate, Lt. (jg) Francis B. “Bo” Weiler. Weiler had been on the heavy cruiser Houston, which had been sunk in the early hours of 1 March 1942 in a furious melee called the Battle of Sunda Strait off the northwest tip of Java. Of Houston’s crew, 792 died, with 370 survivors, including Weiler, being captured by the 312

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Japanese.106 Since Houston had been unable to report its position and none of the survivors escaped into friendly territory, Gayle had no reason to know the fate of the ship or his friend. Although Weiler had been seriously wounded, not until 15 March would the Japanese admit him to the prison hospital at Pandeglang. There he gave his class ring to a Dutch nurse, in the hope that it might find its way into Allied hands. She gave it to a Dutch physician, who instead (voluntarily or otherwise) turned it over to a Japanese officer. A few days later, Weiler died. Of the 370 men who survived the sinking of Houston and were captured by the Japanese, only 293 would survive the prison camp. Gayle, knowing that an artilleryman, a Capt. Swisher, was about to go back to Henderson Field, gave it to him. But then Swisher was instead called into action, so he gave the ring to Army Private Charles Stimmel. Within an hour, Swisher was dead from a direct mortar hit. On 23 November Private Stimmel, hit by shell fragments and about to die, told a buddy to send his personal effects to his parents in North Dakota. Among the items arriving there in 1943 was the Annapolis class ring belonging to Bo Weiler. On 1 March 1943 Stimmel’s father wrote to Weiler’s father, Dr. George Weiler in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Subsequently a Marine appeared at the Weilers’ doorstep to deliver their son’s Academy ring.107 A 1946 pamphlet by the Quartermaster Corps, bearing the heart-rending title “Tell Me About My Boy,” explained in detail the federal policy of allowing next-of-kin to repatriate from abroad the bodies of those who gave their nation (the pamphlet solemnly quotes Lincoln) “the last full measure of devotion.” By law the government was required to reimburse the first $50, the family to pay the remainder. Among the pamphlet’s caveats: Next of kin will not receive a letter of inquiry regarding disposition of remains until [such remains] have been positively identified as those to which next of kin are entitled. Every possible step has been taken to make absolutely positive identification of remains. No effort has been considered too great[.] Attention was given to even the smallest details.108 Guadalcanal had a large cemetery and Eleanor Roosevelt, reviewing the rows of crosses there in September 1943, upon seeing such inscriptions as “A swell pal” and “Best buddy ever,” wept.109 Not all the dead were buried there. Along one of the roads leading from Henderson Field to the Matanikau, some Marines had buried a private from Kansas, delineating the grave by coconuts and placing his helmet, with its three bullet holes, on top of a cross, along with the photograph of his girlfriend. On the helmet they inscribed: “A Real Guy.”110 Thousands of men who fought in World War II were declared missing in 313

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action. As of 26 August 1952, the day the government officially (albeit tentatively) closed its books on such matters, the Marines’ casualty lists for World War II included 2,822 “MIAPDs,” those Missing in Action and Presumed Dead. Of these, 298, an outsized 10 percent, were on Guadalcanal. Some men who died beyond the perimeter were never found, while a number of the graves dug solemnly but unofficially by comrades were soon overtaken by the jungle, their locations forgotten. Of these, Eleanor Roosevelt noted in September 1943: The grave was marked, but then the fight had to go forward. Though they still search constantly, they are not sure all the temporary graves can be found. Wherever they lie, however, is consecrated ground since they gave their lives so others might live in peace and freedom.111 Not surprisingly, from time to time remains were found, particularly as the capital of the Solomons, Honiara, expanded along the Matanikau River near Henderson Field.112 By 1970 the list of Marines still missing on the island had dropped to 147. That year a local forestry official found the dog tag of G.E. Hunter, 13 14 27 USMC. Graves Registration Service experts were dispatched and over the next few months found and retrieved the remains of Hunter and four other men, killed together on 9 October 1942. Each man was identified by the Smithsonian Institution, using dental and other records, and they were all buried at Arlington National Cemetery in a joint ceremony. Among them was Pfc. David W. Johns of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, whose brother Harold had been killed in the heavy fighting on Gavutu, just a few miles across the channel. Their mother, age 75, as she walked away from the graveside ceremony for David, said: “I try to remember how they might look if they were alive today, but I can’t. It was such a long time ago.”113 In the decades after the war, Guadalcanal’s millennial history of violence would at times stir into outbreaks of sedition. Although the Solomon Islands became self-governing in 1976 and independent of Great Britain two years later, substantial unrest continued. In June 2000, following two years of fighting between militias organized by Guadalcanal’s indigenous people and by immigrants from nearby Malaita, the latter, in league with sympathetic police officers, effected a coup, closed down what was now called Henderson International Airport, took control of Honiara, and for three weeks held prime minister Bartholomew Ulufa’alu hostage. In July 2003 a new prime minister, Sir Allan Kemakeza, invited a multinational force of over 2,000 troops, primarily from Australia and New Zealand, to intervene and restore order. Most versions of the story of the Goettge patrol ended with the comment that no trace was ever found. The casualty card for Frank Bryan Goettge 314

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ended with: “Body not recovered,” a second card, dated 18 August 1949, reciting: “Determined non-recoverable by field board.”114 In 1980 Franklin C. Bacon said that within weeks of the slaughter of the Goettge patrol, he had seen shallow graves with parts of bodies and Marine boots (“boondockers”) protruding, on the beach just west of the Matanikau sand spit where Goettge’s group was said to have landed. Ore Marion and several other Marines too claimed to have seen the remains.115 A further search, however, was unsuccessful.116 The friendship between two of Edson’s Raiders, Pfc. Edgar Shepard and Pfc. Frank Russell Whittlesey, was of a kind only military service could produce. Shepard was from a small town in West Virginia, while Whittlesey came from Park Avenue and attended New Hampshire’s prestigious St. Paul’s School. The two were among those assigned the tough duty of a forward position at the edge of the lagoon below Edson’s Ridge, a first line of defense against Kawaguchi’s approaching forces. In the fierce nighttime battle of 13 September, Shepard fell to the ground, a bullet having hit him in the left arm, passing through his right lung, before exiting his right shoulder. By this time, the two were surrounded, and could hear Japanese voices coming down the trail toward them. Whittlesey quickly helped Shepard get off the trail to the right, and then Whittlesey exited the trail to the left. The Japanese heard him, found him and killed him. Shepard remained still until the Japanese had left.117 Some days later Marines found Whittlesey’s body and proceeded to bury it where it was, a procedure used in cases where decomposition had so progressed as to render removal impracticable. Shepard, meanwhile, had made it back to position “C” on Hill 2, where while awaiting medical attention he could see Maj. Kenneth Bailey, “walking along the ridge, directing and encouraging every Marine as if it was a training exercise.” Shepard’s multiple wounds eventually healed and he would rejoin the 1st Division for its operations in Cape Gloucester, Peleliu and Okinawa. In 1989 a Guadalcanal farmer found some buttons and bones as well as an identification tag bearing Whittlesey’s name. Graves Registration was dispatched and Whittlesey’s remains were recovered, returned to the US, and reburied near Pittsfield, Massachusetts in his family’s plot. A newspaper notified Edgar Shepard, living in Welch, West Virginia.118 People from Japan began visiting Guadalcanal in search of remains. Genjirou Inui, one of those who survived Kawaguchi’s failed charges against Edson’s Ridge, revisited the Ridge in 1979. “I saw 4 American women in the grass plain near the Hill. I thought they were war bereaved and made a deep bow. They bowed too.” Several years later Akio Tani, a career artillery officer on Guadalcanal, after conferring with two of the Marines who had been present when Ichiki’s men were buried, helped the small number of 315

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living members of the Ichiki Detachment to locate and exhume the bones of dozens of their comrades.119 As the former Marines got on with their lives, reportedly some never abandoned the habit of holding their cigarettes between the thumb and forefinger, so as to conceal the glowing end in the enclosed palm.120 As those who served passed into their forties and fifties, their sons and daughters gained perspective about the controversial conflict in Vietnam, the former Indochina, by beginning to hear a little about what their fathers had gone through. World War II, what journalist Studs Terkel called “the Good War,” had never needed vindication, but was now fashionable. Filial piety became the order of the day, summed up by Tom Brokaw’s crowning those who were young in World War II as The Greatest Generation. Veterans’ organizations proliferated, as middle-aged men increasingly came to recognize and talk about the powerful bond that would forever join them with one another and with “absent friends,” regardless of the intervening years. One of many such groups, the Guadalcanal Campaign Veterans, started with a picnic in Norfolk, Virginia in 1972 and quickly grew to 3,000 members. Within a few years similar organizations began reaching out to their Japanese counterparts, the first joint meeting taking place in 1978.121 In several instances Akio Tani, “Pistol Pete” himself, undertook the role of interpreter.122 Such reunions were memorialized in odd snapshots of aging men of different races wearing Hawaiian shirts and holding drinks, some of them shaking hands.

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NOTES

Works cited by author only in the notes are also found in the Bibliography.

1 The Pacific background 1 S. Stevens ch. 9; Lucien Young, The Boston at Hawaii (Washington 1898) 184; John L. Stevens, Picturesque Hawaii ([n.p.] [1894]) 103–06. 2 Stevens to John W. Foster in US Cong., Sen., Committee on Foreign Relations, Papers Related to the Annexation of the Hawaiian Islands to the United States (Washington 1893), 46, 48; US Cong., Sen., Committee on Foreign Relations, Hawaiian Islands: Report of the Committee on Foreign Relations (Washington 1894) 2:1,005–73. 3 Mahan (1897) 31; Mahan (1911) 180; Jon Tetsuro Sumida, Inventing Grand Strategy and Teaching Command (Washington, DC/Baltimore 1997) 33–39; Osgood ch. 1; S. Howarth (1991) 231–43; Vlahos, Blue Sword ch. 1; Roehrs/ Renzi 13. 4 Clinard 11–12; Okihiro 13–36. 5 “First Annual [Presidential] Message,” 3 Dec. 1901 in Theodore Roosevelt, Works 15:81, 119. 6 Millett/Maslowski 252. 7 Mahnken ch. 2. 8 Beach (1986) ch. 12; Weighley 169, 183; Millett/Maslowski 252–53; Albion 205– 11; Ross (2002) 6. 9 LaFeber 55–56; Braisted (1958) 6–7. Roosevelt told Mahan that if it were up to him, Hawaii would be annexed in a day. Livezey 186. 10 Whether Maine was destroyed by an operational explosion or sabotage remains unresolved. “What Really Sank the Maine?” Ed. Thomas B. Allen, Naval History (March–April 1998) 30; Abbot 239–40. 11 Albion 324–27; Dalton 163–74. 12 Theodore Roosevelt, Works 14:291. See also Karnow 11, 79, 82. 13 S. Miller 22–23 and ch. 7; Karnow ch. 7; Dudden ch. 4. 14 Maki 3–11; Mark R. Peattie, “Japanese Treaty Port Settlements in China, 1895– 1937” in Duus/Myers/Peattie (1989) 166. 15 Maki 12–17; Dudden ch. 5; Calvocoressi/Wint 578; G. Wheeler ch. 1; Dudden 8–9; Hosoya/Nish 5:77. 16 Wells/Wilson 30, 160, 161; Saburo Toyama, “Years of Transition: Japan’s Naval Strategy from 1894 to 1945,” Revue Internationale d’Histoire Militaire 38 (1978) 162, 170–71; E.B. Potter (1955) 456; Osgood 34; Iriye (1972) 18–19, 31; Carpenter ch. 4. 17 Henry Field, DD, From Egypt to Japan (New York 1877) 420; F.W. Williams, “Introduction” in Asakawa v, vii.

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18 Maki 18–23; Bywater (1921) 314; J. White 228–29; Nish (1985) 57; E.B. Potter (1955) 423–49. 19 The lending was syndicated by Kuhn, Loeb, and Co., whose head partner, Jacob H. Schiff, favored the collapse of the Russian government as a means to ease that nation’s virulent anti-Semitism. McCormick 25–47; Iriye (1972) 113–14; LaFeber 81. 20 Ramon H. Myers, “Japanese Imperialism in Manchuria: The South Manchurian Railway Company, 1906–1933” in Duus/Myers/Peattie (1989) 101. 21 Japanese proper names have been reversed to accord with western usage. Long vowels are given macrons except with such common place-names as “Tokyo.” 22 Roosevelt quoted in Bailey (1964) 8; Okamoto chs. 6–8; Wells/Wilson 160, 181; J. White 238–40. 23 Kawakami (1912) ch. 7; Kawakami (1917) 17–19 and ch. 9. 24 Tupper/McReynolds 14. 25 Park, Robert E. “Reflections on Communication and Culture” (1938) in Park, “The Crowd and the Public” and Other Essays. Ed. Henry Elsner, Jr. (Chicago 1972) 98, 110. 26 Wells/Wilson 15. 27 O’Connor (1962) 2; Millard 47–48; Bailey (1964) 6–7; Pooley (1920) 123–26; Braisted (1958) 200. 28 Hoyt (1986) 36–37; Iriye (1972) 144–47; O’Connor (1969) 2; S. Howarth 281. 29 Dockrill 55. 30 Morton (1959); E. Miller chs. 1–3; Gole 32–36. 31 O’Gara 10–11. 32 Adams 383; E.B. Potter (1955) 457; Millett (1980) 269; Iriye (1972) 223. 33 Morton (1957) 40–41; Braisted (1958) 222; Adams 388; Millett (1980) 270. 34 Dillingham; S. Stevens 170–86. 35 David Richards, “The Beginning of Pearl Harbor: July, 1909 to December 7, 1941,” US Naval Institute Proceedings 70/5:537 (May 1944); Dillingham 407–08. 36 Morton (1962) 23–27; Lundstrom (1976) 13. 37 Clyde (1948) 463–64; Strong 35–38; Iriye (1972) 54, 85. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was renewed every ten years, and then made permanent in 1904. Hixson 8:201, 202. 38 Okihiro 36. Immigration from Japan was de minimus, with 4,085 arriving in 1906, versus over 1 million from Europe. 39 Clyde (1948) 465; Braisted (1958) 191n. 1; Strong 38–41; Tupper/McReynolds 19–25. 40 Reckner 5–6; Roehrs/Renzi 14; Akira Iriye, “Japan as a Competitor, 1895– 1917” in Iriye (1975) 71, 78. 41 Kawakami (1912) 289, 337–39; LaFeber 89; Griswold 339. Substantially larger numbers moved to Hawaii and the Mainland without proper documentation, many of them later opting to return to Japan. The text of the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” is in Strong 41–42. 42 Vlahos, “The Naval War College” 29–32; Reckner 13–14; E.B. Potter (1955) 457; S. Howarth ch. 4; Love (1992) 1:434–43; Braisted (1958) 223–24; Ross (2002) 80–81; Iriye (1972) 147, 163, 216. 43 Bailey (1932) 38; Braisted (1971) 537–38; Kawakami (1917) chs. 4 and 5; George Bronson Rea, Japan’s Place in the Sun: A Menace to America (Washington 1915) 14. 44 McCormick 229. 45 Iriye, “Japan as a Competitor” in Iriye (1975) 97–98; Iriye (1972) 148–49; L. Young 96; Kawakami (1917) 2; Grew/Hull (27 Dec. 1934) in US State Department. Peace and War (USP&W) 236, 238.

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46 Gulick (1903) 430; B.L. Putnam Weale, The Conflict of Colour: The Threatened Upheaval throughout the World (New York 1910) 132. 47 Compare Sidney Osborne, The New Japanese Peril (New York 1921) with Sunderland 63–65; Donald H. Estes, “Asama Gunkan – The Reappraisal of a War Scare.” J. San Diego Hist. 24/3:1 (Summer 1978); Tupper/McReynolds 104–06. Pooley (1920) 128–37. 48 Pitkin 3, 18–19; E. Miller 70–85; Flowers ch. 13; Japan’s Real Attitude toward America: A Reply to Mr. George Bronson Rea’s “Japan’s Place in the Sun – the Menace to America.” Ed. Toyokichi Iyenaga (New York 1916) 90; Sunderland; Crow ch. 10; Barnhart ch. 6. Harry Wildes, Japan in Crisis (New York 1934) 64; Hoyt (1986) 77. 49 Porterfield v. Webb, 263 US 225 (1923); Webb v. O’Brien, 263 US 313 (1923); Frick v. Webb, 263 US 326 (1923); Terrace v. Thompson, 263 US 197 (1923). 50 Griswold 347–79; LaFeber 144–46; Kimitada Miwa, “Japanese Images of War with the United States” in Iriye (1975) 115; Tansill 80–81; Strong 44–45; Tupper/ McReynolds 182–216. In 1908–16, the net inflow of Japanese into the US Mainland comprised a mere 1,852. Kawakami (1917) 61. 51 M. Kennedy (1935) 187. 52 Lea 130, 172–206, 228–58, 312–19. 53 Toland (1982) 249; Sho¯ichi Saeki, “Images of the United States as a Hypothetical Enemy” in Iriye (1975) 100, 102; Mahan (1911) 446–47. 54 Baldwin (1976) 357. 55 Mahan (1908) 353; D. Ballantine 17–19; Reckner 16–18; 56 Ross (1992) 1:12, 13, 19, 20. 57 Nish (1972) 140–57; Hosoya/Nish 3:51; Strachan 1:460–94. 58 Nish (1982) 3, 5. In 1946 the Emperor proclaimed that the Pacific war was caused by this refusal by the Allies to accept racial equality as a League covenant. Morley 5:xxxv. 59 Treaty of Peace of Versailles, Articles 22, 119–20, 257–58 in Treaties of Peace 1919–1923 comp. Lawrence Martin (New York 1924); Blakeslee (1944) 766. On 17 December 1920, the Council of the League of Nations confirmed the mandate, and agreements ancillary to the subsequent Four-Power Pact (13 December 1921) ratified the annexations; U.S.Papers/Foreign [1922 vols.] 1:36; E.B. Potter (1955) 566; Williams; Louis ch. 4. 60 Braisted (1971) 551–55; Best (2002) chs. 3–5; Hosoya/Nish 3:109, 127; Nish (1982) 3. 61 Article IV in U.S.Papers/Foreign [1922 vols.] 1:250. 62 Braisted (1993) [1]–[2]. 63 Iriye (1965) 51, 111–12; Braisted (1971) 545. 64 Bywater (1921) 279–95; Honan (1991) 87. 65 Ross (1992)1:15, 17; Morton (1957) 42–43. 66 Dudley Knox (1922); Braisted (1971) 646, 67, 1–88; Friend (1965) 78–79. 67 U.S.Papers/Foreign [1922 vols.] 1:247, 252–53; G. Wheeler 57, 81–82. 68 Braisted (1971) 508–521. 69 Honan (1990) 75–76, 93–96 and ch. 15; Honan (1991) chs. 9 and 15. 70 Borg/Okamoto 204. 71 Morton (1962) 27–28; Gailey (1995) 46–47; Honan (1991) 195–97. 72 Bywater (1921) 312–17; Honan (1990) 72–76, 93–96. 73 Charles Paullin, American Voyages to the Orient 1690–1865 (1910–11; Annapolis 1971) ch. 12; Clyde (1948) 502–06, 558–612. Some said the decision in the 1870s to structure “modern” Japanese religion around an Emperor cult was influenced by the social Darwinism of Herbert Spencer, after rejecting the liberal theories of Rousseau and J.S. Mill. Tsurumi 107–08.

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74 Pitkin 9. 75 Aldous Huxley, “Our Debt to Hollywood,” Vanity Fair 26/6:34 (Aug. 1926). 76 Morley 1:11; O’Connor 83; Roskill (1968–76) 2:64–68; E.B. Potter (1955) 568; Nish (2002) 68–70; Japanese Monog. 145, Detwiler/Burdick 4. 77 K. Nomura 198; Iriye (1993) 121–22. 78 Giichi Tanaka, The Tanaka Memorial: Japan’s Dream of World Conquest (Seattle, WA 1934) 11; Iriye (1965) 111–13. 79 LaFeber chs. 5 and 6. Japan had quickly colonized the territories awarded to it at Portsmouth, with the local Japanese population on lands belonging to the South Manchuria Railway jumping to 62,000 by 1910, against a local Chinese population of 430,000. Iriye (1972) 203. 80 Banno Junji, “Japanese Industrialists and Merchants and the Anti-Japanese Boycotts in China, 1919–1928” in Duus/Myers/Peattie (1989) 314, 325–27. 81 Kawakami (1932) 36–37; Kawakami (June 1932) 654; L. Young ch. 3; Morley 1:139, 226–30, 241; Iriye (1965) 298–300; Alvin D. Coox, “The Kwantung Army Dimension” in Duus/Myers/Peattie (1989) 395. 82 Marks 43–44; Morley 5:xxix–xxx; Iriye (1965) ch. 5. 83 “Imperial Japanese Army in Manchuria 1894–1945” 76, Detwiler/Burdick 4; Nakagane Katsuiji, “Manchukuo and Economic Development” in Duus/Myers/ Peattie (1989) 133; L. Young ch. 5. 84 Frederick Moore 2. 85 Baer 122–24; Albion 237–51; USP&W 156, 178; Hixson 3:65; Tuchman 135–36; Japanese Monog. 144, 1–8, Detwiler/Burdick 2; Fleisher (1942) 23–28; Bergamini ch. 12; Kawakami (1932) x, 120–22, 131, ch. 13. “Although it is the custom to decry the treatment accorded to China by Japan, it is perhaps as well for the world that these two countries are not on better terms with each other, for, if they were . . . a ‘Yellow Peril’ might become a reality.” Kennedy (1924) 340. 86 M. Kennedy (1969) ch. 19; Japanese Monog. 144, 11, Detwiler/Burdick 2; U.S.Papers/Japan 1:1–157; Tuchman 137–38; Pelz 9; Bergamini 454–541. 87 Pelz 42, 63; L. Young 74–89; Friend (1965) 173. 88 B.L. Putnam-Weale, The Coming Struggle in Eastern Asia (London 1908) 348; Huntington 124; Okamoto 12, 21. 89 Craigie 32; Tohmatsu/Wilmott 67–68. 90 Rees 27; Ben-Ami Shillony, Revolt in Japan (Princeton 1973). 91 Kase 29; Morinosuke Kajima, A Brief Diplomatic History of Modern Japan (Rutland, VT 1965) 80; Iriye (1993) 122–26; F. Jones 15; Fleisher (1945) 44; U.S.Papers/Japan 1:249, 250; Bergamini; Iriye (1987) 6–7; Hoyt (1986) 71–75. 92 Araki 120; Irokawa 17; Tohmatsu/Wilmott 18; Craigie chs. 4–5. 93 Morley 2 Pt. 2; Snow (1937) 100; Morley 4:13. The Soviets inflicted heavy losses on the Japanese in Outer Mongolia in August 1939; on 15 September an armistice was signed. Llewellyn 2:85. 94 Clifford 64n.; Ballendorf/Bartlett 119–40; Millett (1980) 325–26; E.B. Potter (1955) 581–86; Dorwart (1983) 33–35; Adams 630. 95 G. Wheeler 87–88; Willard Price, Japan’s Islands of Mystery (New York 1944) chs. 5–8. 96 Dorwart (1983) 55–56; G. Johnston (1943) 41–42. 97 Williams 439; Blakeslee 768. 98 U.S.Papers/Japan 1:307; Nish (2002) 20; Araki 142–44; Pomeroy 121. 99 Clyde (1935) ch. 13. In January 1935 Adm. Nomura denied (albeit equivocally) that the Mandates were being fortified. K. Nomura 199. Although Japan had in fact begun the Aslito Airfield on Saipan and other small projects, none constituted “bases” or “fortifications” within the meaning of the relevant treaty language. By 1940, however, Japan was employing thousands of workers, with

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100 101 102

103

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the 4th Fleet’s headquarters at Truk fully established by February 1941. Thomas Wilds, “How Japan Fortified the Mandated Islands,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 81/4:401 (April 1955). U.S.Papers/Japan 1:277–306; Kase 32; To¯go¯ 109–10. Friend (1965) 7–8, ch. 7; Morton (1957) 38–39; Friend (1988) 18–19; Braisted (1971) 518. President Hoover had earlier vetoed the bill, asserting that to grant the Philippines independence was to invite a Japanese attack. “The Philippines Can Be Defended” (1936) in MacArthur (1965) 103; Rogers chs. 7–9; Love (1995) 114–15; Schaller (1989) ch. 3; Friend (1965) 90; V.A. Pacis, National Defense (Manila 1937) 62–63; Hinds 452; Gole 87–88; Costello (1982) 49. C.L. Symonds, Naval Institute Historical Atlas of the U.S. Navy (Annapolis 1995) 134; King/Buell notes (29 Aug. 1949), King/Dobyns (18 Sept. 1950), box 8, folder 13, Buell/Coll.; King/Baldwin (12 June 1950), box 4, folder 2, Buell/ Coll.; Doyle 53; Vlahos, The Blue Sword ch. 6. Borg/Okamoto 204; Doyle 60; Baldwin (1966) 115; Baer 120; Morton (1959) 241–42. King later wrote that many people thought the reason no effort was mounted to save Manila was because the Fleet had been destroyed on 7 December, while in fact no such mission could have been mounted even if Pearl Harbor had not been attacked. Hunt 238. Ross (1992) 2:63, 128–30, 215–27; Hayes 4–7; Ross (2002) 139–45, 164–66; Doyle 58–59; Morton (1959) 241–46; Gole ch. 8; Baer 124–28. Dallek 75; Hixson 3:34; Albion 251–55; S. Howarth ch. 9; Borg/Okamoto 33–35, 199, 208; Tuleja ch. 4; Roskill (1968–76) 2:160–63, 491; Baer 129–37; Pelz 77–79, 197–211. Etherton/Tiltman 246; Morton (1962) 39; PHA 1:327–29; Cray 223; Tuleja 201–02. Ross (1992) vols. 3–5; Gole 107–18. Morton (1962) 71–72; Bartsch 43; Cline 55–61; Conn/Fairchild. Ross (1992) 5:3,141; E. Miller 270–72; James (1986) 711. The strategy was earlier seen in a document then-Capt. Turner had worked on with Adm. Harold Stark, chief of naval operations, in late 1940. This earlier “Plan Dog Memorandum,” like Rainbow 5, was premised upon insuring Britain’s survival. Ross (1992) 3:225–301; B. Mitchell Simpson III, “Admiral Harold R. Stark” in S. Howarth (1992) 441, 443–44; Lorelli 20; J. Utley 113–18; Reynolds (2001) 91–92, 117; Langer/Gleason 308; James/Wells 15. Pogue 168; PHR 159–60; Morgenstern ch. 5. PHA 1:253, 263–64, 275–76, 286; Burlingame 30–31; Llewellyn 2:109–14, 127. A book-length study of US capability in the Pacific, published in 1941, concluded that the Fleet is ready to “concede the military initiative to Japan in the western Pacific” because it “could reasonably expect to overcome in a short time any initial advantage gained by Japan.” Puleston 26–27. Conn/Fairchild 74; Craigie 101–10; Ike 3–13. Jacobsen/Smith 162; United States and World War II 30; Japanese Monog. 150, 50–52, Detwiler/Burdick 2; Morley 3; Langer/Gleason 24–48. Seow Hwye Min, “The Attack on Pearl Harbor – The Lessons for Today’s Strategic Thinkers.” Pointer: J. Singapore Armed Forces 24/3 (July–Sept. 1998); Marks 49; Conroy/Wray 28; Morgenstern 57, 60–61; Sutherland Denlinger and Charles Gary, War in the Pacific: A Study of Navies, Peoples and Battle Problems (New York 1936) 277; Fletcher Pratt (1939) 205. Morgenstern 111n. In London, Harold Nicolson felt sure that the Americans would enter the war once Roosevelt got past the November 1940 election. Ketchum 355.

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117 K. Davis (1965) 90; Morgenstern 58–59, 86. 118 Cole; Isolationists and Interventionists. Ed. W.L. Hixson (New York 2003); Dallek chs. 8 and 9; Wayne S. Cole, Charles A. Lindbergh and the Battle Against American Intervention in World War II (New York 1974); K. Davis (2000) 286–88. 119 H.C. Peterson, Propaganda for War (Norman, OK 1939); Harry Elmer Barnes, The Genesis of the World War (New York 1927); Millis (1935) 435; James Duane Squires, British Propaganda at Home and in the United States (Cambridge, MA 1935) ch. 3; Reynolds (2001) 31; Pelz 70–72. 120 The speculations within the Japanese military of possible US reactions are outlined in Morley 5:106. 121 PHA 1:265–66; Beard 416–17; Burlingame 37. See also the discussion of Lt.-Cmdr. Arthur McCollum’s 7 October 1940 memo in Stinnett 7–9, 262–65; E. Miller 264. 122 PHA 1:341–43, 351–57 (testimony of Leahy); Brownlow 67–68. 123 Etherton/Tiltman 234; Morison (1947–62) 3:12. 124 Pomeroy 140. 125 Bartsch 37; Public Opinion 1935–1946 ed. Hadley Cantril (Princeton 1951) 1168; Prange (1981) 11; Morison (1947–62) 3:61, 72–73; Dallek 272; W. Churchill (1948–53) 3:593. 126 James (1987) 47–48; E. Miller 326; J. Richardson 424–36; Beach (1995) 62; Morison (1947–62) 3:46–47; Prange (1981) 39. 127 Prange (1981) 47; Beach (1995) 13; Kimmel 7; Brownlow 75. 128 PHR 266–C; Gailey (1995) 46–47. 129 Yoshikawa/Stanford 37.

2 Why Japan gambled 1 In 1939 the US Army had a mere 140,000 men, ranking seventeenth in the world, with no fully functional division – as against Germany’s ninety divisions, Japan’s fifty in China and Italy’s forty-five. Gole xv. 2 55 Stat. 31. It passed by wide margins, 317 to 71 in the House, 60 to 31 in the Senate. Reynolds (1981) ch. 6. 3 Lorelli 20; Ross (1992) 3:305–22, 4:1–109; Reynolds (1981) 182–91; Buchanan 54; Feis ch. 21; E. Miller 274–87, 314–15. WPPac-46 is found in “Proceedings of the Hart Inquiry” in PHA 26:492. 4 Baldwin (1950) 66–67; Morton (1962) 89–91; Greenfield (1959) 3; Cook (1978); Hayes 8–13, 30–31. 5 Duus/Myers/Peattie (1996) 71; Asakawa 1–64; L. Young 31–32, 150, chs. 5–9. 6 On Japan’s extractive industries in Manchuria, see Kawakami (1932) ch. 6. 7 Marks 65–72; Hixson 4:179; Leutze 19–28. 8 Barnhart chs. 10–12; Japanese Monog. 144, 53–54, Detwiler/Burdick 2. 9 Hixson 4:283n. 1; J. Young 323–25; Feis 268; To¯go¯ 86; Cray 227; Evans/Peattie 408–09. 10 Cole 355. 11 Ickes 3:298–99, 339, 588–92; Hixson 4:283; J. Utley 100–01; Langer/Gleason 647–68; Reynolds (1981) 235–38, 248–49, 357n. 60; Reynolds (2001) 89–90, 150–51; Dallek 239–41. 12 “Protocol Between Japan and France with Reference to Common Defense of French Indo-China” (29 July 1941) App. no. 2 in “Political Strategy to Outbreak of War” Pt. III, Japanese Monog. 147, Detwiler/Burdick 2; ibid. pp. 13–16; “French Indo-China Area Operations Record,” Japanese Monog. 25, ibid. 6;

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Morley 5:158–59; Llewellyn 2:92–94, 139; USP&W 693; Morley 4:156, 209; Langer/Gleason ch. 20; Michel 318. Kirby (1971) 61; Beasley 229–30. Morley 4:125, 241, 254–55; Friend (1988) 18; Ross (1992) 3:225, 231; Thorne (1978) 5–7; Thorpe 47. http://wiretap.area.com/Gopher/Gov/US-History/WWII/sov-japan.neu. To¯go¯ 50; Morley 4:85–94, 5:132–43; Bergamini 765–70; Drea (1998) 45. Hosoya/Nish 3:202, 203; Llewellyn 2:136. Morison (1947–62) 3:134–35. Feis 231–32; Beard 178–79n. 5; Morgenstern 136–37; PHA 36:408–09; Toland (1982) 256n. Morley 5:106, 152–57; Ike 60, 79, 86–87, 112–24; May 435–40; Kirby (1971) 79; Bergamini 768–69; K. Davis (2000) 227. Hixson 3:118–19, 125, 135–36; May 439–46. Langer/Gleason 37, 306–07; Conroy/Wray 51, 57, 60; Borg/Okamoto 81; Barnhart 52–63, 176–78. Edwin O. Reischauer, My Life between Japan and America (New York 1986) 86; Ickes 3:553–68; J. Utley 92; K. Davis (2000) 262–64; Layton 118; Michel 318; Schaller (1989) 45; Langer/Gleason 843–44; LaFeber 202–03; Boyd 57–71; Bergamini 768. Eden 311; Nish (1982) 114–15. USP&W 699; Iriye (1987) 146–48; Military History Section Headquarters, Army Forces Far East, “Political Strategy to Outbreak of War,” Pt. IV, Japanese Monog. 150, 8–11, Detwiler/Burdick 2; Millis (1947) 111–12. USP&W 699; Iriye (1987) 146–48; Military History Section Headquarters, Army Forces Far East, “Political Strategy to Outbreak of War Pt. IV, Japanese Monog. 150, 8–11, Detwiler/Burdick 2; Millis (1947) 111–12; Morley 5:161; Layton 121–30; Heinrichs (1988) 134–36; Best (1995) 163–67; Welles 84; Hixson 3:137–38, 153; Esthus 30–31; Barnhart 263. Hixson 3:113, 4:229–30; J. Utley 99; U.S.Papers/Foreign (1941 vols.) 4:851–87; Feis 238–39; Hixson 4:283; Larrabee 84; To¯go¯ 83–86; Black 647, 652, 675–76; Heinrichs (1988) 126–27; K. Davis (1965) 94; Japanese Monog. 150, 239–47, Detwiler/Burdick 2; Butow (1974) 239–47; Heinrichs in Iriye/Cohen 164–65. M. Nomura 208; U.S.Strategic/Japan App. A, 14; Willmott (1999) 72; Japanese Monog. 147 App. no. 3, Monog. 150 App. 1, Detwiler/Burdick 2; Monog. 45, 28– ¯ mae, “Stockpiling of Liquid Fuel in Japan (Navy Report)”, 29, 58, ibid. 3; T. O ibid. 5; Morley 5:170–79; Ike 133–63; Kawahara 107–09. Feis 241, 268–69; Byas 31; Morison (1947–62) 3:62–64, 70; K. Davis (1965) 89; Kato 42, 157–61; Barnhart 261; Willmott (1982) 68–71, 123–24; Koburger 1–3; Agawa 235; J. Ballantine 664; Morton (1962) 56; O’Connor (1969) 8–9. As Japan knew, the Dutch planned to destroy their oil refineries before the Japanese could secure them, meaning that the near-term oil crisis might not be resolved quickly. Ickes 3:297. Ballantine memo 8 Aug. 1941, Hull memo 17 Aug. 1941 in USP&W 707, 708; J. Utley 159–61; Morley 5:184–95; Ike 124–29, 145–49; Butler 3/1:250–55. As Herbert Feis has written, Konoe had “too often been either the author or tool of deception.” The Road to Pearl Harbor 252–87; Langer/Gleason 697–731; W.J. Pratt 382–83; Heinrichs (1966) 351–53; Black 669–70. Frederick Moore 220–25. Fleisher (1942) 146–47. Morley 5:209–48; Bergamini ch. 25. Thorne (1978) 53; Goldstein/Dillon 119.

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37 Kato 42–46. This must have seemed bittersweet to Japanese naval officers, whose academy at Eta Jima was so closely imitative of Britain’s Royal Naval College at Dartmouth that it was made of bricks imported from England. 38 Willmott (1982) 436; Joint Imperial Army/Navy statement of 15 Nov. 1941 quoted in M. Nomura 207; Lee/Walling 69. 39 Matloff/Snell 4; Butow (1954) 10n. 7; Bischof/Dupont 17, 24–25, 41. 40 Dorwart (1979) 84. 41 Yardley had written it for money because, following Stimson’s statement in 1929 that “gentlemen do not read each other’s mail,” this brilliant intelligence officer was out of a job just as the Depression hit. Yardley ch. 14; Kahn (2004) 77–80; Farago ch. 6; Hixson 4:126, 127; Kahn (1991) 52–53; Braisted (1971) 607–08. 42 Kahn (1967) 26–27; Prange (1981) 119–20; To¯go¯ 61; Layton 80; Bergamini 758–59. 43 Kahn (1991) 56. 44 F. Pratt (1942) ch. 5; Ketchum 665. 45 Rowlett ch. 15; Kahn (1967) ch. 1; Kahn (1991) 53–57; Stinnett 21; Friedman. 46 Prados 164; Kahn (1991) 53; Layton 31–35; Agawa (276–77). 47 Drea (1992) 10; R. Aldrich 76–78; H. Clausen/Lee 219–21. 48 Goldstein/Dillon 5, 312, 326–27; Buchanan 57; Murray/Millett 172–73; Agawa 219–22; PHR 53; Evans/Peattie 472–79; Hixson 4:1; May 448. Two Republican senators would later write that when Roosevelt was informed that a Japanese fleet was steaming south toward Malaya, he should have thought of Hawaii, since the Japanese were unlikely to attack in the south while leaving the US Fleet intact on their flank. Owen Brewster (R-ME), Homer Ferguson (R-MI) in PHR 522–23. But this did not occur either to Roosevelt or to any of his senior naval advisors. 49 Agawa 201–02; Honan (1990) 182–89, 216–19, 244–45; Honan (1991) chs. 16 and 19. 50 Nagano had been a student at the Harvard Law School. May 432; Yoshikawa/ Stanford 31; Military History Section Headquarters, Army Forces Far East, “Political Strategy to Outbreak of War Pt. IV, Japanese Monog. 150, 1, Detwiler/Burdick 2; Japanese Monog. 45, 22–23, ibid. 3. 51 Okumiya/Horikoshi 61; Morison (1947–62) 3:46; Conroy/Wray 86–87, 154; Honan (1990) 245; PHA 1:236; Costello (1981) 81–82. 52 Agawa 232–33. 53 Goldstein/Dillon 13, 17; Buchanan 56–57; Agawa 193–200, 221–22; Shigeru Fukudome interview in US News and World Report (11 Dec. 1961) 65; Honan (1991) 245–48; Craigie 112. Yamamoto had discussed the possibility of a Hawaiian attack with Fukudome in the fall of 1940. Hata in Dockrill 63. In September 1940 Washington-based journalist David Lawrence wrote that Japan might initiate a war by a “sudden” and “overnight” attack on the United States, since “declarations of war are no longer in style.” Lawrence 59. 54 Hixson 4:277, 279; Layton 73; Borch/Martinez 53–54; Carpenter 136–38. 55 Stark quoted in Kimmel 19; W.W. Smith 7. Bloch was now commandant of the 14th Naval District, comprising the Hawaiian Islands, Midway, Wake and other Pacific outposts. He had been Richardson’s predecessor as CinCUS. 56 PHA 22:331–33; Morgenstern 82. J.W.G. Wellham recalls that the British used not a fin stabilizer but a wire coiled around a drum, which connected the torpedo to the plane. It uncoiled as the torpedo fell, then snapped when played out, breaking the torpedo’s fall. Lowry/Wellham 39. 57 Cray 222; Sherman 19–20. 58 Grew/Hull (27 Jan. 1941), USP&W 618; Prados 161–62; Theobald 43; Stinnett

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31; Prange (1981) 31–32; Grew (1944) 367–68; Morison (1947–62) 3:60–61; Brownlow 100; Dorwart (1983) 179–80. Kimmel/Stark (18 Feb. 1941), “Corresp. with Adm. Kimmel 1939–1943 file,” Nimitz/Coll. Cray 223–24; PHA 26:535, 536, 39:23, 75–76; Morgenstern 75; Prange (1981) 410; Zacharias ch. 22; Buchanan 59. Cf. Millis (1947) 64. Costello (1994) 94; Bartsch 16–19, 50–54, 98–105, 184–85, 191–92, 210, 422; Nish (1982) 72; May 464; G. Marshall 2:676; Brown/Bruner 39; Arthur Krock in New York Times (NYT) (19 Nov. 1941) 10; Baldwin (1966) 117; Hunt 212–15. In fact the first thirty-five B-17s would not be in place until 26 November. Friend (1965) 205; Hayes 31–32; Baldwin (1950) 67–72; Love (1995) 111, 119– 20; K. Davis (2000) 357. Japanese Monog. 147, 62, Detwiler/Burdick 2; Nish (2002) 159; PHR 326–32; Butow (1961) 312–15; Romulo 25; Conn/Fairchild 154; Langer/Gleason 836–37; Michel 319. To¯go¯ 48n. 1; Morley 4:241, 260; Nomura, “In Memory of Washington” in Japanese Monog. 150, [153], Detwiler/Burdick 2; Bergamini 741. A member of the Imperial Court told the Tokyo correspondent of the New York Herald Tribune that the day before Nomura left Tokyo, Hirohito ordered him to “make peace with the United States at any cost.” Fleisher (1942) 74. Grew (1952) 2:1,247; Hixson 3:272. See also Morley 5:1, 12–20; Bergamini 742–54; Murray/Millett 143–44. Davis/Lindley 209–13; Emmerson 105–06. Craigie 130. USP&W 302–03; U.S.Papers/Foreign (1941 vols.) 4:566; PHA 29:2149 (Grew testimony); K. Davis (1965) 96–99; F. Jones 268; Roehrs/Renzi 37. To¯go¯ 150–51; Feis 291, 306n. 22; Prange (1988) 7; Komatsu 260–62. Hersey (1942) 11–12; Hunt 216; Frederick Moore 260–63. On 17 November 1941, Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter told FDR that, according to someone he knew, Nomura’s superiors in Tokyo were sufficiently unsure of his ability to gauge any US response to “new aggressions by Japan” that they sent Kurusu “to find out if we mean business in case Japan moves.” In Roosevelt and Frankfurter: Their Correspondence 1928–1945 comp. Max Freedman (Boston, MA 1967) 623. Doc. 246, 7 Nov. 1941 and Doc. 254, 20 Nov. 1941 in USP&W 776, 801; U.S.Papers/Japan 2:709–10, 715–17, 755–56; Ike 200–11, 244, 249–53; Morley 5:261–62, 368–70; Japanese Monog. 147, 66–77, Detwiler/Burdick 2; Langer/ Gleason 851–84; Dallek 306–07; J. Utley 167–69; Feis 309. PHA 14:1,150–54; U.S.Papers/Foreign (1941 vols.) 4:579–84, 593–665; Langer/ Gleason 871–901; J. Utley 168–73; Reynolds (2001) 162–63. PHA 14:1,122–23, 1,143–46; Bell 31–32; U.S.Papers/Foreign (1941 vols.) 4:658–59. Regarding the War Plans Division, see Cline chs. 2–5. Costello (1994) 138; U.S.Papers/Foreign (1941 vols.) 5:578–89. 24 Nov. 1941, in PHA 14:1,139–42; U.S.Papers/Foreign (1941 vols.) 4:648, 649; Loewenheim/Langley/Jones 166; F. Roosevelt (1947–50) 2:1,245–47. In December 1940, Tadao Wikawa (sometimes romanized as “Ikawa”), a prominent banker, had reached out to two American priests, Father James M. Drought and Bishop James Edward Walsh, introduced to him by a partner in Kuhn, Loeb and Co., underwriter of Japan’s loans in the Russo-Japanese War. Wikawa asked them to convey personally to FDR a proposal: the withdrawal of Japanese troops back to northeast China; Chinese recognition of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo; the formation of a new Chinese government by fusing the regimes of Chiang Kai-shek and a Japanese puppet; US support for

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77 78

79 80 81

82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92

93

94 95 96 97

Japan’s procuring strategic materials, all in return for Japan’s promise to maintain peace, a continuing independent Philippines, and discussions with Britain about relinquishing Singapore and Hong Kong. See U.S.Papers/Japan 2:387– 795; Butow (1974); Morley 5:1. These points became the basis for the talks between Nomura and Hull. USP&W 660. Cf. Tsurumi 80. One of the reasons Roosevelt’s advisors did not take Japan seriously as a military power, was its inability to prevail in China. Ketchum 678. U.S.Papers/Foreign (1941 vols.) 4:646, 647, 654; PHA 14:1,161, 1,167–74; Chennault 140–41. Churchill was baffled by Roosevelt’s tendency to treat China’s military contribution against Japan to be the equal of the British Empire. W. Churchill (1948–53) 4:133–34. But it was in fact substantially greater, keeping hundreds of thousands of Japanese troops permanently engaged. Tuchman 187. Chiang told Edgar Snow: “Look at the map and note the smallness of Japan compared to China. Can anyone doubt that we shall triumph?” Snow (1942) 40. Grew/Hirota (17 Sept. 1937), U.S.Papers/Japan 1:498. Kirby (1971) 25; Hixson 3:101. While a historian has described Roosevelt’s reaction as “supine,” the incident at least led the US to study what economic sanctions might accomplish. This ultimately would be ratcheted into the oil embargo which precipitated the war. Marks 62–63; J. Utley 16–44; “History of Ships Named Panay” in “Panay, USS” file, Nimitz/Coll. Series III; U.S.Papers/ Japan 1:517–63; Morison (1947–62) 3:16–18; S. Howarth 362. Grew (1944) 371. Chang 4–6; Friend (1988) 60–61; Rees 31–32; D. Miller 4; Dubinsky 25; Bergamini ch. 1. Harries/Harries ch. 22; Araki 1,011–19; Buruma 112–35; Tuchman 170–78. Borg/Okamoto 511. As Matsuoka told Nomura before he left for the US, “the fate of China is largely a question of sentiment to the Americans, but to us it constitutes a truly vital issue affecting, as it does, the very existence of our Empire.” Morley 5:7. Iriye (1972) chs. 7 and 8; Welles 68. Millard 60–61, 353. Iriye (1965) 229–31. Tuchman 188; Murray/Millett 162. Tuchman 174, 238–39; Marks 52. NYT (24 Nov. 1941) 1; NYT (25 Nov. 1941) 1, 8; Barnhart 234–35; Welles 87– 89; Layton 195–96; Morgenstern 154–60; Heinrichs (1966) 289–92; W.J. Pratt 385; Costello (1994) 113–15; Emmerson 120–21. In the summer of 1937, prior to his “Quarantine” speech, Roosevelt had toyed with the idea of ending Japan’s incursion in China by acting with Britain to cut off trade with Japan. He then dropped the idea, under pressure from isolationists. Welles 70–74, 91–93. W. Churchill (1948–53) 3:592; F. Roosevelt (1947–50) 2:1,233–34; Iriye (1981) 41; Drea (1998) 30, 43, 46; Butler 3/1:264; May 463; PHA 14:1,162–66, 1,300; Black 674; Wohlstetter 241–42. Some had said the only reason Hitler had invaded Russia was to eliminate it as a flank before turning west. Stinnett 281. Stimson 25 Nov. 1941 diary entry in PHA 11:5,433–34; Best (2002) 184; Best (1995) 186. Strachan 1:460–64; www.firstworldwar.com/source/tsingtau_okuma.htm. Butler 3/1:130, 133, 283; Zacharias ch. 24; PHA 16:2,407–08; Layton 18, 243–44, 547n. 15.

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98 PHR 515; PHA 12:137–38, 165; Buchanan 45; Clausen/Lee 324; Wohlstetter 194–212. 99 F. Roosevelt (1942) 539; U.S.Papers/Japan 2:372, 768–70; USP&W 814; Fleisher (1942) 172; Jacobsen/Smith 171; Hull 2/ch. 79. 100 Beard 188–89; Stimson, PHA 11:5433. 101 (1980) 736. 102 U.S.Papers/Foreign (1941 vols.) 4:657; Reynolds (1981) 134; Llewellyn 2:168; Heinrichs (1988) 210. 103 U.S.Papers/Foreign (1941 vols.) 4:666–67. The Dutch agreed with Hull’s decision. Ibid. 4:669. Antony Best writes that Churchill sent the “thin diet” telegram after being informed of the modus vivendi by Eden, who had received it from Halifax. Whatever Halifax’s reaction, Eden had felt that Hull was giving away too much, and Churchill apparently agreed. Best (1995) 182–85, 198–99. See also Llewellyn 2:161–78. 104 W. Churchill (1948–53) 3:597. 105 Heinrichs (1988) 211; Layton 199. 106 PHA 14:1182–83; U.S.Papers/Foreign (1941 vols.) 4:668; Bell 31. 107 Ike 262; Toland (1982) 275n. 2. 108 When Kurusu asked whether the abandonment of a truce effort had been at the urging of America’s allies, Hull would not answer. Joseph Ballantine in U.S.Papers/Japan 2:764; US Dept of Defense, The “Magic” Background 4:77, 85. Nomura and Kurusu asked to meet with Casey and with Halifax. Halifax and the Foreign Office said this would be wrong, since if the US public found out, it would suggest a lack of solidarity among the Allies. Llewellyn 2:169n4. 109 Morgenstern 153–60, 375–80; Toland (1982) 265–68; Costello (1994) 126–38, 310–13. 110 J. Utley 172–82. 111 U.S.Papers/Foreign (1941 vols.) 4:665n. 97; Morley 5:305–15; PHA 14:1,176– 77; K. Davis (2000) 333–35; Reynolds (1981) 243–44; Butler 3/1:256–65. 112 PHA 39:23, 83; Beach (1995) 159–66; Hixson 3:150; Toland (1982) 29; Kimmel 48; Tsunoda in Morley 5:323. 113 In Layton opp. 528; Borg/Okamoto 149, 162; Conn/Fairchild 151. 114 Stimson quoted in Wohlstetter 243. 115 One of the documents evidencing a communication between Churchill and Roosevelt at this time has not been released. Layton et al. speculate that there might be another communication from Churchill, possibly passing on a Japanese sailing order, intercepted and decrypted by the Dutch in Batavia. They do not suggest that the rendezvous coordinates specified in any such sailing order could have been decoded, even if parts of the text could have been, and without the coordinates, the Allies could not know that Pearl Harbor was specified as the target. The several known orders from Nagano to Yamamoto refer to “the staging area” and the “standby area,” Navy Order no. 9 (1 Dec. 1941) directing him to “destroy” the “enemy fleets and air forces” of the US, Britain and the Netherlands “in the Far East, and if enemy fleets come to the attack . . . intercept and destroy them.” Morley 5:329–32. If these had been decrypted when received, they would have added nothing to what the US already knew. Layton 199–209, 220–21, 260–61, opp. 528, 534n. 5; Komatsu 315–17. 116 Bischof/Dupont 17, 24–25; Toland (1982) 76; Feis 263, 299–301; Fleming 47. 117 PHA 14:1083, 39:23, 42, 335–36; Komatsu 318. 118 U.S.Papers/Foreign (1941 vols.) 4:673. 119 Grew (1952) 2:1,248–49; PHA 14:1,184–85, 1,301–02. 120 PHA 14:1,328; Clausen/Lee opp. 262; Stinnett 282; Pogue 209, 228.

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121 PHR 532–36; Morgenstern 43–44. 122 PHA 4:1,915–21, 6:2,518, 14:1,406; 16:2,369, 18:3,173–77; Layton opp. 528; Borch/Martinez 55; Stinnett 283–85; Clausen/Lee op. 262 . 123 Kimmel 5; Winkler/Lloyd 23; Kinney 41–42; PHA 6:2,518, 33:691, 701. 124 PHA 14:1,196–97. 125 Grew (1952) 2:1,248–49; PHA 14:1,184–85, 1,301–02. 126 PHA 12:195; “Testimony of Prime Minister Tojo Before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East Relating to Japan’s Decision to Go to War,” Japanese Monog. 150 App. no. 3, Detwiler/Burdick 2. 127 To¯go¯ 180. 128 Kase 61. 129 U.S.Papers/Japan 2:148. 130 PHA 12:204, 35:673, 39:323, 327; W. Churchill (2000) 1,529–31; Clausen/Lee 360–61; Costello (1994) 308–11; Boyd 35–36; R. Churchill 6:1,265–66; Beach (1995) 49; Kimmel 99. 131 Wohlstetter 249; Lobell 2:677, 705; Tohmatsu/Wilmott 90; R. Aldrich 83, 108–12. The British thought that the only reason Japan would occupy the Kra Isthmus was as a base against Singapore, the threat being thus “so plain that we should have to fight. Opinion in Great Britain and in Australia and New Zealand would require this course and our prestige in the east would not survive refusal,” while “a sharp and bold reaction to the Japanese move would also win sympathy in the United States, and be more likely than anything to bring the United States to our aid.” Llewellyn 2:144. 132 He would not read it until the afternoon of 7 December, by which time it had become irrelevant. Loewenheim/Langley/Jones 167–68; Feis 339–40n. 18; Kimball 119; W. Churchill (1948–53) 3:593. 133 Best (1995) 187–88; U.S.Papers/Foreign Relations (vols. for 1941) 4:688–98, 4:274–75; PHA 14:1,202–23. In August, Roosevelt had acquiesced in Churchill’s request that Nomura be told that “Any further encroachment by Japan in the South-West Pacific” would lead to war with the US. When FDR returned to Washington, however, Hull talked him out of that position as too extreme. Butler 3/1:136–37, 251; Llewellyn 2:147–49; Esthus 31. 134 Terasaki 64–65; Bernard Baruch, Baruch: The Public Years (New York 1960) 288–91. 135 Shepherd 118–25. 136 K. Davis (2000) 274, 277. 137 Fleming 2–38; Ickes 3:659–60; Cook (1978) 68. Whatever the truth of that suggestion, the publication became irrelevant when, three days later, Japan attacked Hawaii, that attack triggering Hitler’s declaration of war. 138 Langer/Gleason 886; Pogue 205; Butow (1961) 336n. 40; W.J. Pratt 386. 139 PHA 14:1403; Mason 17, 20–21; Morley 5:342–44. 140 Layton 247–48, opp. 528; PHA 14:1,407; Costello (1994) 139–46, 326–27; W.J. Pratt 384; Clausen/Lee 258–59; Feis 323–24, 333. 141 PHR 222; Clausen/Lee 326.

3 The last clear chance 1 2 3 4

Kimmel 81, 83; Layton 22. PHA 12:261; PHR 516; Rusbridger/Nave 130; Stinnett 66; Morgenstern 392–94. Toland (1982) 60; Kahn (1991) 55. Costello (1994) ch. 8; Theobald 43–46; Kimmel 129; Prange (1986) 280; Layton 165; Stinnett ch. 7; Morison (1947–62) 3:134–35; May 499; Winkler/Lloyd 54–55, App. D.

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5 Clausen/Lee 320; Kimmel 85. 6 Kahn (1991) 58; David Charles Richardson, “Critical Analysis of the Report of the Department of Defense . . .” in Borch/Martinez 123, 143–44. 7 PHA 12:154–55; US Dept of Defense, The “Magic” Background 5:51–54. Variant weather messages would indicate that the enemy was Great Britain or the Soviets. Clausen/Lee 322, 354; Wohlstetter 51–52; Rusbridger/Nave 135–37, 147–49. 8 PHA 34:1, 4. 9 PHA 34:1, 5; Hixson 4:106. 10 Capt. Laurence F. Safford, a senior cryptanalyst who in December 1941 had headed the Navy’s OP-20–G decryption facility, said he picked it up. Brownlow 113. In a BBC television program produced in 1989, Ralph Briggs stated that he picked it up on the morning of 4 December while monitoring Radio Tokyo at a Navy short-wave station in Maryland. Retired Australian linguist and cryptanalyst Eric Nave said it was picked up in Melbourne. Sacrifice at Pearl Harbor. 11 The most prominent proponent of this conspiracy theory was Capt. Safford. PHA 39:323, 325, 335, 341, 393, 514, 523; Kahn (1991) 58; Layton 32–33, 264–70, 517–23, 551 nn. 102–04; Costello (1994) 160–61, 345–50; Wohlstetter 218–19; Kimmel 101, 126. 12 PHA 35:163–67; Yoshikawa/Stanford 38; Prados 168–69; Morgenstern 209–22; Stinnett 81–82; Clausen/Lee 103, 123–24, 447–70; Toland (1982) 66–69, 94–107, 132–39, 194–245, 322. 13 Brownlow 113. 14 NYT (28 Nov. 1941) 4; NYT (29 Nov. 1941) 3. 15 Budiansky (1999); Burlingame 111. 16 PHA 14:1407–08, 15:1,866; Clausen/Lee 69; Theobald 64–69; Beach (1995) 52; Kahn (1967) 42–45, 129–31. 17 Yoshikawa/Stanford 34; Hixson 4:234; Burlingame 114–16. 18 Clarke chs. 2 and 10; Layton 104; Stinnett 84–97, 339; Yoshikawa/Stanford 39; I.H. Mayfield, “September 1942 corresp. file,” Nimitz/Coll. 19 PHA 15:167–69; Clarke ch. 9; Prange (1988) 38–41. 20 Yasuji Watanabe in U.S.Strategic/Interrogations 1:65; Theobald 88–89; Prange (1981) 43–48; Prange (1988) 22–27. As every sidewalk vendor and juke-joint owner knew, the Fleet tended to go on maneuvers during the week so the sailors could be in Honolulu on weekends. The weekend of 6–7 December happened to be the first time since 4 July that all battleships would be in port simultaneously. 21 Burlingame 93, 188. 22 Pomeroy 156; Layton 225–26; Winkler/Lloyd 51–52; PHA 12:431, 436. 23 Burlingame 195–96. 24 PHA 22:356; Lambert/Polmar 54–55, 83; S. Richardson 20; Beach (1995) 61, 136–38, 178–79; Morgenstern 72; Kimmel 14; Morgenstern 77; Burlingame 95; Borch/Martinez 68–69; Lambert/Polmar 38–39, 55; Stone 495; Sherman/Turner (15 Jan. 1942), “January 1942” file, box 1, King/Coll.; Kimmel 68; PHA 6:2,532– 35; Gailey (1995) 83–84. 25 Prange (1981) 43–48; Clausen/Lee 130; Pogue 215; Clausen/Lee 233; Brownlow 88–89. 26 Burlingame 16–17; Okihiro ch. 8. 27 Wohlstetter 403–10; Stinnett 289; PHA 35:149; Clausen/Lee 86–91, 203; Morton (1962) 121; Prange (1981) ch. 8 and pp. 403–04. 28 www.ibiblio.org/pha/pha/misc/x18–151.html; Stinnett 346–47n. 31; Goldstein/ Dillon 154; Beach (1995) 43; Layton 78. A decryption made in 1945 included a US interpretive commentary: “NIITAKAYAMA [on Formosa] is the highest

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29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

45

46

mountain in the Japanese Empire. To climb NIITAKAYAMA is to accomplish one of the greatest feats.” The 1945 decryption is in Layton opp. 528 and in Rusbridger/Nave App. 6. The gist of the work coauthored by Eric Nave, a retired cryptanalyst and linguist who as an officer in the Royal Australian Navy had worked at Singapore’s decryption bureau, and journalist James Rusbridger, is that the NIITAKAYAMA message was probably decrypted both by the US Navy and by the British, then later expunged from their respective records. Stinnett argues that this message was intercepted at Hawaii, Guam and Corregidor, that it was either in plain language or in one of the naval codes that had been cracked, that it was in reaction to it that Adm. Hart removed his ships from Manila, but that Cmdr. Joseph J. Rochefort of the Station HYPO radio monitoring post in Hawaii, and Lt.-Cmdr. Edwin Layton, intelligence officer for the Pacific Fleet, did not provide it to Kimmel. Stinnett 218–24, 367–69; Best (2002) 110–22, 174–81; Kahn (2000); Costello (1994) 319–23; R. Aldrich chs. 2–4. PHA 14:1,246–48. Theobald 94–95; “Malaya Invasion Naval Operations (Revised Edition),” Japanese Monog. 107, Detwiler/Burdick 4. Theobald 94–98. Costello (1994) 200; PHA 10:4,660–63, 12:238–48; Clausen/Lee 342–50; Weintraub 33–34; Theobald 97–100. Kahn (1967) 52–53; Wohlstetter, 374–76. Terasaki 66–69; U.S.Papers/Foreign (1941 vols.) 4:520; F. Roosevelt (1942) 544; U.S.Papers/Foreign 2:784–86; PHA 14:1,224–45; Black 678–79; Cray 251; Love (1995) 160. Hill 150–52; Prange (1988) 57–60; Weintraub 175; Kahn (1967) 58–59; Grew (1952) 2:1,249–50; Komatsu 325–27; To¯go¯ 218–22; Coffey 3–7. Weintraub 175–76, 188–89, 234–35; Heinrichs (1966) 357–58. PHR 529; PHA 14:1415; Clausen/Lee 80–85, 162–80, 195–96, 259–61, 397–98. To¯go¯ 206; Butow (1961) 384; Prange (1988) 60. Prange (1981) 485–89; Stinnett 231–33; PHA 14:1406; PHR 529; Clausen/Lee 216–19. Weintraub 78; Eichelberger (1950) 199–200; Layton 85, 105–06, 253, 269–70; www.fas.org/irp/ops/ci/docs/ci2/2ch2_a.htm#terasaki; Kahn (1967) 51; Prange (1988) 9; Feis 336–37. PHA 12:238–39; Morley 5:337–39; Toland (1961) 13; Prange (1981) 446; Hixson 3:155; Agawa 274. Prange (1981) 489–90. PHA 10:5082–83; Esthus 34–35; G.H. Gill 462–63. Indeed, Costello characterizes Roosevelt’s promise to Halifax as “arguably unconstitutional.” Costello (1994) 10, 41, 62–89, 139–46, 326–27. Anecdotal evidence from 6 December of an American commitment to intervene if Japan attacked the East Indies or the Kra Isthmus is found in PHA 9:4,566, 10:5,082– 83, 14:1,247–48; J. Moore 14–18. Winant 275–76. At 1430 on 7 December (Malaya time), eleven hours prior to the landing of Japanese transports off Kota Bharu, Japanese planes shot down a reconnaissance Catalina which had been searching for those transports. This was arguably the “first shot” fired against the Allies. G.H. Gill 475. Layton 132–37, opp. 528 and ch. 22; Reynolds (1981) 246–47; Tansill 639–40; W.J. Pratt 384; Clausen/Lee 258–59; Feis 323–24, 333. At 2045 GMT on the night of 6 December, Britain sent Thailand a promise of coming to its aid if it refused to cooperate with Japan. At 2300 on 7 December (Thailand time), the Japanese minister at Bangkok said that if Thailand joined Japan it would regain provinces lost to Malaya. Since the Thai prime minister was not in town, no decision was

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47 48 49 50

51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59

60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71

72 73 74 75 76

made. Several hours later, Japan landed on the Kra Peninsula. At noon on 8 December, Thailand formally allowed the Japanese troops to enter. Llewellyn 2:175. K. Marshall 99. PHA 34:1, 5–7; PHR 530; Kimmel 142; Kahn (1967) 60–61. PHA 14:1,334; G. Marshall 3:7; Brownlow 117. PHR 224; PHA 3:1,112, 15:1,640, 18:3,012; Stinnett 291; Weintraub 212; Butow (1961) 376–78. In 1944 a Navy court of inquiry concluded that Stark, by not keeping Kimmel informed of late-breaking developments, “failed to display the sound judgment expected of him.” PHA 16:2,268, 2,333. PHA 39:231, 259–61. Stinnett 291, 363n. 8. Toland (1961) 43, 56; Prange (1981) 502; Weintraub 229. Burlingame 159–86. Although the sub’s crew had been trained in this technique, in this instance it had not been necessary, since the nets had been negligently left open since before 0500 and would not be resealed until 0840. LaForte/Marchell 6; http://hometown.aol.com/warddd139/Edward_story.html. PHA 23:1,034–38; 36:55–58, 267–70. PHA 22:319; Prange (1988) 69–78, 91–93; Kimmel 7–8, 75–77; Burlingame ch. 13. On prior alleged contacts with Japanese submarines, see Burlingame chs. 7–8. See Burlingame ch. 6. Kawahara 113; Buchanan 68, 73; “Subject: Sinking of a Japanese Submarine by USS. Ward” (13 Dec. 1941), www.mdva.state.mn.us/Decup03.htm; Prange (1981) 496–98; Burlingame ch. 16, 429–36; Morison (1947–62) 3:95–98; Morgenstern 33. Burlingame ch. 5, 206–7, 242–53, 269–71; Buchanan 68, 72. Burlingame 425–29. See Burlingame xiii, 198–99, 278–81, 417–18; John Rodgaard, Peter K. Hsu, Carroll L. Lucas and Andrew Biache, “Pearl Harbor – Attack from Below,” Naval History 13/6:5 (Dec. 1999). Cray 255. Morgenstern 71; PHA 39:23, 146–73, 177–219; Wohlstetter 8n. 7; Simmonds/ Smith 17–18; Clausen/Lee 92; Lambert/Polmar 61–64. Lockard, www.ieeee.org/organizations/history_center/milestones_photos/ lockard.html; Elliott, www.pearl-harbor.com/georgeelliott/; Wohlstetter 11n. 17; Lord (1957) 45; Morison (1961) 20. PHA 10:5,027, 19:3,435. Wohlstetter 9; PHA 39:23, 106; Prange (1988) 36; Lambert/Polmar 65, 119–22. PHA 17:531–33, 568–70, 18:13,501, 13,510–12; Buchanan 62–63. R. Sullivan 174. Love (1995) 151; Bartsch 194–95, 243; Prange (1988) 46, 79–82. Cf. Stinnett 317n. 19. PHR 140–41; Honolulu Star-Bulletin (6 Dec. 1956) 9; Toland (1961) 39–41; Prange (1981) 500; Craven/Cate 1:194, 197; Weintraub 221–22; Morison (1947– 62) 3:137–38. Thirteen planes had taken off, but one turned back to Hamilton Field. R. Sullivan 174; Buchanan 61–62. Agawa 256; Fuchida 11; Coffey 9; Agawa 226–27; Prange (1990) 26; Yoshimura 117–19. Agawa 255; LaForte/Marchell 22; Prange (1990) 35; Morison (1947–62) 3:100– 01. Others report the first bomb as having landed six minutes earlier. Toland (1961) 52; Morison (1947–62) 3:101n. 39. Gailey (1995) 88; PHA 1:326–27; Yoshikawa/Stanford 36; Peattie 94; Shepherd 141.

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77 Okumiya/Horikoshi 78; Buchanan 68, 70; Peattie 139–47; Shepherd 118–27; 153; Goldstein/Dillon 17; PHR 55; O’Connor (1969) 2, 6. 78 Ernest Read, “Shot Down at Pearl Harbor,” Air Force Mag. (Dec. 1991); Prange (1988) 192; PHA 22:45–50, 39:23, 96–97, 297, 310–11. 79 PHA 14:345–57; US Navy Department, Ships’ Data: US Naval Vessels July 1, 1935 (Washington 1935) v; Larrabee 165; Toland (1961) 47. Utah (19,800 tons) had long since been relegated to target-practice exercises. 80 Morison (1947–62) 3:103–06, 143–44; LaForte/Marchell 63–64; Prange (1988) 31–32, 147–48. Of 1,500 men, 105 died. Three men survived inside for sixteen days, writing a diary on the bulkhead, their bodies being later found by salvage crews. 81 Hull 2:1,095–96; Prange (1981) 553–54; Butow (1961) 401–02; Beard 212; Kato 60; U.S.Papers/Japan 2:786. 82 Butow (1961) 384; F. Roosevelt (1942) 546–51; U.S.Papers/Japan 2:380–84; To¯go¯ 200–07; Kato 24; Hull 2:1,096; PHR 439–40. Compare Japanese Monog. 150, App. no. 6, 114, Detwiler/Burdick 2; ibid. 21–22. This well honed version may have been adjusted from the “native Tennesseean” Hull might have used. Ketchum 767. 83 PHA 16:2,309, 2,373; 18:3,012–13; PHR 223–26; Clarke 188–89; Furer 100; Lord (1957) 174–75; Morton (1962) 123–24; Toland (1961) 56; Pogue 228–30; Matloff/ Snell 79–80; Brownlow 143. 84 PHR 146; “Pearl Harbor Errors of Japan Cited by Nimitz,” Los Angeles Times (18 Feb. 1965); Hixson 4:12–14; Beach (1986) 447; Hoyt (1986) 235; Kirby (1957–69) 1:100. 85 Adm. Matome Ugaki quoted in Carpenter 141. 86 As of December 1941, Japan owned only 60 percent of the merchant tonnage necessary for its needs. Willmott (1999) 72. Moreover, 63 percent of Japan’s merchant fleet had been committed to military use. Michel 327. Thus, on a logistical basis, there is no way Japan could have survived a war of any duration. Of 6.8 million tons of Japanese merchant shipping sunk other than by mines laid later by B-29 bombers, submarines were responsible for 4.8 million tons. Bischof/Dupont 81; G.H. Gill 468. Cf. U.S.Strategic/Japan 11, 14. 87 Michael Handel, “Intelligence and the Problem of Strategic Surprise” in Betts/ Mahnken 1, 2. 88 Elizabeth McLeod (23 March 2000) at http://members.aol.com/jeff1070/ war.html; Schrijvers 76. 89 W. Churchill (1948–53) 3:604–05. Newsman Robert Trout, substituting for Edward R. Murrow in CBS’s news studio at the BBC, was the first person in Britain to know of the attack, having overheard it on an open telephone line to CBS’s New York studio. Within minutes of hearing the BBC broadcast, Winant telephoned Trout from Chequers, furious that his first response to the news had been to broadcast it rather than to contact the Embassy. Ketchum 769. Rusbridger and Nave argue that at 1415 Washington time, almost two hours before Churchill turned on the news in the presence of Harriman and Winant, Roosevelt telephoned Halifax with news of the attack, instructing him (obviously) to contact Churchill immediately. The authors suggest that Halifax found Churchill and that Churchill thus knew of the attack before dinner but did not tell Winant and Harriman, then play-acted with them by turning on the 9 o’clock news and pretending he was hearing it for the first time. Rusbridger/ Nave 152–53. See also Llewellyn 2:177n1. Just what a British prime minister might hope to achieve by such a bizarre, amateurish ruse, the authors do not venture to guess. Their far-fetched scenario does no credit to their assertions that the British had by this time cracked the Imperial Navy’s JN-25B code and

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90 91

92 93 94 95 96

that Churchill knew Pearl Harbor was about to be attacked but – in order to insure US intervention in the war – did not tell Roosevelt. Compare Costello (1994) 324–29. Weintraub 340. W. Churchill (1948–53) 3:606–08. Excerpt from The Grand Alliance by Winston S. Churchill. Copyright 1950 by Houghton Mifflin Co., © renewed 1977 by Lady Spencer-Churchill, The Honourable Lady Sarah Audley and The Honourable Lady Soames. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Dallek 311; Frances Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew (New York 1946) 368–69, 377–80. W. Churchill (2000) 1579, 1,585, 1,595, 1,611. Patrick Hearden, Roosevelt Confronts Hitler (Dekalb, IL 1987) 221. K. Davis (2000) 352. Eden 315: Had the Nazi and Fascist powers held their hand, the total American effort must have been directed to the Pacific, leaving Russia in Europe and the British forces in North Africa to bear alone, for some years at least, the military might which Hitler and his satellites could have hurled against them.

97 98 99 100

101

102 103 104 105

106 107

See also Hans Louis Trefousse, Germany and American Neutrality 1939–1941 (New York 1951) 148–51. Gilbert 711–12. King/Whitehill 361; Matloff/Snell 114–48; “Project Gymnast” (26 Dec. 1941) in U.S.Papers/Foreign 240; Eisenhower (1970) 1:19–20; Black 695–713; K. Davis (2000) ch. 7; Dyer 1:234–35; Butler 3/2:669; 3/1:349–401. Twining (1992) 84. Mahnken 75–80; Best (2002) 147, 167; Zacharoff; May 477; Fleming 44–45, 456, 460–75; R. Aldrich 63–64; Kinney 49; Hixson 3:16, 22–23, 6:46; Honan (1991) ch. 20. “American aviation excels Japanese aviation in every branch. . . . In design, contemporary American planes are faster, more maneuverable and embody later improvements . . . . American personnel have more natural aptitude for flying. . . .” Puleston 231. Brownlow 126. Although the Wehrmacht had advanced into Moscow’s suburbs, on 6 December, in temperatures approaching –35°, Stalin committed 100 divisions on three fronts and soon drove the Germans back 175 miles. By the end of January the Wehrmacht’s casualties totaled 918,000. Bartsch 95; Gole 42; Feis 263; Hayes 17; S. Richardson 21; Borg/Okamoto 181–83; Waldo Heinrichs (1988) 130–31; Bischof/Dupont 19; Drea (1998) 29; Morison (1947–62) 3:153. Costello (1994) ch. 2; Layton 90; Borg/Okamoto 185. Zacharias ch. 24; May 460, 473; USP&W 772, 775; Grew (1952) 2:1,279–82; Morison (1961) 20; F. Jones 316n. 3; Ike 245–46. Benedict 22; Coffey 128; Feis 293. There were other reactions. In Tokyo, Robert Guillain, watching commuters as they read the morning papers the day after the attack, noted that no one said anything. “I know them well enough to understand their reactions; under their assumed impassivity they can barely control their stupefaction and consternation. They wanted this war and yet they did not want it. They talked about it all the time, out of bravado and in imitation of their leaders, but they never really believed in it. . . . Tokyo is afraid, the Japanese are panic-stricken by their own daring.” Quoted in Flower/Reeves 287. U.S.Papers/Japan 2:793; Rosenberg (2003) 86; PHA 14:1,229. F. Roosevelt (1942) 552; USP&W 842, 846–47.

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108 Morley 5:332–33; F. Jones 320–21n. 6; Bergamini 848. 109 Pineau 8; Kaltenborn 50–51. Dallek (p. 76) refers to Hull’s previous eight years of lecturing to Japan about “principles of good behavior.” Marks (p. 48), assessing Hull’s many years as secretary of state, concludes that Hull neither understood Japan’s problems, nor cared to. See also Ketchum 221, 224. 110 H.M. Smith 86; Amea Willoughby, I Was on Corregidor (New York 1943) 71; Lawson 12. 111 Bergamini 806–09, 827–33; Shigeru Fukudome interviewed in US News and World Report (11 Dec. 1961) 65; To¯go¯ 118–19, 197–98; Kase 64; Prados 159–60. 112 Theobald 57; Layton 219; Kato 36, 60; Fleisher (1942) 167–69; Butow (1961) 401n. 70; PHR 56; Nomura in U.S.Strategic/Interrogations 2:384, 386. See also Ketchum 775n3. 113 Frederick Moore 170–71, 247–48; Langer/Gleason 856–58; Cray 221; Lawrence 231, 242, 270–71. 114 Grew (1952) 2:1,249–74; Japanese Monog. 150 App. no. 7, 116, Detwiler/ Burdick 2. 115 James Vosseller, “Checking the Japanese Record,” US Naval Institute Proceedings 68/4:515 (April 1942).

4 The long postmortem 1 Greenfield (1959) 88, 94; U.S.Papers/Foreign 265–66; Butler 3/2:670; NYT (24 Feb. 1942) 1; Dorwart (1983) 184; Black 720–25; Burlingame chs. 25–26; Webber chs. 1, 2 and 4; Lawson 15–16. 2 Stephan 99. A nisei is a person of Japanese ancestry, born and raised in the US. 3 G. Marshall 3:90n. 1. 4 Hixson 3:125; Thorne (1978) 3–5; Schroeder 200; R. Aldrich 85; W. Churchill (1948–53) 3:53; May 497; Lobell 2:677, 704; Prange (1981) 35; Lawrence 274; Morison (1958) 67; Morison (1947–62) 3:132; James (1986) 707–08. 5 Hixson 4:17, 70–71; Luttwak 247–49. 6 Hixson 3:148–49; Tohmatsu/Wilmott 98–99; Ike 130–34; Byas 81. 7 The hearing and evidence consume Parts 22–25 of PHA. The Report is found in ibid. 39:1; F. Roosevelt (1947–50) 2:1,253–55. 8 Kimmel (1955) 178–79; Layton 352; Toland (1982) 42; Hixson 4:163–64. Although King said he thought Kimmel and Short “were ‘sold down the river’ as a political expedient,” this was not a conclusion he was likely to repeat to Roosevelt. 9 Costello (1994) 253–54; Kimmel 150; Morgenstern 42–43; Brownlow 150–57. 10 PHA 26:21, 225–34, 489; 39:297, 320, 321. The Proceedings of the Naval Court of Inquiry consume Parts 32 and 33 of PHA. See also ibid. 16:2,267; Morgenstern viii. 11 PHA 39:335, 342, 354; New York Herald Tribune (10 Nov. 1948); Toland (1982) 125; Costello (1994) 254. 12 PHA 39:23, 103–05, 137–46, 175–76, 221. The Proceedings of the Army Pearl Harbor Board consume Parts 27–31 of PHA. 13 PHA 35:13, 14, 17; Clausen/Lee 29–31; Toland (1982) 131–43. 14 PHA 34:1; “Random Notes,” undated (circa Nov. 1950?), box 8, file 14, Buell/ Coll. 15 Toland (1982) 145–46; Hewitt report, PHA 39:393, 512, 524. Adm. Hewitt’s inquiry consumes Parts 36–38 of PHA. The conclusions of the inquiries of the Naval Court and of Adms. Hart and Hewitt are conveniently printed in tandem in ibid. 36:365–574; the endorsements of King and Forrestal are in “Report of Navy Board of Inquiry,” 39:355–88.

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16 Henry Clausen concluded that the scrambler telephone line had in fact been compromised. Clausen/Lee 136; Schom 131–33. 17 Brownlow 162. While 60.2 percent of those who voted for Thomas E. Dewey in the 1944 election believed Pearl Harbor should be blamed on “politicians” rather than on the military, only 36 percent of those who voted for FDR felt that way. Fortune 32/6:303 (Dec. 1945). 18 PHR 497–501. 19 PHR 493, 505, 539–43. 20 Prange (1988) 5. 21 PHA 35:139; PHR 527–30; Layton 554–55n. 229; Prange (1988) 30–33, 64–65; Tansill 651; Cray 251n; G. Marshall 2:633. Marshall’s wife had an opportunity to set the record straight, but her 1946 memoir fails to mention whether he was at home or not that evening. K. Marshall 98–99. 22 Whether that night the thirteen parts came into the hands of Marshall’s subordinate, Col. Walter Bedell Smith, was never satisfactorily resolved. Cf. PHA 39:221, 225–29. 23 Clausen/Lee 80–85, 162–80, 195–96, 259–61, 397–98; Costello (1994) ch. 9. 24 Costello (1994) 209–10, 247–48, 401n. 56, 405n. 19; Brownlow 143; Layton 290– 92, 331–35; Prange (1988) 31–32. 25 Beach (1995) 77–98, 167–68; Costello (1994) 207–11, 405n. 19; Toland (1982) 320n. 4. 26 Love (1995) 145, 162; Clausen/Lee 309. 27 Morgenstern 310–11, 327. See also Flynn (1944) 28. In 1992 Henry Clausen, the ex-prosecutor who elicited many of those changes in testimony, provided a different interpretation, believing that by his cross-examination he had purged falsehoods and recovered the complete truth: that there was no conspiracy. Clausen/Lee. 28 Kimmel x, 147–58, 168–69; PHA 22:317–18; Theobald 41. 29 Kimmel 45, 109–11. 30 Burlingame 188. 31 Nimitz (1958); San Francisco Chronicle 5 (8 Nov. 1962); Winkler/Lloyd 23–24; Watts/Gordon 40–48; Hoyt (2000) 56–57; Adams 650–51; Morison notes in “Notes from Guadalcanal” file, box 25, Morison/Coll. Even the new North Carolina and Washington, both commissioned in 1941, could do only 26.8 knots. While reports correctly put Japan’s revamped Nagato-class battleships at slightly below that speed, the reboilered Kongo¯-class battleships reportedly could do 30 knots, a fact unknown to the US Navy prior to Guadalcanal. Hixson 3:22, 6:44–45; Puleson 179–80; Mahnken 66–67; Morison (1947–62) 3:88. 32 Kimmel 169; www.metropulse.com/dir_2003/1349/t_secret.html; Brownlow 112. 33 Brownlow 179. 34 Goldstein/Dillon 278, 282; www2u.biglobe.ne.jp/~taro/navalcom.3.html; Budiansky (2000) 8, 217–18; Budiansky (1999); Prados 171; Costello (1994) 409n. 28; Clausen/Lee 44. 35 In 1982 John Toland claimed to have found evidence that on the nights of 30 November through 2 December, a radio operator on the Matson liner Lurline managed by Radio Direction Finding Bearings to locate Nagumo’s force moving toward Hawaii. Toland (1982) 279–81. Toland’s thesis was further popularized in a 1989 BBC program, Sacrifice at Pearl Harbor. See also Layton 261–62; Prados 172–73; Costello (1994) 353–54. An even bolder speculation is that a Russian merchant ship had spotted Nagumo’s force on its way to Hawaii and forwarded that information to Churchill, who forwarded it to Roosevelt. PostSoviet glasnost has revealed nothing to substantiate this theory.

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36 Budiansky (1999). See also PHA 18:3,336; Layton 231–34, 547–48n. 27; Costello (1994) 294; Kahn (1991) 57; Winkler/Lloyd 42. 37 Costello (1994) ch. 8; PHA 5:2,498; Layton 20–21, 94, 139–43; Clausen/Lee 122; Gailey (1995) 80; Beach (1995) 10–11, 37; Toland (1982) 95–97; Wohlstetter 322. 38 Beach (1995) 50–52; Costello (1994) 336, ch. 13; Layton 94–95; D. Stafford 117. “[We] gave ourselves to cryptography,” one wrote, “with the same ascetic devotion with which young men enter a monastery.” Kahn (1991) 52. 39 Rusbridger/Nave (138–39 and ch. 9) assert that by November 1941 the British had decrypted JN-25B and thus intercepted and read Yamamoto’s 25 November (Tokyo date) order stating where in the mid-Pacific Nagumo’s force should rendezvous on 3 December. Layton, Pineau and Costello, however, assert that the coordinates for that rendezvous were not decoded and thus would provide no hint of an attack on Pearl Harbor. Layton 207, 339–40. See also Drea (1993) 27–31; M. Smith; R. Aldrich ch. 5. Regarding Nave and Australian intelligence generally, see Horner (1982) ch. 10. 40 Benson (7, 20) states that MacArthur’s intelligence unit was working to crack JN-25B, in conjunction with the British code-breaking unit in Singapore. Stinnet, in support of his argument that by the fall of 1941 the Americans, British, Dutch and Chinese could all decipher JN-25B, offers Hart’s 5 March 1941 dispatch to Stark indicating that the British in Singapore had solved a version of JN-25 and that Stark’s intelligence people were exchanging data with the British. Elsewhere, however (324n. 18), Stinnett admits: “There is no reliable evidence, found by the author, that establishes how much of the 5–Num [JN-25] text could be deciphered, translated, and read by naval cryptographers in 1941.” 41 Stinnett, www.independent.org/tii/news/030214Stinnett.html; Stinnett 16–22, 43–44, 71–82, 109, 162–68, 183–88, 207–09, 292, 300–01, 316–17, 321–23, 328–31, 342, 344, 364–65. 42 R. Aldrich ch. 5; Best (1995) 190–97; Best (2002) 186–87. Warren F. Kimball (345n. 32) has urged Great Britain to open its files as a way to lay to rest the “dubious accusations of Rusbridger and Nave.” 43 The Secret War Against Hitler (Washington 1988) 7–9; Clausen/Lee 47–48; R. Aldrich 87. 44 Less dramatic is Sir Julian Ridsdale’s telling historian Richard J. Aldrich that, once Japan’s fleet went silent, he and other British intelligence officers met, decided Pearl Harbor was one of the likely targets, and sent a telegram to Washington to that effect. Aldrich’s brief account does not suggest that the telegram (of which no copy is known) derived from anything other than the logic which the Americans should themselves have applied. R. Aldrich 87–88. 45 Clausen/Lee 44, 353–93. 46 To¯go¯ 61, 151–52; Alvarez 100–01. 47 Nimitz (1965); Wallin ch. 13; Coale 86–88; Morison (1947–62) 3:144–45. 48 Mitchell 120; Weighley ch. 11; Brodie (1942) 427–28; Puleson 178. 49 Hixson 4:1; Lundstrom (1976) 83; Morison (1947–62) 4:82.

5 The course of empire 1 Morison (1947–62) 3:151–52; Rogers ch. 11; Hunt 208–09. 2 Budiansky (2000) 10. 3 Craven/Cate 204–05; Love (1995) 111, 123; Schaller (1989) 55–57; Costello (1994) ch. 12; Rogers ch. 10. 4 Manchester (1978) 206–11. Cf. Rogers 94–95; Hampton Sides, Ghost Soldiers (New York 2001) 42; Hunt 137. 5 Brereton 39n. 10; Costello (1994) 22–41.

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6 James (1970–85) 2:15. MacArthur stated in 1954 that he had never entertained any doubt that Japan would attack the Philippines. 7 Hunt 227–28. Cf. James (1970–85) 2:6–9; Donald Knox (1981) 11. 8 Willoughby/Chamberlain 25–26; Baldwin (1976) 388; Schom ch. 10. As Bartsch (230) points out, MacArthur well knew that similar missions were being run elsewhere, and with Washington’s blessing. 9 G. Marshall 3:8; Bartsch 184–85, 276–83. 10 Bartsch 413. 11 Bartsch 261, 279, 303, 409–14; Jonathan Wainwright, General Wainwright’s Story (Garden City 1946) 20; Okumiya/Horikoshi 84–85. 12 Of six that lifted off, four were shot down. Spector (1988) 43, 52–53, 58; Yoshimura 125–26, 136. 13 Okumiya/Horikoshi 85; C. Lee 49. 14 O’Connor (1969) 34–36; Brereton 41–43, 64; Bartsch 383. 15 Friend (1965) 6, 17–18, 76, 181 and ch. 16; G. Wheeler 30–31. 16 Romulo 35–36, 76; C. Lee 45. 17 Sutherland had thought that some of the newly arrived B-17 bombers should be dispersed by flying them to Del Monte. Bartsch 211–12. Why they were not is unclear. By one version of events, MacArthur had ordered sixteen transferred, but his order was temporarily ignored so their pilots could attend a party in Brereton’s honor at Manila’s most fashionable hotel. Willoughby/Chamerlain 23–25; Sherman 45–46; Craven/Cate 204–06; Perret 247–54; Toland (1961), ch. 3. But Bartsch’s definitive account (47–48, 413) indicates that the airmen holding the party flew A-24s, not B-17s, and had not yet received their planes. Bartsch asserts that on 28 November Brereton (not MacArthur) had ordered all of Clark’s thirty-five B-17s to the south, although that order was rescinded on 2 December. 18 By 17 December they were flying from Del Monte to Batchelor Field near Darwin, Australia early every morning, returning to Del Monte only after dark. Van der Vat (1991) 24; Brereton 54–58; Costello (1981) 142; Morton (1962) 135–36; Gailey (1995) 112–14. 19 Bartsch chs. 7–12 and p. 415; Simmonds/Smith 18, 28; H.G. Tyson in Donald Knox (1981) 16. 20 Craven/Cate 210–11; James (1970–85) 2, ch. 1; Larrabee 316; Rogers 95–98; Costello (1994) ch. 1; Morison (1961) 20; Schom 149–50. If, Bartsch asserts (412), MacArthur had approved Brereton’s 0500 request, the B-17s would have been airborne by 0630 and would have arrived over Kaohsiung at 0930, with the overnight fog burning off and the Japanese planes still on the ground, fully fueled and ordnanced. 21 MacArthur (1964) 117; Hunt 223–26. 22 Regan 105. 23 James (1987) 35–36; King/Whitehill 294. Only aviators wore brown shoes. 24 Roosevelt, Reorganization of the Navy Department 12 March 1942 in “March 1942” file, box 2, King/Coll.; Larrabee 171, 194; Love (1992) 2:8. 25 King thought a good naval officer had to be a son-of-a-bitch, and once admonished a battleship commander for not being one. Larrabee 153, 175; Lord (1957) 37. 26 Roosevelt/King (12 Aug. 1942), coll. 37, box 4, folder 3, Buell/Coll.; F. Roosevelt (1947–50) 2:1,339; Schom 151–63. 27 Gordon Gayle, Brig-Gen. USMCR, personal communication (15 June 2004) 28 Griffith 5; Van der Vat (1991) 144; Buell (1980) 222. 29 Furer App. 1; Regan 105–6; D’Este 296–97. 30 Cray 265; Eisenhower (1970) 1:5–6; Morton (1953) 153–54; D’Este 285;

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31 32 33

34

35 36 37 38 39 40 41

42 43 44 45

46 47 48 49 50 51

52 53

Manchester (1978) 241–42; Buell notes (14 Aug. 1949), box 4, folder 3, Buell/ Coll.; Drea (1993) 22. Van der Vat (1991) 56. W. Churchill (2000) 1,578n. 3; Best (2002) 192; Best (1995) 141–44; Kirby (1971) 134–35; Nish (2002) 163; Toland (1961) 33. US Cong. H.R., US Navy Department, Report on Need of Additional Naval Bases to Defend the Coasts of the United States, Its Territories, and Possessions, Doc. no. 65 76th Cong. 1st Sess. (3 Jan. 1939) 27; Pomeroy 124–46; S. Howarth (1991) 366–67. Larrabee 167; Morton (1962) 42–43; Morton (1959) 249–50; Tuleja ch. 7; Morison (1947–62) 3:32–34; Love (1992) 1:609–10. In 1941 a naval expert concluded that at 12½ knots ships steaming from Honolulu could reach Guam in 11 days but would take 15 to reach Manila. In some instances the shorter distance would mean no mid-ocean refueling. Puleson 163. Morison (1947–62) 3:184; Hough/Ludwig/Shaw 75–76; Van der Vat (1991) 27; Gailey (1995) 108–09. US Marine Corps, The Defense of Wake 3; Okumiya/Horikoshi ch. 10; E. Miller 1–2–3; Rottman 266–67; Hixson 6:56, 58. Bell 10; Loewenheim/Langley/Jones 163; R. Churchill 6:1,258; Dockrill 26, 32. Roskill (1954–56) 1:559. G.H. Gill 478, 482. Okumiya/Horikoshi ch. 9; Yoshimura 129; Denis Richards and Hilary St. George Saunders, The Fight Avails, vol. 2 of Royal Air Force 1939–1945 (London 1974) 25–27; Brown/Bruner 46; G.H. Gill 481; Field 227. Kirby (1957–59) 1:182–99; Mitchell 123; Ashbrook Lincoln, “The United States Navy and the Rise of the Doctrine of Air Power,” Military Affairs 11/3:145 (Fall 1951). Two Japanese observers were present at Mitchell’s famous demonstration. Best (2002) 188. Okumiya/Horikoshi 121; Yoshimura. MacArthur (1964) 121–22. Michel 331; Love (1992) 2:14; Butler 3/1:366–88; Bell 50–56, 88–94; Lionel Wigmore, The Japanese Thrust (Canberra 1957) App. 2, 646; Hayes 13–15; Ross (1992) 4:111–46; Eisenhower (1970) 1:57; Black 695–713; Thorpe 64–66; Pelz 221; Roskill (1954–56) l:560. Cf. Tohmatsu/Wilmott 119. S. Smith (1966) 73; Stone 88–96; G. Johnston (1943) 28–33, 55–56; Milner 6–7; Gillison ch. 18; Hough 27; Kawahara 115; R. Churchill 7: ch. 4. Craven/Cate 1, ch. 10. Morton (1962) 177–78; Love in S. Howarth (1992) 81; Roskill (1954–56) 2:12. Gillison ch. 22; Okumiya/Horikoshi 127–28; Gailey (1995) 134–40. Dockrill 44–45; G.H. Gill 424; Kirby (1971) 142–51; Shepherd 4–10, 23. G. Johnston (1944) ch. 8; Milner 3–4; U.S.Papers/Foreign (1941 vols.) 5:302, 390; New South Wales Legislative Council Hansard Art. No. 22 (5 May 1992); Hasluck (1970) 55–69, 131–32; J. Moore 25–26; Bell 35–50; Hunt 245; G. Johnston (1944) 79, 92–93; Butler 3/1:367; Kaltenborn 37; Gailey (2000) 12–13; Horner (1982) chs. 1–3; Charrier in Hosoya/Nish 3:222. Curtin’s statement was quoted in the Melbourne Herald and other sources in several variants. Many constituents agreed with his sense that Britain had misled Australia. Penglase/Horner 69. W. Churchill (1948–53) 4:57–59; Horner (1978) 17–37; Tuchman 244; J. Moore 3–4. Reynolds (1981) 223–25; W. Churchill (1948–53) 4:100.

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54 Argyle ch. 3; Dockrill 46; Kirby (1971) xiii; Tohmatsu/Wilmott 126; Butler 3/2 ch. 16; W. Churchill 4:92; Louis 7. 55 Tohmatsu/Wilmott 126–27. 56 Horner (1978) 38; Gillespie 68; Hayes 164–66; Hasluck (1970) 27–30; Halsey/ Bryan 68–69. 57 Horner (1978) 50; J. Moore 90–91; MacArthur (1964) 140–41; Bell 70–77; Perret 272–73; James (1987) 62; Manchester (1978) 251–53. 58 Bell ch. 3. 59 One World (New York 1943) 104. 60 W. Churchill 4:157–58; Gillison ch. 21; Tuchman 246–47, 366–67; Murray/Millett 197–98; Gillison ch. 25; Llewellyn 2:95–108. 61 Bo¯eicho¯ 49:354; Japanese Monog. 152, 55–67, Detwiler/Burdick 2; Monog. 105, ibid. 4. 62 Drea (1998) 29; Morison (1947–62) 3:153; James (1970–85) 1:594–610; Manchester (1978) 218–21; Borg/Okamoto 165, 181–82. 63 Allison Ind, Bataan (New York 1944) 240; Morton (1962) 150; Greenfield (1959) 110, 111; F. Roosevelt (1942) 615–16; Bischof/Dupont 21. 64 Hayes 35; Wohlstetter 248–50; G. Marshall 3:108–09; Thorpe 62; Pogue 209, 213; Perret 245; Eisenhower (1970) 1:113n. 2; Hunt 236.

6 Bataan through Midway 1 PHA 16:2,107, 2,108, 2,122; Ewing 45–46; Belote/Belote ch. 2; PHA 1:326; 16:2,023, 2,039. 2 PHA 6:2537; Kinney 44–47; E. Stafford 4, 10–11; Kimmel 72; “Notes from Guadalcanal” file, box 25, Morison/Coll. 3 Lundstrom (1984) 3–11; Jordan 123; Custer 34. 4 Hughes 93; Guy Robbins, The Aircraft Carrier Story (London 2001) 152–53; Hammel (1987) 89. 5 Liddell Hart (1954) 333–35 and ch. 21; Lundstrom (1976) 196; Eisenhower (1970) 1:66. 6 Butler 3/2:669, 3/1:358; King/Whitehill 364n. 5; Buell (1980) 531–33; Gillespie 68; Halsey/Bryan 68–69; Kirby (1957–69) 2:221–22. 7 “February 1942” file, box 1, King/Coll. Eisenhower (1981) 48; Eisenhower (1970) 1:112; Matloff/Snell 154–55. Knox, whose military experience consisted of his membership in Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, neither understood naval strategy nor was privy to the world-altering decisions King was now making. It was even said Knox was barred from certain rooms in the Navy Department. Drew Pearson, “Navy Led Charmed Life Over 50–Year Period,” Philadelphia Bulletin (2 Nov. 1949). 8 Eisenhower (1970) 1:149–60; Morton (1962) 218; Lundstrom (1976) 50–51. 9 “March 1942” file, box 2, King/Coll.; Heinl 341–42; Lundstrom (1976) 51–52; Loxton/Coulthard-Clark 25–26; Morison (1947–62) 4:246. 10 King/Roosevelt, 5 March 1942, March 1942 file, box 2, King/Coll.; coll. 37, box 4, folder 3, Buell/Coll.; http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/pfs/box3/t39a02.html; Morton (1962) 221; Morison (1947–62) 4:246. 11 Cline ch. 9. 12 Milner 14, 25; “March 1942 file,” box 2, King/Coll.; Albion 574–75; Lundstrom (1976) 55–56; Regan 94; D. Stevens 31. MacArthur (1964) recounted that in a personal conversation in December 1943, Marshall told him that King considered the Pacific campaign “almost his own private war.” 13 John Raleigh, Pacific Blackout (New York 1943) chs. 14 and 15. The death toll of

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14 15 16 17 18

19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

35 36

243 would have been greater but for the earlier evacuation of most civilians. Okumiya/Horikoshi 126–28; NYT (21 Feb. 1942) 3; (22 Feb. 1942) 5; Gailey (2000) 6–7. U.S.Strategic/Interrogations 1:65, 70, 2:500, 524; Detwiler/Burdick 7. Thorne (1985) 4; C. Lee 286; Hasluck (1980) 43; Hasluck (1970) ch. 2. J. Moore 34–35 and ch. 10; MacArthur (1964) 152; Perret 287. Cf. Horner (1978) 48–49. Eisenhower (1970) 1:82–85, 97–98, 136; Hersey (1942) 119; Karnow ch. 10; David Lutz, “The Exercise of Military Judgment,” J. Power and Ethics: An Interdisciplinary Rev. 1/1:68 (2000); Romulo 148–49; Manchester (1978) 232. Eisenhower, when asked whether he knew MacArthur, snidely replied: “I studied dramatics under him for seven years.” Karnow 275. See also Drea (1992) 19. Cmdr. Gene Tunney, USN, an ex-Marine boxer famous for beating Jack Dempsey in 1927, went on a morale tour of the South Pacific in 1943. When a Marine officer asked Tunney for his impressions of MacArthur, he replied: “The greatest thespian of the age.” Gayle, personal communication (15 June 2004) Hersey (1942) 4; Cook (1978) 72; Karnow 266–70; Schaller (1989) 61–64. A physician in Phoenix said that MacArthur should come home and replace Roosevelt, a mere politician. King/Edson, 29 Sept. 1949, Buell/Coll., box 4, file 3; Dyer 1:245–48; Matloff/ Snell 157–58; Lord (1977) 36. W. Churchill 4:143. John Whitman, Bataan (New York 1990) 417; Connaughton 280–82; Eisenhower (1981) 49. Thorpe 62; Morton (1962) 186. G. Marshall 3:147–48; Manchester (1978) 238; Smith/Meehl 92; Connaughton 234; Perret 274–75; Morrill/Martin 2. Drea (1993) 24; Morton (1953) 357–59; James (1970–85) 2:195–96; Horner (1978) 64. James (1970–85) 1 ch. 14; Hunt 141–47; Eisenhower (1981) 51–52; McCarthy 17– 18; Milner 16–18; Horner (1978) 60. Martin van Creveld, Supplying War (Cambridge 1977) 231. Eisenhower (1970) 1:56n. 2; Black 695–713; Arnold 290; J. Moore 39–42; Morton (1953) ch. 9; Drea (1993) 23; McCarthy 14. John Poncio and Marlin Young, Girocho (Baton Rouge, LA 2003) 56; From Pearl Harbor into Tokyo 96; E. Davis 15; Perret 288–91; Isely/Crowl 79. 16 July 1942, PCA/Herrick Bataan file; C. Lee 245. From Pearl Harbor into Tokyo 98–99; Harries/Harries 386; U.S.Strategic/ Interrogations 2:384 394; Morris 474; James (1970–85) 2:29–37, 151–53; Hunt 243. McCormick 312; LaFeber 192; L. Young 48–50; Bergamini 718; Beasley 227–50. “March 1942” file, box 2, King/Coll.; coll. 37, box 4, folder 3, Buell/Coll.; www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/pfs/box3/t39a02.html; Morton (1962) 221; Morison (1947–62) 4:246. Kaltenborn 33, 37–38; Horner (1978) 61–62; J. Moore 96. Another Australian newspaper, the Bulletin, noted that “in sending their national hero to Australia [the Americans] have charged themselves with the responsibility of saving it as a free white English speaking nation, as far as it lies within their power, for it is not in the nature of that great people to let MacArthur down.” Quoted in Penglase/ Horner 102. Hasluck (1970) 158; Thomas St. George, C/O Postmaster (New York 1943) 70–71. Romulo 224; Hersey (1942) 311; Potts/Potts 10; Thorpe 114–17; Willoughby/ Chamerlain 64; MacArthur (1965) 115, 116; Eisenhower (1970) 1:177; Milner

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37 38 39 40 41 42

43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52

53 54 55

56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

24–25; G. Johnston (1943) ix; http://minister.dva.gov.au/media_releases/2002/ september/va115.htm. Milner 24n. 45; J. Moore 70; Morison (1947–62) 4:247–48; Drea (1993) 33; McCarthy 32–33. www.cv6.org/ship/logs/action19420201.htm; E. Stafford ch. 4; Astor 48–49; Stanley Johnson ch. 5; Ewing 50–61; E. Stafford 49–57; Merrill 23–30; J. Wheeler ch. 9; Lundstrom (1976) 35–40; Stanley Johnson ch. 6. King (4 July 1950), box 4, file 3, Buell/Coll. Mason 63, 70; Greening 12; Doolittle 230–33. Lawson 42. Yoshimura 143; www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/rep/Doolittle/Report.html; Tuchman 219; Edward Oxford, “Jimmy Doolittle: Against All Odds,” American History (Aug. 1997); www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/rep/Doolittle/B25BSpecial.html. S. Smith (1966) 219. Nelson 113–22; Yoshimura 144; Smith/Meehl 119; Craven/Cate 1:440–41. S. Smith (1966) 214; J. Wheeler 98; Greening 25; Lawson 18, 73–74. Lawson 40; Doolittle 272. Greening 14–15; Lawson 26–27; Doolittle 246. Carroll Glines, Doolittle’s Tokyo Raiders (Princeton 1964); www.ibiblio.org/ hyperwar/AAF/rep/Doolittle/Summary_20html; Yoshimura 143; From Pearl Harbor into Tokyo 100. http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/rep/Doolittle/Report.html. Araki 1,024–27; Edward, Lord Russell of Liverpool, The Knights of Bushido (London 1958) 70–72. Bergamini 913; Bradley 111–13. Maas 6–7; Ross (1992)2:15, 19, 36, 43; Morton (1959); “March 1942 file,” box 2, King/Coll.; Eisenhower (1970) 1:198; Morton (1962) 246–51. MacArthur (1964) recounted that Marshall in December 1943 confided in him that King had claimed the Pacific campaign as belonging to the Navy, a great Navy victory over Japan being the only way for the Navy to redeem itself after Pearl Harbor. Reportedly, Marshall added that King resented MacArthur, fostered antiMacArthur propaganda, and in this had the support of Roosevelt, Leahy and Knox and often even of Army Air Forces chief-of-staff Henry Arnold. McGee xliii. G. Marshall 3:184, 234–35; Lundstrom (1976) 188–89; Morton (1962) 294–95; James (1970–85) 2:186–88; Morison (1947–62) 4:258; Larrabee 259. Rabaul would not in fact be destroyed until February 1944. Maas 10; Kawahara 116; Kato 77; Morison (1958) 70; “War Diary of 25th Air Flot.,” Guadalcanal file, box 26, Morison/Coll.; Layton 387–88. Thus, four fighter groups were now kept in the Home Islands that would otherwise have been deployed in the South Pacific. Liddell Hart (1970) 345; Craven/Cate 1:444. Bo¯eicho¯ 49:356–66; Dull 118; Rill 4; Okumiya/Horikoshi 136; Bates/Innis xxvi; Morton (1962) 214–17, 274–75; Dull 117–18. Lundstrom (1976) 79–86. S. Smith (1966) 272; Stanley Johnston ch. 8. Stanley Johnston 156–57; W.W. Smith 34–35. Stanley Johnston 181; Bergamini 918. Steinway; Astor 67. S. Smith (1966) 238, 239–40. W.W. Smith 42–43; Stanley Johnston 266–69. Okumiya/Horikoshi ch. 12.

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65 W.W. Smith 48. 66 U.S.Strategic/Interrogations 1:65, 66; Belote/Belote 86; Stephan ch. 8; Craven/ Cate 1:451–52; Nish (1982) 132–33; Doc. 78436 1, Hattori 3. 67 J. Potter chs. 12–21; Lundstrom (1976) 45–46. 68 “Spruance Lecture . . . Before the Royal United Service Institution 30 Oct. 1946,” Morison/Coll. box 24. 69 Prados 305; Layton 392. 70 Layton 376–78, 393, 410–48; Harries/Harries 396–97. 71 Willmott (1983) 297–98. 72 Lewin 106; Willmott (1983) 298–99; Costello (1981) 236, 245–47, 276; M. Smith 138–40. 73 Prange (1982) 102; W.W. Smith 79, 81; Layton 419–30; Budiansky (2000) 3–17; Heinle 1948 ch. 4; Borch/Martinez 93–94; John Winton, Ultra in the Pacific (London 1993) 2. At 0552, repeating a message first attempted at 0534 or even earlier, the PBY reported two carriers on a bearing of 320 degrees, 180 miles from Midway. At 0555 Midway radar reported “many planes, 89 miles, 320º.” 74 Beach (1986) 449; Prange (1982) xi. 75 Prange (1982) 187; W.W. Smith 81–82; Morison (1947–62) 4:106. 76 Fuchida/Okumiya 104, 107, 133, 232. In January 1942 a Japanese submarine patrolling off Hawaii torpedoed a carrier, thought to be Lexington, and reported it as sunk. It was actually Saratoga and it in fact survived. When Lexington appeared in the Battle of the Coral Sea, the Japanese naturally thought it was Saratoga. While getting the name wrong, the Japanese were at least correct that this carrier did not survive that battle. Fuchida/Okumiya 79, 104; Nagumo 2. 77 Prange (1982) 100, 103. Saratoga did not arrive in Hawaii from San Diego in time for the engagement, its absence underscoring what Fletcher had achieved earlier in the Battle of the Coral Sea. For although it had not been a clear tactical victory for the United States, by sinking one Japanese carrier and sending another to dry-dock, he may have deprived Japan of assets that could have yielded a Japanese victory at Midway. Morison (1947–62) 4 chs. 2–4. 78 Prange (1982) 99; Morison (1947–62) 4:86; Adams 673; W.W. Smith 38, 55. 79 Lewin 110. 80 Morison (1947–62) 4:104; Okumiya/Horikoshi 157; Nagumo 7. 81 W.W. Smith 84–85; G. Johnston (1943) 57; Gannon 69, 174. 82 Prange (1982) 74; Rottman 533. 83 Fuchida/Okumiya 40, 45–48; Dull 146. 84 Nagumo 7, 40–41; Prange (1982) 216–42; Morison (1947–62) 4:107–10; Layton 437. 85 Morison notes in “Notes from Guadalcanal” file, box 25, Morison/Coll.; W.W. Smith 80, 96–97. Enterprise and Hornet each carried a complement of thirty-six SBDs, thirty-six F4Fs and fifteen TBFs. 86 Thach argued that the dive-bombers should appear on the scene first, with the torpedo planes taking advantage of the resulting mayhem. Mason 98, 105. 87 S. Smith (1966) 271; Morison (1947–62) 4:120. 88 Morison (1947–62) 4:121; D. Miller 40–41. The TBD’s minimal combat range of 175 miles comprised one additional liability. Prange (1982) 240. James Jones has written that the TBD pilots at Midway were more open-eyed about their sure death than any kamikaze pilot. Jones (1975) 38. 89 S. Smith (1966) 287. 90 Toland (1982) 80–81; W.W. Smith 111–12; Dull 152–56; U.S.Strategic/ Campaigns 68–69; Fuchida 24; Prange (1990) 78–80. 91 Folder 26, file 9793, Fletcher/Coll.; W.W. Smith 115. 92 W.W. Smith 118.

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93 U.S.Strategic/Campaigns 65–66; W.W. Smith 128–29. 94 Dull 149–51. While in this operation only one of the new Avengers returned, the plane would nevertheless gain acceptance and remain popular. 95 Churchill 4:251. 96 Some thought the TBD’s slowness actually helped against the Zero, since the Zero could not fly that slowly without stalling, and if there was no room to fly below its target, its maneuverability became irrelevant. Ewing 74–75. 97 Watts/Gordon 171–81; Prange (1982) xii, 370. Isom argues that Japan’s greatest loss in the battle was the group of 2,600 men involved in aircraft maintenance. 98 Lundstrom (1976) 185; G. Johnston (1943) 107; Morton (1962) 284–84; Gailey (2000) 37–41. 99 Dyer 1:286n. 14; U.S.Strategic/Interrogations 2:500, 524–25; Japanese Monog. 45, 82, Detwiler/Burdick 3; Bo¯eicho¯ 49:362–69; Okumiya/Horikoshi 148–50.

7 The counterthrust ¯ mae 77; Bo¯eicho¯ 49:363. 1 U.S.Strategic/Interrogations 1:68; O 2 “Talk with Mr. W. H. Brocklebank,” Guadalcanal/Misc. Items file, box 26, Morison/Coll.; White/Lamont 329; Blair 294–95. 3 Dyer 1:273; Soule 42; Brodie (1942) 164. 4 Dalton 173; Ghormley 60; Millett (1980) 321, 364; Merillat (1944) 4–5; Isely/ Crowl chs. 1–3; Frank (1992) 81. 5 Millett/Maslowski 307; Honan (1991) 189–90. 6 Fleet Marine Force 41–50; Bartlett/Sweetman 156–57; Clifford 29–31. 7 Clifford 36–38; Bartlett/Sweetman 155–56; Lejeune, Marine Corps Order no. 7 (Series 1921), 3 March 1921, MCHC. 8 C.F. Aspinall-Oglander, comp. Military Operations, Gallipoli (London 1929–32); Lorelli 8–9, 42; Clifford 43–45; Beach (1986) 465; Krulak 4, 73–79; Alexander (1997) 11–16. 9 Claude Swanson, Navy Dept Gen. Order no. 241, 7 Dec. 1933, MCHC; Russell, Fleet Marine Force Compliment to Navy Department General Order no. 241, 8 Dec. 1933, MCHC; Krulak 78; Simmonds 119–20. 10 Clifford 43–48, 139–43. 11 The Navy in 1938 embraced Marine theory. Landing Operations Doctrine, U.S. Navy 1938 (FTP-167), approved 5 August 1938, a Guide to Navy and Marine Corps para. 924, 212, MCHC; Krulak 81–82; Millett (1980) 331–43; Lorelli 11–19; Adams 631–34; James/Wells 10. Although the 1939 edition of the Army’s Field Service Regulations contained nothing about amphibious operations and the Army Command and General Staff School gave the subject only 17 classhours (as against the Marine Corps Schools’ 635 hours), by 1941 the Marines’ concepts were adopted in the Army’s Field Manual 31–5. Krulak 36n. 12 Millett (1980) 289; Marc Parrott, Hazard (Garden City 1962) 89. 13 Rottman 5–9, 101–29; Shaw 5; M.S. Smith App. 4; Krulak 164; McMillan 4; Hoffman (2001) 130. When an American philanthropist visiting a French field hospital saw a clean-shaven face, she stated: “Oh, surely you are an American?” “No, ma’am,” he replied, “I’m a Marine.” Bartlett/Sweetman 143. See also ibid. chs. 2 and 8. 14 Michener 176. 15 Three American Plays (New York 1926). 16 Another of the first officers, Capt. Robert Mullan, may have recruited at his own Tun Tavern. Simmonds 2–3. For less picturesque accounts of the Marines’ early days, see Collum 23–44 and 292 and M.A. Aldrich 33–40. 17 Lane (2004) 37.

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18 G. Smith 49; John Gleason, “Modern Methods of Recruiting,” Marine Recruiter 1/1:11 (July/Aug. 1941); Mason 126; P. Moore 57; Sledge 5; Alexander (1997) 89. 19 W. Jones 36; Lane (2004) 3–4; B. Kennedy 6; Bergerud 153; Hill 121; Marion (2004) 56. 20 Millett (1980) 347; King 494; Rottman 546; Lane (1997) 32; Leckie (1962) 8–9; Patrick Laughlin, “Procuring Officers for the Emergency,” Marine Corps Gazette 25/4:48 (Nov. 1941). 21 H.M. Smith 6; Rottman 128–29; Rill 11; Simmonds 122. 22 H.M. Smith 75, ch. 4; Krulak 85; D. Weller 843–44. 23 Rottman 47; Federico interview at http://www.thetigerisdead.com; Lane (2004) 24–35; H.M. Smith 98. 24 Vandegrift/Report Phase I, 1–2; F. Pratt (1948) 3–4. 25 King/Holcomb 20 March 1942 in “March 1942” file, box 2, King/Coll.; Rottman 147–48, 172–73; Lane (2004) 33. 26 Laing 35; Lane (1997) 39–41; Yerger interview,www.thetigerisdead.com; Nogler interview, “Operation WATCHTOWER” (Marathon Music and Video 1999); Vandegrift/Report Phase I Annex M; “Medical Experience and Problems in the Guadalcanal Operation Phase I June 26 to August 7, 1942,” 2, file C19–1, box 46; Zimmerman 22, 176; Lane (2004) 40–53; William Sager, personal communication (July 2003); Felber 52, 56; Ken Malsch, “About the Motor Ship John Ericsson,” Guadalcanal Echoes 26:25 (Jan. 1992); Larrabee 263. 27 See, e.g., Soule 38–40; White/Wofford 29–33. The Pepsi-Cola was stored in the ship’s swimming pool. 28 Morton (1962) 293–94; “Subject: Offensive Operations in the South and Southwest Pacific Areas,” July corresp., box 2, King/Coll.; Hayes 143–44; G. Marshall 3:253–54n. 1; William Pye, “Estimate of the Most Effective Employments of Units” [circa June 1942], Conference Notes file, box 10, King/ Coll.; King/Donnelly, 23 March 1949, King/Kittredge, 1 Feb. 1950, box 8, folder 13, King/Edson, 29 Sept. 1949, box 4, file 3, Buell/Coll. 29 South Pacific Force, Annex “B” to COMSOPAC’s Operation Plan no. 1–42, 5 annexed to Hepburn; Buell (1980) 215–16; Bergerud 20. 30 Leighton/Coakley 389; Huie 145–47. 31 G. Marshall 3:252. 32 G. Marshall 3:255–56n. 1; Blair 295; James (1970–85) 2:189–90. 33 G. Marshall 3:255–56; Hayes 145–46; Pogue 380. 34 G. Marshall 3:254. 35 G. Marshall 3:256–62. VAdm. Herbert F. Leary was under MacArthur’s command. 36 Warren Kimball, The Juggler (Princeton 1991); Love (1995) 37, 41; Coale 98–99; Dallek 10–11; Larrabee 256–60; Brownlow 68. 37 Eisenhower (1970) 1:176–80, 232. 38 Hayes 147; Morton (1962) 301–02; Buell (1980) 191–94. See Map 4 above. 39 King/Donnelly, 4 March 1949, 1, box 8, folder 13, notes, 4 July 1950, box 4, file 3, Buell/Coll. 40 Marshall/MacArthur, 3 July 1942 in G. Marshall 3:265; Hayes 148; K. Davis (2000) 533. 41 Vandegrift/Asprey 110–11. 42 Loxton/Coulthard-Clark 9–11; F. Pratt (1946) 53–54. 43 King thought Roosevelt might have privately promised MacArthur supreme command of the entire Pacific theatre. King/Donnelly, 4 March 1949, 1, box 8, folder 13; notes, 4 July 1950, box 4, file 3, Buell/Coll. 44 “July corresp.” file, box 2, King/Coll.; Ghormley 50–52; Dyer 1:285–86; Zimmerman 9n; James (1987) 67; Buell (1980) 219–20; Morton (1962) 307; Kirby (1957–

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45 46

47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73

69) 2:270. As King later commented, MacArthur’s substantial abilities were “mortgaged” to his sensitivity and vanity. Butler 3/2:675–81. G. Marshall 3:271; Eisenhower (1970) 1:205–08, 280–81; Stoler 439–40; Schom 313–14. The British reluctance was further validated when on 18 August 1942 a “reconnaissance in force” of 6,000 troops, most of them Canadian, suffered a disastrous defeat at Dieppe. G. Marshall 3:272–78. Stoler 442; King/Edson (29 Sept. 1949), box 4, file 3, Buell/Coll.; Stoler 432; Harrison 23–29; K. Davis (2000) 536–94. Hayes 153; Morton (1962) 308–10; Harrison 27–33. Cline ch. 10. Toland (1982) 71; Layton 96; Costello (1994) 185. F. Roosevelt (1947–50) 2:1,339; notes, 3 July 1950, box 6, file 8, Buell/Coll. Larrabee 201; Beach (1995) 77–80; Loxton/Coulthard-Clark 25–26; Paolo E. Coletta, “Admiral Richmond K. Turner” in S. Howarth (1992) 363, 364. Dyer 1:224–26, 264–69. Morton (1962) 609; Pogue 380–81; Dyer 1:260–61. Dyer 1:272; Bates/Innis 22; Sherrod 71; Lord (1977) 21–23. Dyer 1:224–26, 264–69; Shaw 2. “August corresp.,” box 2, King/Coll.; King/Edson (29 Sept. 1949), box 4, file 3, King/Kittredge (1 Feb. 1950), box 8, folder 13, Buell/Coll. Costello (1994) ch. 8; Dyer 1:275. Zimmerman 14; Hough/Ludwig/Shaw 237, 243; Lidz (Aug. 1946) 146; R. Lee ch. 1; J. Miller 1. Vandegrift/Report Phase I, 2. Halsey/Bryan 113. Washington Post (9 Aug. 1942) 6; F. Pratt (1948) 6. Hosoya/Nish 3:255, 267–74; Tanaka 199–201; Turner/Baldwin interview; Dyer 1:298–99. In Japanese military training, an unclean gun or messy uniform yielded blows of the fists and kicks. Evening roll call was described as “the hour of terror.” An officer noted: “The ultimate purpose of shouting at them and hitting them is to make them feel miserable, and thus to hammer it into them that absolute obedience is imperative . . . and that neither criticism nor protest is allowed.” After repeated applications of the doctrine, no conscript ever thought for himself. A recruit secretly noted: “One year’s army life has drained the humanity out of everyone.” Tsurumi 95, 114–19. Rill 27; Gayle, personal communication (15 June 2004); Vandegrift/Report Phase V, 6, item A7–5. Karig/Purdon 74–76. Yerger interview, http://www.thetigerisdead.com; Millett (1993) 164. Willmott (1982) 115; Adams 641; Bischof/Dupont 57, 58–59; Cates 21; Vandegrift/Report Phase I, 10; Isely/Crowl 112; Thorpe 96–97; Leckie (1962) 15; Turner/Ghormley (21 July 1942), “July 1942 corresp.” file, Turner/Coll. US Army, Special Service Div., Army Service Forces, Pocket Guide to New Zealand (Washington 1943) 3; Thorpe 109–10; Croizat, MS 41–42, MCURA. John Carey, Marine from Boston (Garrett Park, MD 2000) 77–106; Alexander (2001) 58–60; Vandegrift/Report Phase I, 7; Marion (2004) 17–22; Loxton/ Coulthard-Clark 60; Merillat (1944) 8. Morley 4:241, 243; NYT (15 Aug. 1942) 2; G. Johnston (1943) 40; Amherst 1:31– 32. Amherst 1:i; Guppy ch. 12. Guppy 270; R.W. Robson, The Pacific Islands Handbook 1944 North American

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74 75 76

77 78 79 80 81 82 83

84 85 86 87 88 89

90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101

Edition (New York 1945) 282; Guppy 2; Hydrographic Office, Pacific Islands 241; London (1990). W.S. Marchant, “Interlude on Guadalcanal,” Marine Corps Gazette 28/5 (May 1944) 49; Johnson 9, 61–69, 86, 91, 107; Guppy 24 and ch. 2. French Moore 1:161, 162. Chart no. 1469, “Guadalcanar and Florida Islands, with a Portion of Malaita Island,” UK Hydrographic Office, Taunton, Somerset; Hydrographic Office, Pacific Islands 241; Zimmerman 9n. The Japanese also used the British Admiralty charts. Yuji Namae, Gadarukanaru no chizu – Gatosen sakugono shingekiro [Maps of Guadalcanal: Battles of Guadalcanal, Erroneous Route for Advance] (Tokyo 1984) 81, 84, 139–47, 195. WWII: Guadalcanal Articles 2 file, MCHC; Vandegrift/Report Phase I, Intelligence Annex E, 2, item A7–1. Plan 3293, chart 2873 (Feb. 1907), UK Hydrographic Office. Frank (1990) 49–50, 658. Cates 21b; Lane (2004) 117; Great Britain, Colonial Office, Among Those Present 23–24. PHA 15:1,641–42. F. Pratt (1948) 8. Brown/Bruner 62; Larrabee 263; Zimmerman 14–15; S. Smith (1962) 30–31; Hammel (1998) 36; Manchester (1979) 170–71. Goettge’s intelligence staff made a good drawing of Lunga Point, with no indication of an airfield, “Traced from photos 1–402V-1–501V 16/6/42,” 16 July 1942. It is reproduced in Soule 48. Ware 19. Zimmerman 16–17; Vandegrift/Report Phase I, Intelligence Annex E, 2, item A7–1; Merillat (1944) 14–15. Griffith 27; Alexander (2001) 75. Bates/Innis Tables 2 and 3; M.P. Gardner interview (13 Jan. 1943), “CINCPAC CONFERENCE” file, box 24, Morison/Coll. Karig/Purdon 72. Morison (1947–62) 3:236–54. Lundstrom (1984) argues that Morison’s version came from interviews with persons who bore agendas, including fliers griping that Fletcher, a non-aviator, should not have been leading a carrier force to Wake (although that did not prove to be a problem at Midway), and Kimmel staffers who had hoped that a quick success at Wake would be a reprisal and vindication. Buell (1974) 139–50; Butcher 73–74. Lundstrom (1976) 59. Layton 395–99. http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ships/logs/CV/cv2–Coral-prelim.html. “Conference Notes” file, box 10, King/Coll., “Corresp. with FADM King 1942– 1945” file, box 10, Nimitz/Coll. (16 Sept. 1942), “September corresp.,” box 2, King/Coll.; Buell (1980) 200; Hoyt (2000) 92–93, 109. M.S. Smith 31 and 301n. 37; Karig/Purdon 74; Warner/Warner 74. Landing Operations Doctrine, paras. 110a, 426. “July 1942 corresp.” file, box 1, Turner/Coll. Dyer 1:301. (10 Oct. 1946), “Savo Island file,” box 26, Morison/Coll.; Loxton/CoulthardClark 284n. 16. Ghormley 64; Love 2:42.

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102 Lundstrom (1992) 22; 16 July Operation Plan No. 1–42 in “South Pacific Area” file, box 6, Turner/Coll.; Guadalcanal Legacy 85, 86; Frank (1990) 54; Warner/ Warner 52; Larrabee 265. 103 Leckie (1965) 56; Turner/Baldwin interview; F. Pratt (1946) 23–44; Griffith 34–35. 104 Ghormley 67; Dyer 1:300. 105 “CINCPAC CONFERENCE” file, box 24, Morison/Coll.; Ghormley 68–69. 106 Baldwin/Fletcher (1 July 1947), “Correspondence file-1947 (World War II),” folder 26, Fletcher/Coll.; Fletcher/Baldwin (8 July 1947), “Savo Island” file, box 26, Morison/Coll. 107 Isley/Crowl 117; Vandegrift/Asprey 110–14; Griffith 32.

8 The first two days 1 Anon. Diary, Ghormley/Coll. 2 Burden. 3 Newcomb 19; U.S.Strategic/Interrogations 2:419; “South Pacific Photographic Interpretation Unit file,” box 27, Morison/Coll. While Okamura undoubtedly hoped that the 11th Air Fleet’s 25th Air Flotilla would be transferred south from Rabaul, that was destined not to happen. Having flown many missions in support of the attempted takeover of Port Moresby, RAdm. Sadayoshi Yamada’s airmen were due for a period of rest at some secure base to the rear. 4 Kahn (1967) 571; E.B. Potter (1976) 179. 5 Bo¯eicho¯ 49:427. 6 Newcomb 61. 7 R. Wheeler 38. Over a dozen different English-speaking women were known collectively as “Tokyo Rose.” One, Los Angeles born Iva Toguri, with a zoology degree from UCLA, was tried and served six years in prison, receiving a presidential pardon over twenty years later. 8 Ware 28. 9 In Guadalcanal Echoes (Jan. 1978) 2. 10 Crutchley memo, “Operation ‘Watchtower’ – The Capture and Occupation by United Nations Forces of Tulagi and Guadalcanal” (13 Aug. 1942) 11 para. 47, annexed to Hepburn; Crutchley report (11 Aug. 1942), “Savo Island file,” box 26, Morison/Coll. Cf. White/Wofford 39. 11 Horan/Frank 137–38. 12 Reifsnider. 13 C. Lee 331; Clausen 170. 14 U.S.Strategic/Interrogations 2:413, 419; Morison notes 18, “V.A.C. Crutchley” file, box 25, Morison/Coll. 15 Mason 129; Reifsnider; Hawkings/Hammel (28 May 1963), Hammel/Coll.; Jerry Strahan, Andrew Jackson Higgins (Baton Rouge, LA 1998); Krulak ch. 5. 16 Weighley 275; Leckie (1957) 58; H.M. Smith 97–98; Krulak ch. 6; Clifford 53–57; Custer 114. ¯ mae 77; Bo¯eicho¯ 14:235, 49:427; Boswell 107; Bates/Innis 43–44; Davis/Lindley 17 O 117; E.B. Potter (1976) 180. 18 Alexander (1997) 1–2; R. Johnston 25; “Buchanan” file, box 5, Turner/Coll. 19 Alexander (1997) 6, 29; Hoffman (1994) 183; G. Smith 124; Alexander (2001) 102–03; Frank (1990) 72, 79; Warner/Warner 65, 71; Karig/Purdon 90, 92; Warner/Warner 71; Gayle, personal communication (15 June 2004); “Navy Department Immediate Release Press and Radio August 29, 1942,” MCHC; NYT (16 Oct. 1942) 1.

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¯ mae 1263; O’Connor (1969) 79; Okumiya/Horikoshi 181; 20 Smurthwaite 79; O Bo¯eicho¯ 14:237; Simmonds/Smith 97. ¯ mae/Pineau, “Guadalcanal” file, box 26, Morison/ 21 Cook/Cook 135, 137–38; O Coll. Because Zeros were not designed for such distances, to support the attacks to the South the Japanese had been working on several landing strips, including one on Buka Island north of Bougainville (410 miles from Lunga), a small staging strip at Buin on Bougainville’s southern coast (300 miles), and a third at Munda on New Georgia (182 miles). Bates/Innis 19; Loxton/Coulthard-Clark 276. The Zero’s range had been substantially extended by such techniques as adjusting the pitch of the propeller and reducing the rpms of the plane’s Sakae 12 engine from 1,850 to 1,650–1,700. Yoshimura 123. At 13,000 feet at 115 knots, with the thinnest possible fuel mix, the pilots made flying at 21 gallons per hour routine, on internal tanks totaling 141 gallons. Bartsch 202. When Zeros were part of the attack against Darwin early in 1942, Allied experts thought they must have been launched from carriers offshore, it being inconceivable that they came from the recently captured bases on Timor, at least 390 miles away. Okumiya/Horikoshi 83–87, 181–83. 22 Newcomb 65; Okumiya/Horikoshi 184; E. Stafford 110. 23 T. Miller 70; Reifsnider; Theiss /Nimitz (15 Aug. 1942), “Fuller” file, box 6, Turner/Coll. 24 Nimitz/King, “Preliminary Report – Solomons Islands Operation” (23 Aug. 1942) 2 para. 9, annexed to Hepburn; Loxton/Coulthard-Clark 124–25. Soule states that the transports did take evasive action. 25 Bo¯eicho¯ 14:237–42. 26 Morison (1947–62) 4:293–94; Lundstrom (1992) 22; Frank (1990) 67–69, 80; Millett (1993) 174; Peattie 95–96; Ugaki 177; Karig/Purdon 87–89; Loxton/ Coulthard-Clark 90–92, 124–25. 27 R. Thompson 209–10. Another estimate was 3,000, with 1,600 to 2,000 on the Tulagi side. CINCPAC War Diary 96–42777 (Aug. 1942), “Savo Island file,” box 26, Morison/Coll. Another estimate was 5,275, comprised of one regiment reinforced of 2,300, an anti-aircraft regiment of 500, a heavy machine-gun battalion of 325, two engineering units totaling 1,050, a labor unit of 900, and air service squadrons totaling at 200. The same report put at 1,850 the total at Tulagi. “Annex Easy to Operation Plan No. A3–42” (30 July 1942) 2, “Savo Island file,” box 26, Morison/Coll.; Shaw 4–5; Karig/Purdon 71; Soule 57; Ware 19. 28 Rottman 272–79. There were three rifle battalions of the 1st Marines and two from the 5th Marines. 29 The first supply officer to join Turner’s staff would not arrive for another week. Dyer 1:408–10. 30 Coggins 34; Lane (1997) 55. Vandegrift would later recommend that such landings begin with a small amount of food and ammunition, supplemented slowly by a limited number of transports in successive days, so as to avoid jamups and so as not to present multiple targets for enemy planes. Vandegrift/ Report Phase V, 8, item A7–5. 31 Twining (1992) 87. 32 Reifsnider. 33 Lamont Lindstrom and Geoffrey White, Island Encounters (Washington 1990) 94. 34 Heinl 352. 35 Read, “Air Battles at Guadalcanal August 8 1942–January 1, 1943” in Coast Watching in the Solomon Islands: The Bougainville Reports, December 1941– July 1943. Ed. A.B. Feuer (New York 1992) 51.

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36 Theiss/Nimitz (15 Aug. 1942), “USS Fuller” file, box 6, Turner/Coll.; Kiland/ Nimitz (10 Aug. 1942), “USS Crescent City” file, box 5, Turner/Coll. 37 Dorris 269–70. Cruisers generally mounted 8-inch guns, destroyers 5-inch. The transports bristled with light armaments, Crescent City being representative in having one 5-inch gun, four 3-inch guns, eight 22-millimeter machine guns, and four .50-caliber Browning water-cooled anti-aircraft guns, firing ten bullets per second with a maximum effective range of 1,800 yards. It also had twenty .30caliber Browning air-cooled machine guns, mounted in its nested landing boats, manned by men of the 2nd Marines. 38 John Neill, “George F. Elliott” file, box 6, Turner/Coll.; Bailey/Nimitz (13 Aug. 1943), ibid.; Kiland/Nimitz (10 Aug. 1942), “Crescent City 10 Aug. 1942” file, box 5, Turner/Coll.; Reifsnider. 39 Johnstone 14; Frank (1990) 80; Warner/Warner 67–70. 40 Gannon 44; Beach (1986) 447–48, 456; Christie/Morison, “Submarines and Torpedoes” file, box 24, Morison/Coll.; Blair 274–79; Murray/Millett 224–26. 41 Vandegrift/Report Phase III, 4, item A7–3. 42 P.B. Grosscup and W.D. Sheldon to Lester Armour (22 Sept. 1942), “WWII: Guadalcanal: Aviation 1 file,” MCHC. See also Morison (1947–62) 4:293–95; Ugaki 179. Although a Japanese cruiser force was in fact on its way from Rabaul, the Americans were not aware of it as of this time. 43 On Friday Wasp had launched 223 sorties, on Saturday only 89. Saratoga had launched 240 on Friday (a record for carrier takeoffs in combat), on Saturday 114. Enterprise had launched 237, then 135. 44 Fletcher/Hammel (20 Sept. 1963), Hammel/Coll.; Warner/Warner 73; Loxton/ Coulthard-Clark 92–103. ¯ mae 77; Burden; Maitland 271. 45 Rottman 280; M.S. Smith 45; O 46 Vandegrift/Turner (12 Aug. 1942), “Aug. 1942 corresp.” file, Turner/Coll.; ¯ mae 79; Loxton/Coulthard-Clark 287n. 2. Ware 74, 88; O 47 McEniry 47. 48 Anon. Diary entry (13 Aug. 1942), Ghormley/Coll.; McMillan 50; Merillat (1944) 66. 49 Heinl 355; Trull Larkin in Horan/Frank 70, 73; C. Lee 313; Foster 68; NYT 8 (15 Sept. 1942). 50 Dina Goren, “Communication Intelligence and the Freedom of the Press: The ‘Chicago Tribune’s’ Battle of Midway Dispute and the Breaking of the Japanese Naval Code,” Jerusalem: Hebrew University Communications Institute 1978. 51 Layton 453–56; Dorwart (1983) 191; M. Smith 142; Memorandum for King, “August 1942 corresp.” file, box 2, King/Coll. 52 Lundstrom (1992) 25; Loxton/Coulthard-Clark 62 and ch. 6; Warner/Warner 41–42; H.M. Smith 72–73. Turner had considered then rejected the idea of transferring his command to the better-equipped Astoria. Hailey (1944) 201. 53 Turner/“RGP” (Capt. Roger Pineau), undated, “Battle of Savo Island” file, box 24, Morison/Coll.; Heinl 352.

9 The Battle of Savo Island 1 Amherst 1:30–31; Johnson 100–04. 2 Morison (1947–62) 5:30. 3 Loxton/Coulthard-Clark 111–13; Dorris 285; Morison notes, V.A.C. Crutchley file, box 25, Morison/Coll.; Bates/Innis Diagram J; Warner/Warner 44, 116. 4 Merillat (Sept. 1982) 44, 45n. 1; Frank (1990) 86. 5 Bates/Innis Diagram C; Robinson chs. 3–5.

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6 Morison (1947–62) 5:19n. 5, 24; Newcomb 72, 75; Bates/Innis 54; Warner/ Warner 19; Bates/Innis xxvii–xxviii, 98; Warner/Warner 77, 95; Frank (1990) 92. 7 Warner/Warner 15, 94–95; Bates/Innis xxviii, 24; Loxton/Coulthard-Clark 162. 8 Warner/Warner 67–68; Loxton/Coulthard Clark ch. 15. Cf. Lewis/Mustin 1–2. 9 Bates/Innis xxviii; Loxton/Coulthard-Clark 143–49; Warner/Warner 101 and passim. 10 D. Stevens 79, 81; Morison (1947–62) 5:25–26; “Criticisms and Acknowledgments” file, box 24, Morison/Coll. In official correspondence, then-Capt. Morison, personally chosen by Roosevelt to write this multivolume naval history, carried the title “Historian of Naval Operations.” Pineau had graduated in Japanese from the Navy’s Language School at the University of Colorado and had a law degree from George Washington, a combination that served him well during the interrogations of Japanese officers published in the Strategic Bombing Survey series. Layton 496–500; Hall 44. 11 While George Kenney, an American, was at this time taking command of the Allied Air Forces, he did not integrate the American and Australian air arms. 12 Annexed to Hepburn 648; Turner/McCain (13 May 1943) 39, 52 para. 136; Detwiler/Burdick 2:13–16; COMSOPACAIR War Diary for August 1942, “South Pacific Air” file, box 27, Morison/Coll. 13 Morison (1947–62) 5:24n. 8. 14 Turner later recounted: The seaplane base in Malaita or Espiritu did not report this failure – I learned about it about 9 a.m. on the 9th, when McCain’s routine report of operations was received. . . . Fletcher had previously agreed, if the seaplane search did not get through, to make a late p.m. fan search to 200 miles in a 45º arc N. W. of Savo. As no word was received from McCain, Fletcher began his retirement to S. E. about 1300 on the 8th.

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Turner/Pineau in “Battle of Savo Island” file, box 24, Morison/Coll. (underscore in original); Turner/Baldwin interview; Morison (1947–62) 5:27. An alternative version was that McCain notified Turner at 2333 on Saturday, ten hours earlier than Turner recalled. Hepburn 39. This would of course have been too late to order visual air reconnaissance. See also 52 para. 137; Loxton/Coulthard-Clark 136–38; Newcomb 75; Frank (1990) 95. ¯ mae 81. U.S.Strategic/Interrogations 2:468, 471; O Morison (1947–62) 5:20n. 6. Hammel (1988) 23–24; Morison (1947–62) 5:29–30; Loxton/Coulthard-Clark 62–63. U.S.Strategic/Interrogations 2:361, 468, 471–72; Dorris 271–72; Lewis/Mustin 4–5; Warner/Warner 105; C.P. Clarke in “Savo Island file,” box 26, Morison/ Coll.; Newcomb 93–95. Williams/Hammel (4 Aug. 1963), Hammel/Coll. Kako War Diary (7–10 Aug. 1942), “Savo Island file,” box 26, Morison/Coll.; Reifsnider; “Buchanan” file, box 5, Turner/Coll.; Morison/Parker (30 Jan. 1948), “Savo Island file,” box 26, Morison/Coll. Hailey (1944) 202; Grace 49. ¯ mae 83; U.S.Strategic/Interrogations 2:361, 468, 472. O Hixson 3:24–25; Mahnken 59–60, 70–71. In March 1942 the sinking of two Dutch cruisers off Java had been ascribed to mines or submarines, it being unthinkable that this could have been done by torpedoes launched from Japanese cruisers, since at the time they were 7 miles distant. Gannon 47–48; Loxton/CoulthardClark 44–46; Pelz 31; Lowry/Wellham 38–39.

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24 C.P. Clarke, “Savo Island file,” box 26, Morison/Coll. 25 Bates/Innis Plate IV; Willmott (1982) 86–87; Morison (1947–62) 3:22; Warner/ Warner 95. 26 Innis/Morison [circa Aug. 1951], “Savo Island file,” box 26, Morison/Coll. 27 Turner/Pineau, “Battle of Savo Island” file, box 24, Morison/Coll. 28 Bates/Innis Diagram H; Box 24, Morison/Coll.; S. Smith (1969) 176. 29 Bates/Innis 357; U.S.Strategic/Interrogations 2:361, 362. An officer on Buchanan later reported that while the TBS frequency became immediately crowded with messages, he twice heard: “This is Jimmie, you have your searchlight on me, you are firing on me.” “Buchanan” file, box 5, Turner/Coll. 30 “Buchanan” file, box 5, Turner/Coll.; Dorris 283; Innis/Morison, “Savo Island file,” box 26, Morison/Coll. 31 Smith/Morison (31 March 1949), “Savo Island file,” box 25, Morison/Coll. 32 O’Donnell 43. 33 Crutchley/Turner (13 Aug. 1942), “Aug. corresp.” file, Turner/Coll. 34 Turner, “Secret Memorandum for Adm. Hepburn,” “Savo Island file,” box 26, Morison/Coll. 35 Williamson/Turner (7 Sept. 1942), “Blue” file, box 5, Turner/Coll.; Williams/ Hammel (4 Aug. 1963), Hammel/Coll.; Crutchley/Hepburn, “First Battle of Savo Island . . . Subsequent Deductions” (21 Feb. 1943) annexed to Hepburn. 36 Bode/Turner (21 Aug. 1942), “Chicago” file, box 5, Turner/Coll. 37 Jeff Clark, “War Memories,” Maine Times clipping (circa fall 1981–84), “WWII: Guadalcanal Articles 2” file, MCHC; Mason 131; www.net/~jrube/@guadaug. html; Gayle, personal communication (15 June 2004); Horan/Frank 44. 38 Bates/Innis 337; Edward Oxford, “Guadalcanal,” Am. Hist. Ill. 27/6 (Jan./Feb. 1993) 26; Warner/Warner 3. 39 E. Davis 15–16. 40 Newcomb 217. 41 Lobell 2:715; Baer 186–87. 42 “Statement by Admiral Ernest J. King, Cmdr. in Chief, US Fleet” (10 Aug. 1942), Navy Department Communiqués 75 para. 4; NYT (11 Aug. 1942) 3. 43 Buell (1980) 222. King 529 wrote: The Japanese did not take advantage of this opportunity to engage in a fleet battle with the balance of power on their side, probably because they did not know – and we did not let them know – how severe our losses were. 44 Newcomb 225. 45 “Battle of Savo Island” folder, box 24, Morison/Coll. At sunlight sailors shot at sharks from the decks of the rescue ships. 46 Turner/Crutchley (12 Aug. 1942), “Savo Island file,” box 26, Morison/Coll.; Morison (1947–62) 5:36n. 21. 47 Morison (1947–62) 5:52n. 35; Frank (1990) 120; S. Smith (1962) 135. Cf. Karig/ Purdon 91; Loxton/Coulthard-Clark 117–18. 48 Maas; Beard 224; Millett (1980) 341. A year earlier, Maas had tried unsuccessfully to launch a congressional investigation into the systemic causes of the Pearl Harbor disaster. 49 Hepburn. 50 See, e.g., “Buchanan” file, box 5, Turner/Coll. 51 King/Knox (14 Sept. 1943) 2 para. 3, cover letter to Hepburn, in Hepburn; King, “Our Navy at War, A Report to the Secretary of the Navy,” excerpted in Dorris 263, 264. 52 Turner told Hepburn:

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I do not believe that [the] operation should have been postponed. It was executed just in time, as it was. But in undertaking operations in this hasty manner, responsible commanders must necessarily be prepared to accept the loss of untrained ships and personnel.

53 54 55 56

57 58 59 60 61

62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69

“Secret Memorandum for Admiral Hepburn,” 8, “Savo Island file,” box 26, Morison/Coll. Turner/Pineau, “Battle of Savo Island” file, box 24, Morison/Coll.; Morison (1947–62) 5:26. Bates/Innis xxviii; Turner/Pineau, “Battle of Savo Island” file, box 24, Morison/ Coll. Turner, Twining wrote, “opted for the minor capability [Rekata Bay] and ignored the major threat.” Morison (1947–62) 3:130–31. Brodie (1943) 209n. W.W. Smith 43; Coggins 52. In 1992, Naval Academy historian Robert W. Love, Jr. wrote that none of the men on the scene, but rather Nimitz, “bore much of the blame” for what happened, since he “possessed considerable intelligence about Japanese night-fighting tactics and the Long Lance torpedo” but directed no adjustments in battle doctrine in light of these elements. Love (1992) 2:48. Custer 240. Communiqué no. 107 (17 Aug. 1942), Navy Department Communiqués 78 paras. 2, 5. Los Angeles Times (19 Aug. 1942) 1. G. Johnston (1943) 116. Clausen 178–80.The commander of the XRAY transport group, in his report to Nimitz, argued that Mikawa’s use of parachute flares to illuminate the two transport groups comprised good evidence that the transports had been Mikawa’s targets, thus that the clash with the Allied cruiser force was not the engagement Mikawa had intended. Reifsnider. U.S.Strategic/Interrogations 1:255, 2:361. Ghormley 80. Riefkohl/Carpender (30 Aug. 1946) 3; Riefkohl/Nimitz (9 Aug. 1946), “Savo Island file,” box 26, Morison/Coll. W. Churchill (1948–53) 6:17. Other possible reasons are discussed in, e.g., Japanese Monog. 45, 99, Detwiler/ ¯ mae 85; Liddell Hart (1970) Burdick 3; Loxton/Coulthard-Clark 131, 238–40; O 359. Warner/Warner 78. Hepburn 8; Dyer 1:383, 401; Newcomb 81; Lundstrom (1992) 26; Lundstrom (1984) 81; Newcomb 77–80. An interesting fictional account of the incident is set forth in W.E.B. Griffin, Counter-Attack (New York 1990) 440–44. The memo Ghormley had coauthored with MacArthur a month earlier had recited: Air forces now present, or in sight for the SW Pacific Area, are not adequate to interdict hostile air or naval operations against Tulagi. The Carrier Task Force will continually be exposed to attack by land based aircraft and will not receive protection from our land based aviation. Furthermore, it is extremely doubtful that they will be able to render fighter support to the transport area, especially should hostile naval forces approach.

Ghormley/Morison (3 Feb. 1948), box 24, Morison/Coll. 70 The War Diary for Task Force Eleven at 1200 on 7 August records the location as 09–53.5 South and Long 159–23.5 East. The next entry, at 2000, positions it at 10–26 South 160–07.5 East. The entry for 9 August at 0800 is 11–34 South 161–23

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71 72 73 74 75 76 77

East. By 2000 on 9 August it was 13–43.7 South 163–07 East. Pp. 4–5, annexed to Hepburn. Ghormley’s approval [#081141] came at 2241. Ibid. 8; Warner/Warner 78. Lundstrom (1984) 82. Frank (1990) 119. Fletcher/Baldwin (8 July 1947) in “Savo Island file,” box 26, Morison/Coll. Ibid. Instead, almost seven hours later, at 1435, Turner intercepted Fletcher’s message to Ghormley making clear that Fletcher would not be again putting his carriers in harm’s way. Loxton/Coulthard-Clark 253; Frank (1990) 119. Newcomb 211. Task Force Sixteen’s War Diary entry for 2100 on Sunday: Reports indicate that the occupation of the Tulagi-Guadalcanal Area has been accomplished. All naval units withdrawing from the vicinity this evening. Still only meager reports of surface action there today whereas prompt report of situation might have permitted aircraft units from Task Group 61.1 to participate and engage enemy forces present.

78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85

P. 7, annexed to Hepburn. O’Connor (1969) 85. Warner/Warner 73; Carter 28; Bates/Innis 93; Loxton/Coulthard-Clark 107. ¯ mae 79; Bo¯eicho¯ 14:243–44; Loxton/Coulthard-Clark 287n. 2. O Angelucci 197, 273, 278; Mangrum/Shaw (20 April 1949), “Guadalcanal Air Statistics” file, box 25, Morison/Coll. Brodie (1942) 167–68. Nimitz/King: “Preliminary Report – Solomons Islands Operation” (23 Aug. 1942) annexed to Hepburn. Fletcher/Ghormley, “Preliminary Report – Solomons Islands Operation” (9 Sept. 1942) 1, annexed to Hepburn. Maynard/Morison (13 July 1948), “Battle of Savo Island file,” box 24, Morison/ Coll.; Morison (1947–62) 5:28n. 13; Newcomb 79; Heinl 352. A navy logistics specialist noted: Fletcher had previously refueled on 3 and 4 August. He withdrew to a point 500 miles south of the transport-unloading area where he refueled on 10 August. Why Fletcher could not have refueled on 4 and 5 August and held on a day longer is not clear.

Carter 28; Loxton/Coulthard-Clark 106; Bates/Innis 93–94; Regan 187–94; Lundstrom (1984) 85. 86 Zimmerman/Morison, “Criticisms and Acknowledgments” file, box 24, Morison/Coll. While Fletcher would have repeated opportunities to back away from his fuel rationale, he instead chose to embrace it, going so far as to make it “the” reason for his departure. In a postwar letter to Baldwin, Fletcher flatly stated: “I recommended the withdrawal because of a shortage of fuel” (8 July 1947), “Savo Island file,” box 26, Morison/Coll. While he had started his letter to Baldwin with the caveat that he had not refreshed his recollection, Fletcher had to know that questions of fuel had deeply injured his reputation. Thus one must assume that in retrospect this was “the” explanation Fletcher was content to project – despite the facts. And Ghormley, whose reputation ended up being tied to Fletcher’s, in a postwar memoir construed Fletcher’s request to leave the area as necessitated by lack of fuel: “When Fletcher, the man on the spot, informed me he had to withdraw for fuel, I approved. He knew his situation in detail; I did not.” Ghormley 93.

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87 Nimitz/King: “Preliminary Report – Solomons Islands Operation” (23 Aug. 1942) paras. 43, 44, annexed to Hepburn; Frank (1990) 122. 88 Bates/Innis 344–45. Morison called Fletcher’s stated reasons for withdrawal “flimsy”; another historian described it as “ignominious.” Morison (1947–62) 5:27; Hammel (1987) 84; Vandegrift/Asprey 110–11; Foster 71–72; Twining (1996) 46; Spector (1985) 192 and n. 30; Hixon 44–45. 89 T. Miller 9. 90 Hepburn 39. Although Hepburn found that Crutchley’s and Australia’s absence had proven disruptive, Mikawa’s superiority was so overwhelming that one ship and one commander may have made little difference. By taking his ship out of the screen, Crutchley may unwittingly have saved it from the swift fate dealt the other cruisers. 91 In his postwar memoir, Ghormley recounted that, upon granting Fletcher permission to withdraw, he “direct[ed] Turner to withdraw his surfaces forces to prevent their destruction.” Ghormley 93. Morison interviewed Ghormley in 1948, thereafter scribbling on one side of a piece of memo paper: “Why did Turner pull out?” then writing on the other side: “Ghormley sent Turner a message withdraw as soon as practicable.” File “CINCPAC Conference Argonne, Noumea,” box 24, Morison/Coll. 92 Lewis/Mustin 43; Reifsnider. ¯ mae 85; Clausen 179, 183; Ware 22. 93 O 94 Millett (1993) 168; Spector (1985) 186; D. Ballantine 110–13; Dyer 1:411.

10 Settling in 1 Lewis/Mustin 44; Turner/Webb, “August 1942 corresp.” file, box 5, Turner/ Coll.; Reifsnider 9; http://wbaird721.tripod.com/GeorgeJBaird.html. The men, borrowed from the still-forming 2nd Marine Division, would be disembarked at the secure base at Espíritu Santo, 520 miles to the southeast. They would not return to Guadalcanal until 29 October. Isely/Crowl 128. 2 Frank (1990) 673–74. 3 Turner/Baldwin interview (10 Oct. 1946), “Savo Island file,” box 26, Morison/ Coll.; Morison (1947–62) 5:58–59. The Office of Naval Intelligence later enumerated figures showing ample food and ammunition. Lewis/Mustin 44n. 32. 4 Millett (1993) 180; M.S. Smith 21, 299–300 nn. 16 and 18; Carter 33. 5 Morison (1947–62) 5:58–59; J. Miller 101, 104; Frank (1990) 127; Heinl 354; Merillat (1944) 55; Millett (1993) 181; Rill 28. 6 1942: The Video History of Our Times (Norwalk, CT 1988); Heinl 354; Merillat (1944) 55; Frank (1990) 229; B. Davis 153. 7 Buell (1980) 222; Bates/Innis 341; “August corresp.” file, box 2, King/Coll.; Cant 9; Heinl 353; Leighton/Coakley 191; Albion/Connery 106; Hayes 177–78. Curtin, perhaps at MacArthur’s prompting, voiced similar concerns to Roosevelt and Churchill. 8 Arnold 340–41; “CINCPAC CONFERENCE” file, box 24, Morison/Coll.; Leighton/Coakley 398–400, 413. Since there was no crane at Noumea big enough to lift the PT boats off the decks of transports, some discussed sinking the transports in order to liberate the PT boats. Soule 87. 9 J. Sullivan 3. 10 US Fleet dispatch (4 Oct. 1942), “Despatches 1942” file, box 3, Turner/Coll. 11 E.B. Potter (1976) 191; Manchester (1979) 167; J. Miller 223. 12 Turner/Vandegrift (23 Aug. 1942), “Aug. 1942 corresp.” file, Turner/Coll.; Marion (2004) 242–44.

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13 Vandegrift/Report Phase V, 5, item A7–5; Vandegrift/Turner (12 Aug. 1942), “Aug. 1942 corresp.” file, Turner/Coll.; Lane (1997) 74. 14 Heinl 355; A. Jones 10; Dull 194, 196; Carter 33–34; E.B. Potter (1976) 184. 15 Hough 27; Wortley/Hammel (3 Oct. 1963), Hammel/Coll.; www.thetigerisdead. com; Lidz (Aug. 1946) 199; Gallant 249; Twining (1996) 64–69; Twining (1992) 84. 16 Berry 62; Morison (1947–62) 4:283; Robert C. Muehrcke, Orchids in the Mud ([Oak Brook, IL] 1985) 83; Guppy 2; Hough 41; Clausen 177. 17 London (1918) 582; J. Jones (1962) 60; Horan/Frank 28; Marion (1991); Bergerud 85, Bergerud 467–68; George 42. Jones noted that in the Army one was never assigned to dig up the field graves of men from one’s own regiment. Jones (1975) 124. See also ibid. 48. 18 Nogler interview in video “Operation WATCHTOWER” (Marathon Music and Video 1999); Guppy 314; Laing 51; Horan/Frank 56; Vandegrift, “Guadalcanal – A Revelation,” Think (March 1943) 12, 73. 19 London (1908) 221–22, 237. 20 Leckie (1965) 302; Leckie (1957) 102, 116; B. Kennedy 73–74; Gallant 210–12; Leckie (1957) 73. 21 US Army, Special Service Div., Army Service Forces, Pocket Guide to New Guinea and the Solomons (Washington 1943) 62, 67; Reeder 13; Donohue; Guppy 313; Leckie (1965) 10; McMillan 88; Dennis, www.guadalcanaljournal. com/guadalcanal2.html; Marion (2004) 112. 22 Boswell 107–08; Clark in “WWII: Guadalcanal Articles 2” file, MCHC; www. net/~jrube/@guadaug.html; Butterfield 18–19. 23 Hydrographic Office, Pacific Islands 269, 442, 443; Foss/Simmons 53; Twining (1996) 14. 24 Washington Post (9 Aug. 1942) 1; “Fightin’ and Writin’ Marines,” Leatherneck 25/12:25 (Dec. 1942); Boswell 94–96; Robert Lindsay, This High Name (Madison, WI 1956) 55–60; Hurlbut, “Marines’ Invasion Like Football Game,” Los Angeles Times (31 Aug. 1942) A, 1. 25 (16 Aug. 1942) 1; (17 Aug. 1942) 1. 26 Boswell 101–02; Communiqué nos. 107, 109, 113 (17, 20, 27 Aug. 1942 in Navy Department Communiqués 78–81; Los Angeles Times (18 Aug. 1942) 1; NYT (21 Aug. 1942) 1; Washington Post (21 Aug. 1942) 1; Los Angeles Times (28 Aug. 1942) 1. 27 “Guadalcanal Fighter-Writer,” Newsweek 21 (1 March 1943) 64. 28 NYT (12 Aug. 1942) 6; Cooke 14; McMillan 12; Vandegrift/Report Phase V, 6, item A7–5; Shaw 28.

11 Up against it 1 “August corresp.,” box 2, King/Coll.; Hayes 189; Isely/Crowl 131; Karl von Clausewitz, On War (1827) trans. O.J. Matthijs Jolles (1943) ch. 22 in The Book of War; Millett (1993) 176–80; Alexander (2001) 138. 2 Turner/Noyes (9 Sept. 1942), “Sept. 1942 corresp.” file, Turner/Coll.; Turner/ Ghormley (27 Sept. 1942), “Amphibious Force 27 Sept. 1942” file, box 4, Turner/Coll. 3 S. Smith (1969) 208; Mitchener 180–81; Guadalcanal Legacy 17, 76; J. Jones 47– 48; McMillan 69; T. Miller 75–76; A. Jones 10; Vandegrift/Report Phase III Medical Annex H, 2, item A7–3; Butterfield 75; Floyd Radike, Across the Dark Islands (New York 2003) 29–30. 4 Lane (2004) 12.

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5 “Dope on the Reising,” Leatherneck 25/9 (Sept. 1942) 24; Alexander (2001) 66; G. Smith 78; Lane (2004) 187–88; Marion (2004) 91. 6 Although it featured a quick-change barrel that eliminated melt-downs from overheating, this weapon too proved to have tolerances too fine for jungle use. 7 “The Machine Gun,” Leatherneck 25/6 (June 1942) 23; Rottman 517; LandingForce Manual United States Navy 1938 (Rev. no. 5, Washington 1941) 5. 8 Gayle, personal communication (18 July 2004). 9 M.S. Smith 51; Alexander 31n. 10 Newcomb 26. 11 “History of Imperial General Headquarters Army Section (Revised Edition),” Japanese Monog. 45, 100, Detwiler/Burdick 3; Van Der Rhoer 113; Frank (1990) 143–45; Warner/Warner 79; Yasuji Watanabe in U.S.Strategic/Interrogations ¯ mae 79. 1:65, 68; O 12 Edward Oxford, “Guadalcanal,” Am. Hist. Ill. 27/6 (Jan./Feb. 1993) 26; Bo¯eicho¯ 14:248–57. 13 Regarding Mikawa’s failed effort to land troops, see Bo¯eicho¯ 14:248–57, 49:441– ¯ mae 79–81; Loxton/Coulthard-Clark 126; Dull 179 and 362–63n. 10; Bates/ 47; O Innis 395 and Diagram K; Morison (1947–62) 5:18. 14 Dull 195, 210; Van Der Rhoer 116; Frank (1990) 131; M.S. Smith 304n. 17. 15 O’Connor (1969) 60; Frank (1990) 213; Dull 149–51; William Bartsch, “Crucial Battle Ignored,” Marine Corps Gazette (Sept. 1997) 82; M.S. Smith 113–15. 16 Newcomb 25; U.S.Strategic/Interrogations 2:468; O’Connor (1969) 55; Warner/ Warner 19. 17 M.S. Smith 38–45; Inui. 18 Burden; Japanese Monog. 45, 101; Detwiler/Burdick 3. 19 O’Connor (1969) 54. 20 M.S. Smith 58–62; Zimmerman/Morison (undated) 3, “Criticisms and Acknowledgments” file, box 24, Morison/Coll. 21 Tagaya 22; Yoshikawa/Stanford 29; Stone 474; Dower (1986) 25; Morton (1962) 124. 22 Hough 54; Brown/Bruner 64; White/Wofford 70; Frank (1990) 154–56. 23 J. Miller 96–97; Alfred Campbell, Guadalcanal Round-Trip (Lambertville, NJ 1945) 67. 24 F. Pratt (1941) 44; Frank (1990) 156. 25 Maitland 268. 26 Bo¯eicho¯ 14:310; Inui; M.S. Smith 96; Ugaki 187; McMillan 64; Soule 83; Dull 149–51; Inui (23 Aug. 1942). 27 Hoyt (1982) 49–59; Thomas Carmichael, The Ninety Days (New York 1971) 21–22, 61; Kirby (1957–69) 2:276; Akio Tani interviewed in Guttman 36. 28 Bo¯eicho¯ 14:429–34, 28:19; U.S.Strategic/Interrogations 2:528; Drea (1998) ch. 3. 29 McMillan 62; Bayler 241, 282–83. 30 Heinl 357; Metcalf 424. 31 Zimmerman 120; “WWII: Guadalcanal Articles 2” file, MCHC; Huntington 127; Whyte; Clausen 184; Vandegrift/Report Phase V, 11, item A7–5; Shaw 2. ¯ mae 79; Bates/Innis 44–45; Bo¯eicho¯ 14:235. 32 O 33 Alexander (2001) 76; Karig/Purdon 92; NYT (29 Aug. 1942) 1; Horan/Frank 149; “Recommendation from Lt. Col. R.G. (?) Hunt,” “Savo Island file,” box 26, Morison/Coll.; Oman 114. Cf. Warner/Warner 71. 34 Hosoya/Nish 3:255, 256–57; Tanaka 198; Boswell 112. A Japanese folk myth held that one who dies becomes a god protecting the other members of his family. A soldier noted in his diary that his comrades did not possess “enough reason” to question such myths, and that if they had, “they would have nothing left to sustain them in their hardships.” Tsurumi 125.

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35 Maitland 271; Senso¯ 23–24; S. Smith (1969) 262. 36 Stone v; Evans/Peattie 324–25; Morison notes, “V.A.C. Crutchley” file, box 25, Morison/Coll.; James Fox, “‘That’s a New One to Me,’” Nation’s Business 31 (April 1943) 80, 82; Benedict 36. 37 Morrill/Martin 27; Shea 15; E. Stafford 125; S. Johnston 158–59. Others guessed that not having parachutes guaranteed that crewmen of a disabled plane – sure to die anyway – would use it as a bomb. Others thought that perhaps Japan had traded all its silk to the Germans for engines and planes. 38 G. Johnston (1943) 91. 39 Foss/Simmons 96, 133–34. 40 Vandegrift/Report Phase IV, 10, item A7–4; Frank (1990) 237; S. Smith (1969) 262; McKennan (1947) 15–16. The average Japanese soldier was 5′3″ and weighed 117 lbs. 41 Bergamini 870. 42 “Notes from Guadalcanal” file, box 25, Morison/Coll. The manual was found among the Japanese dead near Milne Bay, New Guinea. In late August and early September 1942, 1,700 men of the Naval Special Landing Forces Kure no. 5 came ashore at Milne Bay with a view to capturing the three Allied airstrips. By 6 September, Australian battalions under Maj.-Gen. Cyril Clowes had lost 161 men but had killed more than half the invaders. During the two weeks of their occupation of the hills around the airstrips, the Japanese murdered all 36 Australians captured, having bayoneted some of them against a tree at a local mission, while also murdering 59 natives. G. Johnston (1943) 120–27; http:// www.awm.gov.au/atwar/remembering1942/milnebay/transcript.htm. 43 Gayle, personal communications (15 June, 18 July 2004); Vandegrift/Report Phase III, 6, item A7–3. 44 Van Der Rhoer 109–12; Bergerud 409; Kahn (1967) 28–38. 45 McMillan 204–07; Vandegrift/Asprey 136; Zimmerman 59–60. 46 Whaling/Hammel (16 May, 19 Aug. 1963), Hammel/Coll.; William J. Martin, personal communication (July 2003); Hawkins/Hammel, Hammel/Coll. Merillat (1944) 59n.; Soule 69–71; Gallant 296–97; Twining (1996) 86; Lane (2004) 121. 47 Tregaskis 125; John Rawlings Rees, MD, The Shaping of Psychiatry by War (New York 1945) 15; Lidz (Aug. 1946) 208. 48 Dollard. 49 F. Pratt (1947) 276; James M. Merrill, “Fleet Admiral William F. Halsey Jr.” in S. Howarth (1992) 229, 232; Van der Vat (1991) 151; Michener 81; Sledge 33–34. When in April 1943 Lt. (jg) John F. Kennedy arrived on Tulagi, he saw a hillside billboard Halsey had ordered: “KILL JAPS. KILL JAPS. KILL MORE JAPS.” Donovan 30. 50 Nor was Halsey’s rhetoric only a device to inculcate the right attitude in the lower ranks; he seemed actually to feel that way. See, e.g., Halsey/Nimitz (31 Oct. 1942), (17 Nov. 1942), (29 Nov. 1942), “Corresp. with Cmdr. South Pacific Force 1942–1943” file, Nimitz/Coll. 51 Horan/Frank 147, 150; Hoffman (2001) 148. 52 Clausen 160, 166; “Life on Guadalcanal,” Newsweek (26 Oct. 1942) 22, 25. 53 Butterfield 18, 98; PCA/Herrick Pride of the Marines file; G. Smith ch. 11; Reeder 47–49; www.guadalcanaljournal.com/guadalcanal2.html. 54 Okumiya/Horikoshi ch. 16. 55 Metcalf 378; Foss/Simmons 67. 56 Guadalcanal Echoes (Aug.–Sept. 1979) 24; http://guadalcanal2.homestead.com/ canalvets.html; www.pacificghosts.com/guadalcanal/veterans/poirier_coveny. html; Soule 84; Felber 79.

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57 “America in the ’40s: A Sentimental Journey/1940–1942" video (Readers Digest/PBS 1998). 58 Leckie (1965) 303; James Weingartner, “Trophies of War: US Troops and the Mutilation of Japanese War Dead 1941–1945,” Pac. Hist. Rev. 61:53 (Feb. 1992); Bergerud 87; Thorpe 103. 59 Graham 136; Bayler 239. 60 Hersey (1943) 55; Stone 474; Tanaka 206–11; Wells/Wilson 41. 61 More than half the casualties among Navy corpsmen in World War II were incurred while serving the Marines, losing 2,462 of their own while treating 87,000 Marines. They were awarded, per capita, more decorations and commendations than any other specialty. Fishbein 234; Rottman 551. 62 Laing 9. Soon two extra men had to be assigned to stretcher cases, one with a rifle, the other with a sub-machine gun. Fishbein 184. 63 Bergerud 464; Vandegrift/Report Phase V Medical Annex T, 10, item A7–5. 64 Inui; Reeder 13; Marion (2004) 209–211; Custer 224; Clausen 183–84; B. Davis 129. 65 http://www.guadalcanaljournal.com/guadalcanal2.html. 66 Bernard Riley in Clark Lee report, quoted in Clausen 165–66. 67 Wortley/Hammel (3 Oct. 1963), Hammel/Coll. 68 Oman 114. 69 Robert C. Miller, “Guadalcanal Attack Repulsed,” Marine Corps Gazette 26/4 (Nov. 1942) 47. 70 In Metcalf 501. 71 Hough 82. 72 Metcalf 448; Hersey (1943) 11; S. Smith (1969) 268. Vandegrift’s observation was thought sufficiently trenchant to appear later on the first page of a training manual. Reeder, [iii]; Boswell 110. 73 Rottman 234–35; Dennis, http://guadalcanal2.homestead.com/Diary.html; Manchester (1979) 171; Romulo 22; Reeder 39; Farrington 80–97; Alexander (2001) 96; Cates 23. 74 Such scenes typically end with the sniper’s rifle falling to the ground, followed by his limp body. William Whaling recalled no incidents of Japanese snipers hiding in trees, adding that when a bullet flies by a man’s ear horizontally, he tends to misperceive it as having a descending trajectory. Whaling/Hammel (16 May, 19 Aug. 1963), Hammel/Coll.; George 95.The occasional sniper who did choose a palm tree as a firing platform typically tied himself and his rifle to the tree, so Marines firing into the trees seldom knew whether they had succeeded in shooting one. Stanley Smith (1969) 209. 75 O. Marion (2004) 247. Lt. Robert E. McMahon reported being shot at while parachuting from his P-40 during the Japanese attack on Darwin. Robinson 18– 19, 84–85, 94; G. Johnston (1943) 70. Several instances of similar conduct were reported by the survivors of Marine Fighting Squadron 21’s daring scrap with dozens of Japanese bombers and fighters at Midway. “Hats Off! To Marine Corps Aircraft Group 22,” Marine Corps Gazette 27/1 (March–April 1943) 36. 76 Gallant 290; Morison (1947–62) 5:193n.; Stanislao. William Whyte posited that much of what the Marines thought they heard by way of Japanese soldiers yelling in English was only the Marines’ imaginations at work. 77 Gallant 276–78; Hough 49; Gehring 2; Graham 113; Bayler 237; Soule 106–7; Hubler/De Chant (1944) 53–54. 78 Layton 146; Sherrod 99; Gallant 276–78; Hough 49; Merillat (1944) 53; Bergerud 388.

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12 A mixed picture 1 Sherrod 73–80; Rottman 424–31; Tillman 95–98; Sims 24. 2 Miller, “Air Power in the Solomons,” Marine Corps Gazette 27/1:45 (March– April 1943). 3 Graham 135; Lane (2004) 127. Each new subsequent batch of aircraft and pilots caused great emotion. When future ace Joe Foss arrived on 8 October, “[r]oughlooking fellows with beards came running out of the woods to meet us. They cheered almost hysterically, climbed onto the Wildcats, and seemed almost ready to kiss us.” Foss/Simmons 30. 4 Horan/Frank 28, 45–46; Great Britain, Colonial Office, Among Those Present 25; Clemens 208. 5 On 13 August, even before the SBDs arrived, McCain had told Col. Charles Hayes, Henderson Field’s operations officer, to hide them under camouflage and not waste them on targets smaller than carriers, battleships or cruisers. Hayes/Morison (8 Feb. 1949), 2, box 25, Morison/Coll. 6 Frank (1990) 202. 7 Willock 207. With him was his wing commander, Louis E. Woods, who would later succeed him. Craven/Cate 4:40; Hubler/De Chant 50–52. It was they who organized “SCAT,” bringing in much-needed fuel and ammunition on C-47s. 8 T. Miller 58. 9 “Sept. 1942” file, King/Coll.; Willock 211. 10 Ghormley/Nimitz (7 Sept. 1942) 2, “Corresp. with Cmdr. South Pacific Force 1942–1943” file, Nimitz/Coll. Ghormley’s postwar recollection was broader: Mr. Forrestal said to me in substance, that if the people of the United States knew on what a ‘shoe string’ we were operating, lack of supplies, facilities, air, surface and ground forces, that there would be a revolution at home. Ghormley 110–11; Isely/Crowl 103; Zimmerman 107; Hoyt (1982) 91–93. 11 Any plane left on the ground, for whatever reason, became a potential bomb casualty, a problem lessened somewhat starting 9 September by the Seabees’ construction of a second, grass runway, “Fighter One,” called “the Cow Pasture,” which allowed fighters to spread themselves out. 12 King/Marshall (17 Sept. 1942), “Sept. 1942” file, King/Coll.; Craven/Cate 4:50; T. Miller 65; Shaw 22–23; Ghormley 112; Hayes 184; Lundstrom (1984) 173; Frank (1990) 614. 13 Hayes/Morison (8 Feb. 1949) 3, box 25, Morison/Coll.; A. Jones 10. 14 One of them, having lost a son at Wake, spent much of his time in the jungle shooting at the Japanese. Albion/Connery 106; B. Gill 32. 15 Lundstrom (1984) 299. 16 Bayler 231; Fox 28; “CINCPAC CONFERENCE” file, box 24, Morison/Coll.; Sherrod 83; Guttman 34. 17 Willock 209. 18 T. Miller 70; Croizat file, MCURA, MS 66–67; De Chant 70; Heinl 359; Lundstrom (1984) 300; B. Gill 30. 19 Halsey/Bryan 115–16; Lundstrom (1984) 182–83; T. Miller 81. 20 Gardner, 7, “CINCPAC CONFERENCE” file, box 24, Morison/Coll.; John McCain, Faith of My Fathers (New York 1999) 29–30; McEniry 38; Tillman 113; Mangrum, “Journal of Guadalcanal” 372; T. Miller 115–16; Merillat (1982) 103; Frank (1990) 209–10. 21 Gayle, personal communication (15 June 2004); Wolfert 69. 22 Metcalf 357; Frank (1990) 366; Alexander 106; B. Gill 26, 29; Vandegrift/Report Phase IV, 15, item A7–4.

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23 Bates/Innis 29; Spector (1985) 207; U.S.Strategic/Interrogations 1:29, 30–31, 249, 252. 24 McEniry 17; W.W. Smith 59. 25 G.A. Millikan, “Anoxia and Oxygen Equipment” in Advances in Military Medicine. Ed. E.C. Andrus (Boston 1948) 1:296, 298; Wooldridge 86; Sherrod 89–90; Craven/Cate 4:41–42; Sims 31; Kevin Kahm, “That Plane With the Long Nose,” Guadalcanal Echoes (Aug.–Sept. 1979) 4; J. Miller 107–10; Alexander 123, 190–91. 26 Bergerud 174–75; M.S. Smith 201. 27 Lundstrom (1984) 43–44, 533–36; T. Miller 4; E. Stafford 158; Loxton/ Coulthard-Clark 275–76; Hoyt (2000) 177–78. 28 Angelucci 192, 197. 29 Mason 108; Yoshimura 149–50; Astor 76–77. 30 Mason 93; Ewing 37–39, 71–73, 90–92; W.W. Smith 101; Sherrod 83; Willock 210; Leckie (1962) 69. 31 Heinl 358; Foss/Simmons 66; Okumiya/Horikoshi 78; Sherman 76. 32 U.S.Strategic/Interrogations 2:374; Kato 165–66. 33 Weighley 249. 34 Tagaya 529; Ienaga 183; Evans/Peattie 324–26; Willmott (1982) 83–84. 35 Vandegrift/Turner (12 Aug. 1942), “Aug. corresp.” file, Turner/Coll.; Turner/ Ghormley (27 Sept. 1942), “Amphibious Force 27 Sept. 1942” file, box 4, Turner/Coll.; Ghormley 116–17. 36 Millett (1993) 191; M.S. Smith 328–29n. 43; Frank (1990) 227–28. 37 G. Marshall 3:182–83, 192–93. 38 Twining (1996) 97–98. 39 Willock 214; Hoyt (1982) 112, 119; T. Miller 86–88. 40 M.S. Smith 171, App. 1; Hoffman (1994) 191–92; Millett (1993) 189–91. 41 Zimmerman/Morison (undated) 2, “Criticisms and Acknowledgments” file, box 24, Morison/Coll.; Alexander 137–41; Bo¯eicho¯ 83:93–95. 42 Bo¯eicho¯ 83:95–115; Bo¯eicho¯ 14:485–94. 43 Inui (11 Sept. 1942). 44 McKennan (1943) 82. 45 Rottman 198–99; Del Valle 13; S. Smith (1969) 199; Dorwart (1983) 87–88; M.S. Smith 222, 244; Alexander 136, 181, 195n. 38; Zimmerman/Morison (undated) 5, “Criticisms and Acknowledgments” file, box 24, Morison/Coll. 46 O’Donnell 51; Edward Oxford, “Guadalcanal,” Am. Hist. Ill. 27/6 (Jan.–Feb. 1993) 26. 47 Zimmerman/Morison (undated) 5, “Criticisms and Acknowledgments” file, box 24, Morison/Coll. 48 M.S. Smith 243; Hoffman (1994) 205–06; G. Smith chs. 14–19. 49 Hough/Ludwig/Shaw 245; Alexander 136, 192–93, 198. 50 Hoffman (1994) 213–14. 51 Bo¯eicho¯ 14:483, 28:7–18; Dull 212; Inui (14 Sept. 1942); Alexander 131, 192; M.S. Smith 253–55; Bill McKinney, “Guadalcanal: Condition Black Never Happened,” Guadalcanal Echoes 27:9 (March 1992). 52 There were no air raids between 15 and 27 September, and no night attacks between the 18th and 27th. This period was called by some “the Lull,” by others “the great Guadalcanal housing development,” with many men scavenging to make little huts for themselves in an effort at civilizing what had been theretofore a disgustingly primitive existence. 53 Bo¯eicho¯ 14:475–81; Zimmerman/Morison (undated) 4, “Criticisms and Acknowledgments” file, box 24, Morison/Coll. A Japanese “Comment on

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NOTES TO PAGES 240–247

54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63

64 65 66 67 68 69 70

71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83

Characteristics of American Troops in Combat,” issued a few months later, avoided characterizing the battle in such a way as to incite any slippage in morale, describing it as “90% successful.” “Guadalcanal Miscellaneous Items” file, box 26, Morison/Coll. Metcalf 486. Boswell 97. Meyer Maskin, M.D., “Psychodynamic Aspects of the War Neuroses,” Psychiatry 4/1:97, 98 (Feb. 1941); Dean 423, 257n. 37. Arnold 339; Gayle, personal communication (15 June 2004) Spector (1988) 62; W. Jones 7; “Guadalcanal Diary,” Am. Mag. 135:15 (Feb. 1943); Metcalf 370. De Chant 70; Gehring 4; McMillan 46–47; Metcalf; http://wbaird721.tripod.com/ GeorgeJBaird.html. Cates 40b; Lane (1997) 73. Baldwin (1950) 74; H.M. Smith 12. Gayle, personal communication (15 June 2004). Cf. Leckie (1965) 220; http:// sniff.numachi.com/~rickheit/dtrad/pages/tiBLSSAL10;ttBLSSALL.htm. Even later, when MacArthur moved to Port Moresby, an Australian journalist noted that he remained secluded in a pretty white bungalow, “just as remote, just as mysterious as he has been ever since he reached Australia.” G. Johnston (1943) 177. Bischof/Dupont 30. www.info.dfat.gov.au/info/historical/HistDocs.nsf/vVolume/72B493BA67D 318F5CA256D3B0007E4BB. Eichelberger (1950) 12; Winters 238; Dull 179, 211; M.S. Smith 260. Morton (1962) 342. Hayes 794n. 68; Cronin 50; Wolfert 46–47; B. Davis 149; William Sager, personal communication (July 2003). Bud De Vere, personal communication (July 2003); Hayes 189. Alternative names were “Millimeter Pete,” “Millimeter Mike,” “Whistling Pete,” “Mountain Joe” and “Stovepipe Charley.” Their range allowed them to reach within the entire American perimeter from just beyond the Matanikau River, well beyond the 2.3-mile reach of the Marines’ 105-mm howitzers. But these heavy weapons had already had many years’ service in Manchuria, and they all soon wore out or broke down, the last of them failing on 18 November. P. Moore 75. The elevated railway on 6th Avenue was torn down in 1939. Watts/Gordon 40–48; Dull 224; Bergerud 391–92; J. Wheeler [8]. Rill 44; De Vere 49; O’Connor (1969) 62–63; Rentz/Shaw (24 March 1949) 3, “Notes on Guadalcanal” file, box 26, Morison/Coll. Wolfert 46–47. U.S.Strategic/Interrogations 2:540; Tillman 113–15; Sherrod 102. Dull 225; Willock 221–22; Ghormley 135; Anon. Diary entry 15 Oct. 1942, Ghormley/Coll., folder 3; T. Miller 119; Merillat (1982) 180–81; De Chant 81. De Chant 71; www.thetigerisdead.com; Morison (1947–62) 5:174–76; Frank (1990) 316–19. Halsey/Bryan 116; Horan/Frank 70, 77; Bergerud 393. Lewis 293–94; E.R. Smith 94; “Guadalcanal Neurosis,” Time (24 May 1943) 39; Halsey/Bryan 116. Hoffman (2001) 181; Wolfert 49. P. Moore 68; Mason 131. Bayler 279. Metcalf 490–91.

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84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96

Boswell 103–04. Gene Keller, personal communication (July 2003). Bergerud 393. Leckie (1962) 83; File VE23.N121973, MCHC. John Settedugati, personal correspondence (July 2003). Bergerud 470; Twining (1996) 91; Whyte 68; Whyte, “Throw Away the Book?,” Marine Corps Gazette 28/3 (March 1944) 7. Lindsay Beaton, MD in Beaton and Ralph Kaufman, MD, “‘As We Remember It’,” Neuropsychiatry 2:739, 762; Horan/Frank 155. Willard 99, 156–57; Baldwin (1942) 34. Drury 2:176–77. “Guadalcanal Aviation Notes” file, MCHC; NYT (14 Oct. 1942) 1; Horan/Frank 48–49; Harry Horsman, “Martyrdom on Guadalcanal,” Guadalcanal Echoes 27:2, 30 (March 1992); Frank (1990) 291. Gehring 16–25; Graham 95–102; “Guadalcanal’s Miracle Girl,” Guadalcanal Echoes 3 (June 1979) 1. Millett (1980) 270. James Agee, Agee on Film (1958; New York 2000) 43.

13 Courage and ambivalence 1 Van Der Rhoer 122; Clemens 258; Watts/Gordon 140–52; Dull 216–25. 2 Isely/Crowl 150; Hayes 191. 3 Spector (1985) 195; G. Marshall 3:401–02; NYT (17 Oct. 1942) 1; Los Angeles Times (17 Oct. 1942) 1; Metcalf; B. Davis 150; Gayle, personal communication (15 June 2004). 4 NYT (16 Oct. 1942) 18; Washington Post (17 Oct. 1942) 8; Morton (1962) 343; http://fas-history.rutgers.edu/oral history/kramer%20vincent.html; Hoffman (1994) 227. 5 Larrabee 293; Roosevelt/Joint Chiefs (24 Oct. 1942), “Correspondence, chronological, 1942, Aug.–Dec.,” container 5, folder 6, Arnold/Coll.; Hayes 193; Heinl 368. Roosevelt’s son James, who had been second in command in Carlson’s Raiders, had landed in the Gilberts on 17 August to help thwart Japan’s reinforcement of Guadalcanal. On 23 October, a day prior to the president’s writing his memo, “Jimmy” had taken command of the newly formed 4th Marine Raider Battalion. This personal concern perhaps explains the president’s unusual use of the world “anxiety” in this quickly scrawled message. Marshall replied that the problem was not one of too few men and assets being delivered to the South Pacific, but of proper distribution and maintenance of men and assets already there. Leighton/Coakley 395; Pogue 394–95. 6 Churchill (1948–53) 6:19. 7 Lidz (Feb. 1946) 38–39; McMillan 202; Merillat (1944) 157; Laing 185; Leckie (1957) 73–74; Leckie (1965) 302, 303; Lidz (Aug. 1946) 205. 8 Dollard 2–3, 42–43, 48–49; Dennis in http://guadalcanal2.homestead.com/ Diary.html; “Psychiatric Lessons from World War II,” Am. J. Psychiat. 103/ 5:587, 591 (March 1947) 587; Deutsch 435. 9 Alexander 192–93; B. Davis 169–71. 10 Vandegrift/Report Phase I, 2; Simmonds 116–17; F. Pratt (1947) 264. 11 Twining (1992) 87. 12 Vandegrift/Asprey 132–35; Vandegrift/Turner (12 Aug. 1942), “Aug. corresp. file,” Turner/Coll.

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13 McMillan 21; Lewis 301–02; E.B. Potter (1976) 190; Hailey (1943) 12. 14 Hailey (1943) 12; Dyer 1:397. The rate of US to Japanese casualties was substantially better when the US was in a defensive posture. Cameron 120. 15 Marine Corps Order no. 29 (14 Aug. 1920), MCHC; Lejeune’s Letter no. 1 to officers (19 Sept. 1922) MCHC: “Be kindly and just in your dealings with your men. . . . We are all members of the same great family.” 16 Shaw 20–21; Henderson 126, 329–32, 618–19, 625–26; Lidz (Aug. 1946) 205; Gayle, personal communication (15 June 2004) 17 Leutze 139–248; Reynolds (1981) 183. 18 S. Smith 29; Ghormley 16–18; Eisenhower (1970) 1:287; G. Marshall 3:191; US Army, Special Service Div., Army Service Forces, Pocket Guide to New Caledonia (Washington [circa 1943]); Ghormley 109. Ghormley noted among the French a tendency to “shift[] their loyalty from day to day, depending on the general French situation throughout the world.” Ghormley 61; Glasser 57–58; Lucas 25–26; S. Smith 25–26; Custer 117; Schom 408–10. 19 “Thoughts on Command” in Moltke on the Art of War. Ed. Daniel Hughes, trans. Hughes and Harry Bell (San Francisco, CA 1993). 20 E.B. Potter (1976) 192; “Notes on Conference Held aboard USS. Argonne at Noumea, September 28, 1942,” Oct. 1942 corresp. file, King/Coll. 21 Arnold 343. 22 Nimitz memo (6 Oct. 1942), Nimitz/Coll.; “Notes of Conference Held Aboard USS. Argonne at 1300 October 2, 1942,” 2, “Oct. 1942 corresp. file,” King/Coll.; Hoyt (2000) 153; Hoyt (1982) 141. 23 “June 1942 corresp.” file, box 2, King/Coll.; Gillespie 73–76; “Notes of Conference Held Aboard USS. Argonne at 1300 October 2, 1942,” 13, “Oct. 1942 corresp.” file, King/Coll.; Morton (1962) 342. 24 Layton 461–62; E.B. Potter (1976) 196–97; Merrill 47–51; Hoyt (2000) 158; Hammel (1999) 89–90. 25 Communiqué no. 147 (12 Oct. 1942), Navy Department Communiqués 102 paras. 5, 6; “Casualties High in Sea Fighting” (United Press), Los Angeles Times (13 Oct. 1942) 1; Hughes 125–29; Dull 215–21; E. Davis 20; Newcomb 236; Ghormley 138–39; Los Angeles Times (25 Oct. 1942) 1. 26 F. Pratt (1946) 54. 27 Hoyt (2000) 165; Whipple 79; E.B. Potter (1976) 197–98; Knox/Nimitz (24 Oct. 1942), “Corresp. with Secretary of Navy 1942–1944” file, Nimitz/Coll. 28 Halsey/Bryan 116; Morison (1947–62) 5:182; Merrill 51. 29 Halsey/Bryan 117; E.B. Potter (1976) 199; Hoyt (2000) 170; Krulak 82; Heinl 374–75; Millett (1980) 371; Creswell 174–75. Whether this alternative command structure would have changed anything on 7–9 August is unlikely. Under neither arrangement could Vandegrift have ordered Fletcher to keep his carriers on station. Ghormley could have done so, but he had instead opted out. 30 Merrill 57. 31 Halsey/Bryan 124. 32 Gehring 130–31. 33 “Notes from Guadalcanal” file, box 26, Morison/Coll.; Cameron 103. 34 Whyte ch. 7; U.S.Strategic/Interrogations 2:541; Hoffman (2002); Frank (1990) 364–65. 35 Hersey (1942) 31; Hoffman (2001) 189; B. Davis 156–57; Horan/Frank 17–18; File VE23.N121973, MCHC. Basilone would later die on Iwo Jima. 36 Griffith 47.

363

NOTES TO PAGES 267–273

14 Medical issues 1 Vandegrift/Report Phase V Medical Annex T, 4, item A7–5; Fishbein 239, 241. 2 Landing-Force Manual United States Navy 1938 LFM 14 3–6; French Moore 1:161, 162; William Owens, Green Hell (Central Point, OR 1999) 174; Felber 90– 91; Shea 18. 3 Vandegrift/Report Phase II Medical Annex H, 1, item A7–2. 4 Frank (1990) 127. 5 Vandegrift/Report Phase IV Medical Annex H, 4, item A7–4; Metcalf 485. 6 Bergerud 464; “South Pacific Air Transport Command,” WWII: Guadalcanal Articles 2 file, MCHC; Anderson/Snyder 54; J.U. Lademan, “The Influence of Logistics on the Guadalcanal Campaign” (circa Oct. 1945), “Guadalcanal Campaign Logistics” file, box 26, Morison/Coll.; Metcalf 373; Karig/Purdon, opp. 82. 7 Flaherty 917; “Pacific Area Mortality Rate Low,” Marine Corps Gazette 27/1 (March–April 1943) 51. 8 US Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, Handbook of the Hospital Corps/United States Navy (Washington 1939) 408–09; Laing 68. 9 Horan/Frank 83; Kevin M. Cahill, MD and Herbert M. Gilles, MD, Tropical Medicine: A Clinical Text (1990; Darien, CT 2001) 5; Paul A. Harper, MD, “New Hebrides, Solomon Islands, Saint Matthias Group, and Ryukyu Islands” in Communicable Diseases 426; J. Miller 48–73, 227; Laing 73; Cowdrey 70–72. 10 Glasser 82; Schwartz, “Experiences in Battle” 1:73; Frank (1990) 260; Mason 134. 11 Russell ch. 6; Norman Taylor, Cinchona in Java (New York 1945) 75; G. Johnston (1943) 82–83. 12 Oliver McCoy, MD, “War Department Provisions for Malaria Control” in Communicable Diseases 31. 13 Mark Honigsbaum, The Fever Trail (New York 2001) 213. 14 Hamilton 51–65. 15 Paul Russell, MD, “Introduction” in Communicable Diseases 1, 6–7; Nocht/ Mayer 43–57; Leon Warshaw, MD, Malaria (New York 1949) 265–67; George Carden, “Introduction,” Pt. 8: “Malaria,” Advances in Military Medicine. Ed. E.C. Andrus (Boston 1948) 2:665, 666–67; Bergerud 92. 16 Many physicians thought it less efficacious than quinine, and in a few cases it could yield severe nervous disorders, including delirium. M.L. Duran-Reynals, The Fever Bark Tree (Garden City 1946) 226; Russell 107–09; Cowdrey 63; Medical Department, US Army, Medical Supply in World War II. Ed. Robert Anderson, MD and Charles Wiltse (Washington 1968) 73–75. 17 Warshaw, Malaria 272–73. 18 See also Warshaw, Malaria 267–68; Harper in Communicable Diseases 399, 468; US Army, Pocket Guide to New Guinea and the Solomons 50. 19 Edward Billings, MD, “South Pacific Base Command” in Neuropsychiatry 2:473, 475; Vandegrift/Report Phase IV Medical Annex H pp. 1–2, item A7–4; Whyte 72. 20 Communicable Diseases 426. 399, 469. 21 Schwartz 1:73; French Moore 1:163; Zimmerman 177; Laing 69. 22 B. Kennedy 81. 23 Graham 120. 24 Marion (2004) 240. 25 Leckie (1957) 17–18. 26 McMillan 84–85, 145; Fussell (1989) 92–95. 27 McMillan 116. 28 McMillan 115–16.

364

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29 P. Moore 72. 30 Schrijvers 199–200. 31 Gallant 349–51; Bergerud 442; Mack Morriss, South Pacific Diary 1942–1943. Ed. Ronnie Day (Lexington, KY 1996) 57. 32 “Lessons from Military Psychiatry for Civilian Psychiatry,” Ment. Hyg. 30/4 (Oct. 1946) 570, 581; Menninger, “Psychiatric Experience in the War 1941– 1946,” Am. J. Psychiatry 103/5 (March 1947) 577. 33 Mason 132–33; P. Moore 72. 34 Dean 35–36. 35 US Cong. Sen. The National Neuropsychiatric Institute Act, Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Education and Labor on S. 1160, 79th Cong. 2nd Sess. (8 March 1946) 60. 36 Calvin Drayer, MD in Neuropsychiatry 2:21–22, 26–27; Cowdrey 138–39. 37 Stephen Ranson, “The Normal Battle Reaction: Its Relation to the Pathologic Battle Reaction,” Bull. US Army Med. Dept 9/Supp. 3 (Nov. 1949). 38 Lidz (Feb. 1946) 47–49. 39 Advisory Board for Medical Specialties, Directory of Medical Specialists Holding Certification by American Boards 6 (Chicago 1953) 1346. While in World War I the Army required that every division have a psychiatrist, this rule would not be reinstituted until 1943. Albert J. Glass, MD, “Army Psychiatry Before World War II” in Neuropsychiatry 1:3, 18. 40 Lidz (Feb. 1946) 38–39; Lidz (Aug. 1946) 211. 41 French Moore 1:161, 162, 164; Laing 201. 42 Advisory Board for Medical Specialties, Directory of Medical Specialists Certified by American Boards 1942 (New York 1942) 1591. 43 Advisory Board for Medical Specialties, Directory of Medical Specialists Holding Certification by American Boards 6:1346 (Chicago 1953). 44 Sagebiel/Bird 1627. 45 See p. 268 and n. 5 above. 46 J. Miller 210; Berezin, “Guadalcanal” in Neuropsychiatry 2:458–63; Cowdrey 137–38. Vandegrift’s Final Report for the period 18 September through 9 December noted only a small number of “psychoneuroses and war neuroses.” Phase V Medical Annex T, 5, item A7–5. 47 Morison (1947–62) 5:187; Manchester (1979) 193–94.

15 The end of the beginning 1 Grace 58, 71–72, 138, 140; S. Howarth (1991) 422; S.E. Smith 389; Brodie 124; F. Pratt (1946) 44, 73. 2 U.S.Strategic/Interrogations 2:468, 470; Evans/Peattie 413–15; McEniry ch. 7; U.S.Strategic/Campaigns 124–38; Simmons 135; O’Connor (1969) 68; E. Stafford ch. 13; Huie 153–54; Pye/King (5 June 1943) in “Pye, W.S.” file, box 26, Morison/ Coll.; F. Pratt (1946) 74–75. 3 Clausen 309–12; www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/USN-CN-Guadalcanal/USNCN-Guadalcanal-epi.html. 4 Clausen 312; Halsey/Bryan 131; Merrill 59–64; Halsey/King (3 Sept. 1944) 5, “Guadalcanal Campaign Logistics” file, box 26, Morison/Coll.; Halsey/Nimitz (17 Nov. 1942), “Corresp. with Cmdr. South Pacific Force 1942–1943” file, Nimitz/Coll. 5 Brodie (1942) 125; Hailey (1943) 12, 37; Wolfert 149; Frank (1990) ch. 18; Sherrod 96. 6 Gardner in “CINCPAC CONFERENCE” file, box 24, Morison/Coll.

365

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7 Bo¯eicho¯ 28:421–29; Frank (1990) 497, 763, App. 2; Ugaki 285, 289, 301; Burden; Dull 253; O’Connor (1969) 69–71; Bergamini 952. 8 R. Wheeler 127; Vandegrift/Report Phase V Subject Report, 33, item A7–5. On 7 and 8 December medical personnel engaged in personal interviews with one regiment to determine its health. They declared 34 percent of the men unfit for combat duty, a number that would have been higher but for the inclusion in the sample of 400 recent replacements. Ibid. Medical Annex T, 10, item A7–5; Frank (1990) 259–60, 522, 614; Guadalcanal Legacy 63; Shaw 46. 9 Defeat into Victory (1956; New York 2000) 120–21. 10 Quoted in Hailey (1943) 37. 11 Terkel 59. 12 Fussell (1989) 4, 52; Bergerud 450; Connor/Hammel (14 June 1963) 8, Hammel/ Coll; Leon Saul, MD, “Psychological Factors in Combat Fatigue,” Psychosomatic Med. 7/5:257, 258–60, 267 (Sept. 1945). 13 Clark, “WWII: Guadalcanal Articles 2 file,” MCHC. 14 Marion (1991); Marion (2004) 217–19; Leckie (1965) 146. 15 R.R. Keene, “Closing the Book on Guadalcanal,” Leatherneck (Jan. 1993) 36; Krulak 18; D. Weller 845. 16 Bo¯eicho¯ 28:440–42; 83:495–97, 556; Kagina diary, “WWII: Guadalcanal Articles” 2 file, MCHC. 17 Bo¯eicho¯ 83:556. Reports vary as to the total taken off. Among the dead left behind, Americans found a Japanese woman. NYT (14 Feb. 43) 33. 18 Halsey/King (3 Sept. 1944) 5, “Guadalcanal Campaign Logistics” file, box 26, Morison/Coll. Cf. “Ito, CDR, Haruki” file, box 26, Morison/Coll.; Smith/Meehl 223. 19 G. Johnston (1943) 137. 20 Eichelberger (1950) 21; Eichelberger (1972) 32; Milner 204; Horner 264–65. MacArthur reportedly rescinded his dramatic “order,” telling Eichelberger just before he left that he would be of no use dead. Horner 205n. 35. 21 Robinson 41. 22 Dull 260; Kirby (1957–69) 2:289; Milner 364–69; Smurthwaite 79–83. 23 Larrabee 329; Milner 370–71. 24 Bo¯eicho¯ 28:570, 571. One Japanese account stated that 42,554 went to the island, and of these, battle losses totaled 24,330, from sickness and wounds 14,724, with only 3,000 leaving alive. Burden. Richard B. Frank totals Japanese deaths at a minimum of 30,343, including 25,600 on the ground and 3,543 at sea. Guadalcanal 613–14, 762–65. Yoshimura (159) states that 15,000 Japanese soldiers were killed, 4,500 dying of disease, starvation or other factors. Dull (259) reports that the February evacuation from Guadalcanal and from nearby Rennell Island totaled 10,652. See also Rottman 280–81; F. Pratt (1947) 293; Millett (1993) 210; J. Miller 349–50; F. Pratt (1948) 116; Cameron 112–13. 25 U.S.Strategic/Interrogations 2: 327, 331, 352, 353, 356; Hough/Ludwig/Shaw 372; Guadalcanal Legacy 85, 86; Leckie (1965) vii–ix. 26 Bo¯eicho¯ 28:575–76, 83:556; Harries/Harries 403; Kase 66; Kato 137; U.S.Strategic/Interrogations 2:313, 320; Guttman 36. 27 Wolfert 50; Goldstein/Dillon 329; “WWII: Guadalcanal Articles” 2 file, MCHC; “Comment on Characteristics of American Troops in Combat” (March 1943), “Guadalcanal Miscellaneous Items” file, box 26, Morison/Coll. 28 O’Connor (1969) 72–73; Bo¯eicho¯ 28:575–76. 29 Yoshimura 155–56. 30 Frank (1990) 613–14, 764; Simmons 136–37; Ben Yerger interview, www. thetigerisdead.com. More men were killed at sea in the Battle of Savo Island than in four months on Guadalcanal.

366

NOTES TO PAGES 288–297

31 “CINCPAC CONFERENCE” file, 8, box 24, Morison/Coll.; Morison (1947–62) 5:373; W. Churchill (1948–53) 6:21. 32 Hamilton 80–87; Gehring 159; Nocht/Mayer 68–88. 33 Vandegrift/Turner (24 Sept. 1942), “Sept. 1942 corresp.” file, Turner/Coll.; Shaw 46; Millett (1993) 212; McMillan 146–47; Felber 162–64; George Korson, At His Side (New York 1945) 41–42; Halsey/Nimitz (11 Dec. 1942), “Corresp. with Cmdr. South Pacific Force 1942–1943” file, Nimitz/Coll. 34 Nocht/Mayer 96–101. 35 Communicable Diseases 1, 7, 35–36. 36 Merillat (1982) 250; St. George vii; Vandegrift/Asprey 203, 209. 37 Dean Andersen, Praise the Lord and Pass the Penicillin (Jefferson, NC 2003) 220–21; Millett (1993) 212–13. 38 Gayle, personal communication (15 June 2004); Rill 52–53; Hoffman (1994) 235–36. 39 Glasser 60–61, 82–88. 40 Leckie (1962) 134; Henningham; Glasser 81–82. 41 Therese Benedek, Insight and Personality Adjustment (New York 1946) 55. 42 McMillan 157; Hoffman (2001) 219–21. 43 Gayle, personal communication (July 2003); Shaw 19; McMillan 144; Rill 62–63; Glasser 80. When Vandegrift was later appointed commandant, he ordered that division shoulder patches be discontinued, commenting: “We’re all Marines in this man’s Corps.” 44 Merillat (1982) 241–42, 253–54; Morison (1947–62) 5:66n.; “The George Medal” Old Breed News 52/6:22 (Dec. 2002); www/gnt.net/~jrube/george.htm; Brooke Nihart, “The ‘George’ Medal” in Shaw 48; McMillan 145; Hixon 88[m]; Twining (1996) 8–9, 81–82. 45 Mitchener 176; File VE23.N121973, MCHC; Merillat (1944) [v]. 46 Donovan 30. In May 2002 oceanographer Robert Ballard would locate scant remains of the vessel: a Mark 8 torpedo and torpedo tube. 47 File 190.4, “Pacific Trip 1943,” 14, Eleanor Roosevelt/Coll.; MacArthur (1964) 178. 48 File 190.4, “Pacific Trip 1943,” 31–32; E. Roosevelt (1949) 295–310; Maga 38–46; Thorpe 103. 49 Maitland 271; Donovan 58; McMillan 141. 50 Glasser 62. 51 Gayle (1996). 52 Rottman 548; W. Jones 5. Cf. H.M. Smith 6, 15–16: 19,423 Marines dead or missing and presumed dead, 1 Dec. 1941–31 Aug. 1945. 53 John M. Mobley, personal communication (July 2003); Communicable Diseases 30–31, 399, 426; Hamilton 62. 54 Custer 223. 55 E.R. Smith; “Guadalcanal Neurosis,” Sci. News Letter 43/21 (22 May 1943) 323; “Guadalcanal Neurosis,” Time (24 May 1943) 39; “Isle of Nightmare,” Newsweek 21 (24 May 1943) 88; “Guadalcanal ‘Hell’ Told to Doctors,” NYT (12 May 1943) 10; Deutsch 437; Advisory Board for Medical Specialties, Directory of Medical Specialists Certified by American Boards 1942 (New York 1942) 1,513; Advisory Board for Medical Specialties, Directory of Medical Specialists Holding Certification by American Boards 6 (Chicago 1953) 1,331. 56 McMillan 4; Stanislao. 57 Tuchman 175. 58 Carlson, Twin Stars of China (New York 1940) 79–83, 110; Carlson, The Chinese Army (New York 1940) 35–41, 59–60.

367

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59 Dyess xix, 25–27; Araki 1,043–46; Bob Wodnik, Captured Honor (Pullman, WA 2003) chs. 2–3; Terkel 79, 90–91; NYT (29 Jan. 1942) 2; Falk 205–09. 60 Dan Kurzman, Left to Die (New York 1994) 6. 61 Kase 103; Hattori 4:41; Frank (1999) 334; Kato 197; Hersey (1946) 15; Dower (1986) 41. Between Pearl Harbor and August 1945, Japanese casualties totaled: 1,555,308 military dead, 309,402 missing or wounded; 299,485 civilians dead, 368,830 lost or wounded. Tsurumi 80. 62 Frank (1999) 338–43; Hattori 4:21; Benedict 4; Fussell (1988) 22; D.M. Giangreco, “Casualty Projections for the U.S. Invasions of Japan, 1945–1946: Planning and Policy Implications,” J. Mil. Hist. 61:521 (July 1997). 63 H.M. Smith 3–4; “Homeland Operations Record,” Japanese Monog. 17–20, 82, Detwiler/Burdick 12; Hixson 7:139; J. Samuel Walker, “History, Collective Memory, and the Decision to Use the Bomb” (1995) in Hixson 7:195. By war’s end the Marines had six divisions trained in amphibious assault. The Army, meanwhile, had become true-believers, with twenty-eight divisions similarly trained. 64 U.S.Strategic/Japan 1; Spector (1988) 272–73. 65 Fortune 32/6:303 (Dec. 1945); Dower (1986) 33, 54; Bernstein (1977) 11; Frank (1999) 331, ch. 21. 66 Kato 41; George Roeder, The Censored War (New Haven 1993) ch. 1; Irokawa 36. The “crime” mentioned by several under death sentences was having failed the Emperor. Tsurumi 151–74. 67 Bernstein (1977) 27; Tanaka 202; Irokawa vii, 94–95. At this writing, several Asian nations continue to believe that Japan is not sufficiently contrite. See, e.g., Miami Herald (23 April 2005) 2. 68 Hosoya/Nish 3:255. When Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen visited Tokyo in 1949, MacArthur told him: “If the intellectual age of European culture is to be compared with a man of 45 years of age, Japan is 9, a bad boy, a barbarian at heart, ruthless, and cruel, who could be made good if he were adopted by good foster parents.” Quoted in Thomas C. Reeves, America’s Bishop: The Life and Times of Fulton J. Sheen (San Francisco 2001) 194. 69 Buruma 169–70. 70 Hersey (1946); Araki 1,049–57; Hosoya/Nish 2:149, 162–64; Sheila Johnson 37– 39; Benedict 222–23; Buruma 1–12. 71 Louis 28, 43; R. Aldrich 261; Robert Osgood, Ideals and Self-Interest in America’s Foreign Relations (Chicago 1953) 351; Conroy/Wray 27; Schroeder ch. 9; Irokawa xiii–iv. Japanese revisionists periodically repeated the original argument that the war was Japan’s attempt to liberate Asia from colonialism. Dubinsky 14–15. 72 Maas; Newcomb 254–55; S. Smith 146–47; Larrabee 201; Loxton/CoulthardClark 25–26. 73 Larrabee 200. 74 James (1987) 75; Wolfert 128; Sherman 7, 9; Jordan viii–x, 207. 75 www.gordon.army.mil/AC/WWII/LOCKARD.HTM; sandysq.gcinet.net/uss_ salt_lake_city_ca25/deafears.htm. 76 Gregg K. Kakesako, “Disregarded 1941 Radar Finally Honored,” Honolulu Star-Bulletin (22 Feb. 2000). 77 Honolulu Star-Bulletin (6 Dec. 1956) 9, (7 Dec. 1999); AP wire (7 Dec. 1999); R. Sullivan 174; Clarke 99. 78 Borch/Martinez 23, 89; Stinnett 257–58. 79 John Whitesides, “US Senate Restores Rank to Pearl Harbor Commanders,” Reuters newswire (25 May 1999).

368

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80 “Bush Skipping Pearl Harbor Anniversary,” AP newswire (6 Dec. 2001); Thomas K. Kimmel, Jr. “Unfairly Shouldering the Blame,” MHQ: The Quarterly of Military History 14/2 (Winter 2002); Borch/Martinez ch. 3; Borch 33; Rosenberg (2003) ch. 7. 81 www.tighar.org/Projects/Devastator/surveyamerican.htm. 82 Bischof/Dupont 111, 120–21. 83 “Final Japanese Acceptance” in Araki Annex no. A-1–c 9, 10; NYT (28 Oct. 1947); McMillan 140. On 27 April 1947, twenty-six Japanese soldiers descended from the hills of Pelelieu and surrendered to an American officer. 84 NYT (14 Feb. 1943) 33; www.wanpela.com/holdouts/accounts/rabaul/index. html; Irokawa 118; Dunnigan/Nofi 390; Irokawa 119; White/Lamont 231. 85 Burlingame 438–41. 86 Yoshikawa/Stanford 27; Twentieth Century no. 153, “The Man Who Spied on Pearl Harbor,” produced by WCBS television, aired 3 Dec. 1961; Gerald Walker, “Spy for December 7, 1941,” American Weekly (3 Dec. 1961) 12; U.S.Naval Institute Proceedings (Dec. 1960); Stinnett 339n. 44. 87 Hall x, 44. 88 Kahn (1991) 51. 89 Layton opp. 528; M. Smith 143–44; King/Nimitz (28 Oct. 1942), “Oct. 1942 corresp.” file, King/Coll.; Budiansky (2000) 15; Toland (1982) 62–69. 90 NYT (17 Nov. 1985) 1; Layton 94–95, 228, 412–17, 449–53, 464–69, 523–26; Costello (1994) 296; Clausen/Lee 66; Love in S. Howarth (1992) 85. 91 Morgenstern 26; U.S.Strategic/Interrogations 2:384, 393–94, 526; Fuchida/ Okumiya ix; Fuchida 24. 92 Burlingame 433. 93 Okumiya/Horikoshi 203–04; Bergamini 941. 94 Members of Japan’s Honolulu consulate would stay at the fashionable Triangle T guest ranch in Arizona. Hixson 4:269. 95 Hill 19–20, 237–39; Kato 78–81; Heinrichs (1966) 358–61. 96 www.warships1.com/index_oob_OOB_WWII_Pearl_Harbor.htm. 97 http://www.homeofheroes.com/wings/part2/01_doolittle_raiders.html; http:// www.doolittleraider.com/. 98 McCain/Nimitz (20 Sept. 1942), “Corresp. with FADM King 1942–1945” file, Nimitz/Coll.; (25 Sept. 1942), “Oct. 1942 corresp.” file, King/Coll.; Butcher 78; Regan 103–04; Lundstrom (1984) 173–74; E.B. Potter (1976) 200; Hoyt (2000) 149–51, 169. 99 O’Donnell 24–25. 100 O’Donnell 256; Donald Knox 407. 101 Vandegrift testimony to the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs regarding Sen. 2044, a bill to merge the armed forces, 6 May 1946; Hoffman (1994) 411–15. 102 Mason 136; P. Moore 79, 85. 103 NYT Book Rev. (4 Jan. 1998). 104 “Publicity file,” box 26, Morison/Coll. 105 Shaw 5; Soule 77–78; Washington Post G4 (17 March 1974). 106 S.E. Smith (1966) 79. 107 Gayle, personal communication (15 June 2004); Jack Weiler Mintzer, “The Story of Lt.(jg) Francis Weiler’s U.S. Naval Academy Class Ring,” http:// www.usshouston.org/TheStoryofFranWeiler.PDF; Mintzer, “The Long Journey Home: Fran Weiler’s Ring Returns to Annapolis,” http://usna.com/News_ Pubs/Publications/Shipmate/2000/2000_09/journy.htm. 108 www.qmfound.com/about_my_boy.htm. 109 File 190.4, “Pacific Trip 1943,” 32, “My Day” (16 Sept. 1943), Eleanor Roosevelt/Coll.; Maga 42–46.

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NOTES TO PAGES 313–316

110 111 112 113 114 115

116 117 118 119 120 121 122

Wolfert 139. Rottman 548, 549; “My Day” (16 Sept. 1943), Eleanor Roosevelt/Coll. Chicago Tribune (7 Aug. 1967). Washington Evening Star (29 June 1972) B5; NYT (29 June 1972) 40. “WWII: Guadalcanal Articles 2” file, MCHC; www.qmfound.com/mortuaryaffairs.htm. Bacon letter (30 Jan. 1980) in “WWII: Guadalcanal Articles 2” file, MCHC. Compare McMillan 52–56 with Jerry Federico interview, www.thetigerisdead. com.; Pfc. Don Langer account in www.geocities.com/Heartland/Estates/9233/ Page5usmc.html; William J. Whaling interviews with Hammel (16 May, 19 Aug. 1963), Hammel/Coll.; M.S. Smith 55–56; Don Richter, “The Sun Stood Still,” www.gnt/~rube/goettge.htm; Hoffman (2001) 197; Marion (2004) 93–94. Barlett, “In Search.” Interviews, Edgar Shepard, September and November 2005. Washington Post (25 May 1992) A1; www.usmcraiders.com/2ndann/edsons ridge2.html. Inui Pt. 1 (Conclusion); Bartlett 1985. Clark, “WWII: Guadalcanal Articles 2” file, MCHC. Stephen Webbe, “Veterans Mount New Invasion – as Tourists,” Christian Science Monitor (5 June 1979) B8; Return to Iwo Jima (1991; prod. Arnold Shapiro). Guttman 30; Marion (2004) 232–33.

370

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Archival materials American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming: Papers of Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher (“Fletcher/Coll.”). Library of Congress: Papers of Henry H. Arnold (“Arnold/Coll.”). Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, CA: Production Code Administration files (“PCA/Herrick”). Marine Corps Historical Archives, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD: Vandegrift, Alexander Archer, Division Commander’s Final Report on the Guadalcanal Operation, geographic file 370 D/01/05–D/01/06 (Vandegrift/Report). Marine Corps Historical Center, Washington Navy Yard, Washington, DC: “WWII: Guadalcanal Articles 2” file. File VE23.N121973 of Eric Hammel (“Hammel/Coll.”). Joseph H. Griffith folder. Marine Corps University Research Archives, Quantico, VA: Papers of Robert L. Ghormley (“Ghormley/Coll.”). Victor J. Croizat MS 41–42, MS 66–67. Operational Archives Branch, Naval Historical Center, Washington Navy Yard, Washington, DC: Papers of Ernest J. King (“King/Coll.”). Papers of Samuel Eliot Morison (“Morison/Coll.”). Papers of Chester W. Nimitz (“Nimitz/Coll.”). Papers of Richmond Kelly Turner (“Turner/Coll.”). Naval War College, Newport, RI: Papers of Thomas B. Buell (“Buell/Coll.”). Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, NY: Papers of Eleanor Roosevelt (“Eleanor Roosevelt/Coll.”).

Published primary and secondary materials Abbot, Willis J. Soldiers of the Sea: The Story of the United States Marine Corps. New York 1918. Adams, Henry H. et al. Sea Power: A Naval History. Ed. E.B. Potter. Englewood Cliffs, NJ 1960. Agawa, Hiroyuki. Yamamoto Isoroku. 1969. Trans. John Bester as The Reluctant Admiral: Yamamoto and the Imperial Navy. Tokyo 1979. Albion, Robert Greenhalgh. Makers of Naval Policy 1798–1947. Annapolis, MD 1980. —— and Connery, Robert Howe. Forrestal and the Navy. New York 1962.

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394

INDEX

ABC-1 plan 22, 66, 148 ABDACOM 98–99 Across the Pacific 74 Adelaide 109 Advanced Base Operations in Micronesia 138 Aedes aegypti 268 Ahrens, John 265–66 Aiea Heights 47 aircraft (Allied): Bell P-39 and P-400 Airacobra 158, 228–29, 232; Boeing B-17 “Flying Fortress” 25, 30, 48, 58–59, 62, 91–93, 124, 125, 131, 158, 166, 178, 231–32; Boeing B-29 “Superfortress” 64n86, 299, 308; Brewster F2A “Buffalo” 98–99, 130; Consolidated B-24 “Liberator” 30; Consolidated PBY-5A “Catalina” 48–49, 55, 128, 134, 158, 178, 227; Curtiss P-40 “Warhawk” 92–93; Curtiss P-40E “Kittyhawk” 93, 99; Douglas A-20 “Havoc” 48; Douglas B-18 “Bolo” 48; Douglas C-47 “Skytrain” a/k/a RD4, DC-3, “Dakota” 230, 248, 268, 273; Douglas SBD “Dauntless” 99, 112, 125–26, 129, 131–34, 167, 171, 211–12, 222, 228, 232, 243, 245; Douglas TBD-1 “Devastator” 124, 126, 133–34, 135n96, 232, 305; Grumman F4F “Wildcat” 125–26, 129–34, 158, 167, 171, 173, 226, 228–30, 233–34, 236, 245, 305; Grumman F6F “Hellcat” 235, 305; Grumman TBF “Avenger” 129–33, 179, 232, 245; Lockheed A-28 “Hudson” 99, 124, 158, 179; Lockheed P-38 “Lightning” 229, 307; Martin B-26 “Marauder”

129–30, 158; North American B-25A “Mitchell” 74, 117–21; Vought Corsair F4U 235, 285; Vought-Sikorsky SB2U “Vindicator” 129, 131 aircraft (Japanese): Aichi D3A2 Navy Type 99 “Val” 60, 125, 133–34, 171, 173, 194; Aichi E13A1 “Jake” 56, 58; Kakajima B5N2 Navy Type 97-3 “Kate” 60–61, 125, 131–33; Kawanishi H6K4 “Mavis” 124, 125; Kawanishi H8K1 “Emily” 124, 130; Mitsubishi A6M Reisen “Zero” 66–67, 98, 125–26, 130, 133–34, 135n96, 170n21, 172, 211, 222–23, 233–35, 285, 287–88, 306; Mitsubishi G4M1 Type 1 Rikko¯ “Betty” 116, 170–72, 211, 226, 233, 236, 306; Mitsubishi Type 97 “Babs” 66 Aircraft Warning Service 56–57 Air Force 225, 231 Akagi: at Midway 133; at Pearl Harbor 56, 60 Alaska 17, 116; US strategy regarding 108; see also Aleutian Islands Aleutian Islands 6, 108, 127–28, 233 Alexander, Harold 103 Alligator Creek 213 Amagiri 292 “Ambush and Decrease” 28; see also “decisive engagements” Americal Division see Army (US) American Legion 143 American Psychiatric Ass’n 296 amphibious operations 7, 39, 97, 107, 121–24, 138–39, 138n11, 142–48, 151, 161, 167–71, 299, 299n63 Antares 55 Aoba 183

395

INDEX

ARCADIA conference 66, 98, 106–07 Argonne 258 Arizona 62, 83, 89–90, 105, 309 Army, US: 10th Army 311; Americal Division 108, 116, 206, 243, 259, 265, 276, 281–82; 25th Division 284; 32nd Division 108, 116, 285; 37th Division 108 Army War College (US) 7, 138 Arnaz, Desi 240, 289 Arnold, Henry H. “Hap” 116, 147, 152, 229, 259, 302 Asahi Shimbun 68 Asama 8 Asama Maru 309 Asiatic Fleet, US 91, 99–100; see also Hart, Thomas C. Asiatic Squadron, US 2 Astoria 162, 167, 177, 184, 191 atabrine 264, 270–71, 270n16, 290, 295; see also malaria Atlantic Squadron 95 Auchinleck, Claude 53, 65 Auckland 144, 148, 152; see also New Zealand Australia 10; population density 109; sea lanes between US and 96, 103, 106–07, 109; race issue 114–15; antiJapanese sentiment 109, 115, 115n34; Japanese strategy regarding 108–09; and possible Japanese invasion 109, 112; military agreement with Britain 97, 100–01; troops sent to aid Britain 100–01, 103; and Singapore 97, 102; Curtin’s demand to repatriate troops 102–03, 108; seeks US military aid 101, 101n51; US personnel to 96, 108, 111; as US base 96; and US insular garrisons 107; and the Battle of Savo Island 178–80; peace force dispatched to Honiara (2003) 314; see also Curtin, John Australia 125, 162, 177–78, 180, 311 Bacon, Franklin C. 315 Bacon, Lloyd 71, 299 Bagley 183 Bailey, Kenneth D. 237–38 Baird, George 241 Balcombe Camp 289–90 Baldwin, Hanson 206, 208; Fletcher interview 164–65, 193–94; Turner

interview 163; Vandegrift interview 256–57; regarding Ghormley 261 Bali 100 Ballantine, Joseph 32 Ballarat 289 “banana wars” 138, 221 Bangkok 98; see also Thailand Bankline Oil Refinery 74 banzai 213, 307 barbiturates 277 Barnett 143, 154 Baruch, Bernard 42–43 Basilone, John 265 Bataan 103–04; condition of troops 110–13; malaria on 111, 269–70; influence on British posture at Singapore 101; commercial radio reception 240, 253, 271; US public perceptions of 112–14; Death March 111, 281, 297–98; Guadalcanal as possible repetition of 199, 241–42, 246, 253, 264, 275, 281; see also Corregidor Bataan 113, 240, 289, 297 Bates, Richard W. 180 battle fatigue see psychological stress battleships: “seagoing coastal battleships” 2; dreadnoughts 6; early Japanese 10; and Washington naval conference 10; and London naval conference 13; “black-shoe” and “Gun Club” culture 17, 95, 106; speed 17, 84, 84n31, 105; oil requirements 90; deemed value vs. carriers and aircraft 90; aerial attacks against 98; at Pearl Harbor 47, 50, 84; refloating 89; and defense of Singapore 101; omitted from Midway engagement 129; subsequent construction 304; see also carriers; Mitchell, Billy Bauer, Harold 231 Bayler, Walter 247 Beach, Edward L. 81, 86–87 Beach Blue 169 Beach Red 167, 169, 170–72, 177 Beard, Charles A. 81–82 Beijing 15 Bellinger, Patrick N.L. 30, 48 Bendix, William 250 Benedict, Ruth 218, 301 Berezin, Martin, MD 276–78 Berghaus, Bayard 202

396

INDEX

“Betty” see aircraft (Japanese) Bird, Lee, MD 277–79 Bismark Archipelago 108 Blamey, Thomas 243 Bletchley Park 88 Bloch, Claude C. 29, 55 Blue 177, 182, 187, 199 Blum, Sol 298 Bode, Howard D. 177–78, 184, 187, 190–91 BOLERO 108, 150 the “Bombardment” 244–52, 278 “bomb plot” messages 44–45, 82–83 Bonney, Al 284 Bora Bora 107 Borneo 23–24, 26, 99, 104 Boston 1–3 Bougainville 100, 116, 178, 311 Bougainville, Louis-Antoine de 156 Bougainville Strait 170, 178–79 Braceland, Francis, MD 255 Bracken, Eddie 296 Brannon, Dale 228 Bremerton, WA 62, 105 Brereton, Lewis H. 91, 93n17, 93n20 Brewster, Ralph Owen 80 Bridgeman, Jon 81 Bridge on the River Quai 301 Briggs, Ralph 45n10 Brisbane 288–99 “Brisbane Line” 109 British Eastern Fleet 98 British Empire 35, 41–42, 65, 96, 101–02, 110, 114, 301; see also Singapore British Solomon Islands Protectorate 157–58; see also Solomon Islands Brodie, Bernard 136–37 Brokaw, Tom 316 Brooke-Popham, Robert 52 Brown, Robert 310 Brown, Warwick, MD 276, 289 Brunei 99 B-17 see aircraft (Allied) Buchanan 169, 184 Budiansky, Stephen 86, 88 Buffalo, NY 140–41 Buin 170n21, 231 Buka 170n21, 231 Buka Passage 172, 178 Buna 166, 285–86 Burma 19, 23–25, 41, 53, 98, 103 Burma Road 23–24, 103

Burns, Philp & Co. 157 Buruma, Ian 301 Bush, George W. 304 bushido¯ 35–36; see also Japan Butler, Smedley D. 256, 297 Byas, Hugh 75–76 Bywater, Hector 10–12, 28–29 Cacos see Haiti Cactus 212 Cactus Air Force 227–32; lethality 231; reinforced after Battle of Guadalcanal 281; units: VMF-124 285; VMF-2ll 97; VMF-212 227–28 VMF-221 129; VMF-223 228, 233; VMF-224 228; VMSB-141 230; VMSB-231 228; VMSB-241 129 Cagney, James 263, 303 California 62, 89 Callaghan, Daniel J. 87, 164, 259, 280 Camp Cable 289 Canberra 162, 177, 183–84 Canton, China 34 Canton Island 106, 108 Cape Esperance 189, 284 Cape Esperance, Battle of 260–61, 280 Cape Gloucester 178, 294, 315 Cape Hunter 194 Cape Taivu 209, 212, 257 Carl, Marion E. 231, 284 Carlson, Evans F. 275, 297 carriers: and Navy hierarchy 95, 106; in war-game attacks on Pearl Harbor 17–18; and Battle of Coral Sea 122–27, 129, 129n76, 129n77; and Battle of Midway 129–34; later construction 304; see also battleships Casamento, Anthony 265 Casey, Richard 33, 36 Casey, William J. 88 Cates, Clifton B. 215–16 Cavite 3; US forfeits right to expand as base 11, 13 Celebes 99 censorship 188–89, 188n43, 205–06, 278–79 Ceylon 103 Chennault, Claire L. 25, 66, 103 Chequers 53 Chiang, Kai-shek 15, 103; admired in U.S. 34–35; modus vivendi 33–37; and Doolittle raid 117; conflict with Mao 301–02

397

INDEX

Chiang, May-ling Soong 34–35 Chicago 162, 170, 177–78, 183, 187 Chicago Tribune 43, 82, 84, 174–75, 311–12 China: attitude toward Japan 14; attitude toward US 96; US “Open Door” policy toward 4–5, 13–14, 301; at issue between Japan and US 34; and Doolittle raid 117–22 China/Burma/India theatre 103 China Marines 33, 256, 297 chinchona 269–70 Choiseul 156, 178, 211 Chokai 178, 182–84, 245 Christmas Island 106, 108 Chuchow 117, 119 Churchill, Winston: and Gallipoli 137; Atlantic Charter meeting with FDR 25, 30; Pacific defense based on Singapore 97; defense of Singapore 100–02; suggestion of abandoning Singapore 101–02; reaction to modus vivendi 33, 35; disputes with Curtin 101–03; weekend of Japanese attack 53–54, 65; comment on Midway 133; comment on Guadalcanal 288 City of Los Angeles see George F. Elliott Clark, Bennett Champ 298 Clark, H.L. 27–28 Clark Field 92–93, 113 Clarke, Carter 78 Clausen, Henry 78, 81, 88 Clausen, Walter B. 191 Clemens, Martin 136, 158, 228 “Climb Mount Niitaka” (NIITAKA YAMA NOBOREICHI-NI-REI-HACHI) 49, 49n28 Coffman, Raymond 197 Cole, Eli Kelley 138 Colorado 62 Combat Air Patrols 93, 125–26, 132–33 combat loading 138, 154 Coming War with Japan, The 306 Command and General Staff School (US) 95 Commonwealth forces: Second Australian Imperial Force, 6th Division 116; 7th Division 116, 25th Brigade 285, 39th Battalion 166, 285; 8th Division 99–100; 9th Division 290; III Corps, British Indian Army

100; 1st Burma Corps 103; 17th Indian Division, 14th Indian Army 100 Condor 55 Conger, J.E. 217–18, 308 Congress, US 42, 75; inquiry into Hawaiian attack 68, 79–80 Conroy, J.J. 247 Conte Verde 309 Coral Sea 109; Battle of 90, 122–27, 133; comment by Halsey 281 CORONET 299 Corregidor 104, 109–14, 282; see also Bataan Cory, Ralph 218–19 Costello, John 37–38, 77, 81, 86–88, 152–53, 308 Cotton, Joseph 296 Coughlin, Charles 19 Coulthard-Clark, Chris 179 Cox, Melville 29 Crace, John 125–26 Craigie, Robert 37, 68 Cramer, Myron 78 Crescent City 172n37 Cresswell, L.B. 213–14 Crutchley, Victor A.C. 162; background 187; meeting with Vandegrift and Turner 175–76; dispositions prior to Battle of Savo Island 175–77, 183; following Battle of Savo Island 187, 311–12 CUB One 229 Cuba 2, 138 Culebra, Isla de 138 Curtin, John 41, 97, 109, 289; disputes with Churchill 100–03; requests US aid 100–01, 108; and MacArthur 112, 243 Curtiss 55 Custer, Joe James 191, 295 Dairen 5 Darling River 109 Darwin 93n18, 100, 108–09, 111, 170n21 Daves, Delmer 71, 220, 226 Davis, Richard Harding 137 December 7th 74 “decisive engagements” 2–3, 8–11, 28, 122, 127–29, 135; see also Mahan, Alred Thayer De Klerk, Emery 249 De Ruyter 100

398

INDEX

De Vere, Bud 244–45, 247 Del Monte airfield 93, 93n17, 93n18 Del Valle, Pedro A. 236, 238 DeMille, Cecil B. 13 dengue fever 288 Denig, Robert 205 Dewey, George 2–3, 6 Diamond, Leroy 215 Diamond, Lou 139 Dickson, Donald 292 Dieterle, William 296 Dixon, Robert E. 125 Do¯mei Tsu¯shinisha 46, 300 Doolittle, James H. 116–21, 128, 299, 309 Doolittle Raid: as gimmick 122, 154; survivors 309; see also Doolittle, James H. Doorman, Karel 99–100 Dorn, Edwin 304 Dorsey, Tommy 240 DOVETAIL 155 Dreadnought 6 Drought, James M. 33n76 Duhamel, Arthur 249 Duncan, Donald 117 Dunkerque 259 Dunlap, R.H. 138 Durdin, F. Tillman 204, 206 Dutch Harbor see Aleutian Islands Dyess, William 297–98 dysentery 111, 267, 283

Turner 151, 302; carrier named for 304 Elliott, George E., Jr. 58–60, 303 Ellis, Earl Hancock “Pete” 15–16, 138 embargoes 17, 23, 68, 93; oil 23–26, 32, 36, 67 Emmons, Delos 240 Encounter 100 Enright, Ray 275, 297 Enterprise 85, 106; constructed 17; involved in radar test 57–58; delivery of planes to Wake 105; attack on Roi and Marcus 116, 261–62; Doolittle raid 117, 124; Midway 129, 132–33; Guadalcanal 173; Fletcher’s departure 194–95; Battle of the Eastern Solomons 208; Battle of Guadalcanal 280; scrapped 304 Espíritu Santo 151, 158, 178–79, 181n14, 199, 208, 228, 232, 268 Eta Jima see Imperial Naval Academy Etherton, P.T. 17 Etorofu Island 47 Ewa Field 49 Exeter 100

Eastern Solomons, Battle of 208 “east wind rain” (higashi no kaze ame) see “winds execute” message Eden, Anthony 25 Edson, Merritt A. “Red Mike” 152, 155, 169, 225, 236, 238, 254–55, 265, 289, 310 Edson’s Raiders see Marine Corps, US, 1st Raider Battalion Edson’s Ridge 209, 232–33, 236–40, 243, 265, 315 Efate 107–08, 157–58, 178, 268, 277 Eichelberger, Robert L. 285, 285n20 Eisenhower, Dwight D. 86; discussion with Marshall regarding Pacific strategy 95–96; chief of War Plans Division 107; and “Germany First” 106–07, 112; and BOLERO 150; reaction to King’s Pacific plan 107; and MacArthur 109n18, 110–12; and

Falk, Victor 224 Fall River see Milne Bay Far East Air Forces, US (FEAF) 91; see also Brereton, Lewis H. Farrow, John 71, 225, 249–50 Federal Bureau of Investigation (US) 47, 54, 306 Federal Communications Comm’n (US) 45 Ferguson, Homer 77, 79–80 Fighter One 229n11 The Fighting Marines 140 The Fighting Sullivans 71, 298–99 Fijis 103, 107, 124, 135, 145, 155, 178, 259 1st Air Fleet (ko¯ku¯kantai) see Japanese Imperial Navy Fisk, John 2 Fitch, Aubrey W. 125 Fleet Landing Exercises 138–39, 142 Fleet Training Publication 167 262 Fletcher, Frank Jack: background 160–61; Medal of Honor at Vera Cruz 161; Wake relief effort 97, 161, 195; Coral Sea 124–27, 161–62; Midway 129, 134, 161–62; given

399

INDEX

command by Ghormley 163; 26 July meeting with Turner and Vandegrift 162–63; decision to leave battle zone 173, 192–95, 292; perception by Marines 200; subsequent career 309 Florida Island 152, 169, 172 Flying Leathernecks 232 Ford, John 74, 113, 118 Ford Island 44, 60 Formosa 3, 91–92, 302 Forrestal, James 77–78, 90, 198–99, 229 Fort Shafter 44, 55, 304 Fortune 19 Foss, Joseph J. “Joe” 204, 218, 223, 226, 231, 310 Foster, Preston 250 XIV Corps 284 Fox, Clifford France: fall of 18; see also Indochina Frank, Richard B. 288 Fraser, Peter 41, 154, 259 French, Edward F. 54–55 French Frigate Shoals 130 Freud, Sigmund 274–75 Friedman, William F. 27–28 Fuchida, Mitsuo: Pearl Harbor 29, 60; Midway 133; later life 308 Fuchikami, Tadao 55, 64, 304 Fukudome, Shigero 215 Furutaka 183–84 Fussell, Paul 284 Galer, Bob 230–31 The Gallant Hours 303 Gallipoli 137–38 Gallup poll 19–20 Gardner, M.B. 288 Garfield, John 71, 222 Garnett, Tay 113, 297 Gavutu 169, 314 Gay, George 133 Gayle, Gordon D. 240, 253, 312–13 Gayler, Noel 126 Gehring, Frederic P. 226, 248–49, 263–64, 299 Geiger, Roy S. 138, 228, 230, 236, 245, 311 Genda, Minoru 29, 61–62, 105, 308 General Board (US Navy) 95, 309 Geneva Convention 121, 217 “Gentlemen’s Agreement” see Roosevelt, Theodore George, John B. 202

George F. Elliott 154, 172, 182 George Medal 292 George’s Channel 178 Germany: Tripartite Pact 18 “Germany First” strategy 22, 66, 106–07, 110, 143, 150, 294 Gerow, Leonard T. 33 Gettysburg 243 Ghormley, Robert L.: background 147–48, 258; appointed by King 144–47; meeting with MacArthur 148–49; attempt with MacArthur to postpone WATCHTOWER 148, 193n69; absence from 26 July meeting 163–64; approves Fletcher’s request to leave battle zone 192–93, 195–96, 195n86; reflection on Battle of Savo Island 192; mid-Sept. message(s) to Vandegrift regarding Japanese attack 235–36; relieved of command 259–61; subsequent career 309 Glasser, Arthur 290, 294, 312 Goettge, Frank G.: intelligencegathering prior to WATCHTOWER 157–58, 171; Goettge Patrol 218–20; body not recovered 314–15 Gona 166, 285 Goto, Aritomo 125 Graves Registration Service (US) 314–15 Great Britain: declares war on Germany 15; Tripartite Pact 18; US isolationism and 19; concern about early cross-Channel invasion 150, 150n46 Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere 114, 301 Great White Fleet 7–8 Greening, Ross 118 Grew, Joseph C. 17, 22; delivers Roosevelt message to Hirohito 51–52; Hull Note 40; rumors of Japanese attack 29–30; warns of Japanese attack 68; prisoner exchange with Nomura 309 Griffith, Samuel B. 239, 312 Gripsholm 309 Grotjan, Genevieve 27–28 Groton, CT 85 Guadalcanal 136; Spanish exploration of 156, 177; British Admiralty chart of 157, 167; environment of 200–05,

400

INDEX

209–10; as “stationary flattop” 136; Japanese incursion 136, 151, 173; US estimates of Japanese presence 171, 171n27; Korean and Chinese workers on 173, 223; US decision to assault 144, 151; amphibious landing 166–71; US ordnance 210–11, 243–44; captured Japanese equipment and supplies 173–74; snipers 225, 225n74; Japanese reinforcement 208–09, 211–12; use of passwords 225; commercial radio reception 240–41, 271; Japanese inability to resupply 281–85; Japanese starvation 282–83, 285; Japanese evacuation 285, 286n24; Japanese casualties 282, 286, 286n24; possible reasons for Japanese defeat 287–88; Allied casualties 288; news coverage 205–06, 261; strategic implications of result 286–88; equipment left 294; see also Japan Guadalcanal, Battle of 280–81, 298 Guadalcanal Campaign Veterans 316 Guadalcanal Diary 250 Guadalcanal Neurosis 296; see also psychological stress Guam 6, 10, 16, 22–23, 35, 96–97, 190, 305, 311; US forfeits right to build base 11 Gung Ho! 275, 297 Guppy, Henry Brougham 156–57, 201, 203 Hague Convention (1907) 36, 70 Haguro 100 Hailey, Foster 257 Hail the Conquering Hero 296 Haiphong 24 Haiti 138, 147, 206–07, 255–56 Halifax, E.F.L.W. 36–37, 52, 65n89 Hall, Robert 265 Halleck, H. Wager 220 Halsey, William F. 244, 283; background and leadership 261–62; qualified aviator 95, 261; carrier advocate 106; delivery of planes to Wake 105; attacks Wake and Marcus 116, 261–62; too ill for Battle of Midway 261; attitude toward Japanese 220–24, 303; effect of appointment on morale 262; 8 Nov.

meeting with Vandegrift 263; Battle of Guadalcanal 280–81; and Eleanor Roosevelt 293; and Enterprise 295; defends Kimmel 82; fame 281, 295 Hamaguchi, Osachi 13 Hamilton, Maxwell 24 Hanneken, Herman 265 Hara, Chu¯ichi 75 Hara, Tadaichi 124 Harding, R.W. 202 Harmon, Millard F. “Miff” 198, 243, 253, 259–60, 262 Harriman, Averell 53, 65 Hart, Thomas C. 30, 43; defense of Balikpapan 99; Pearl Harbor inquiry 77 Haruna 244 Hawaii: in 1890s 1–2; strategic position 1, 3, 6, 17; and US annexation 1–6; and Monroe Doctrine 3; and Asian immigration 6; US fleet stationed in 18; Japanese population 6; planned Japanese invasion of 103, 127–28 Hawaiian Interceptor Command see Aircraft Warning Service Hawks, Howard 225, 231 Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act 14 Hay, John 3, 4 Hayakawa, Sessue 13, 301 Hayes, Charles 229 Helena 280 Helfrich, Conrad 99 Helm 177 Henderson, Lofton R. 129, 131, 174 Henderson Field 173–74, 208, 314; conditions 229–30, 244–45; Battle for 264–66 Hepburn, Arthur J.: report on Guam 96; report on Battle of Savo Island 190, 195 Hersey, John 224–25, 238, 265, 301 Hewitt, H.K. 78 Hewlett, Frank 110 Hickam Field 49, 304 Higgins Boat 139, 143, 167–70 Hilger, John 119, 309 Hill, Max 51 Hirohito: assumes throne 15; and opening of hostilities 70, 99; telegram from Roosevelt 50–51; declares war 73; and Doolittle raid 122; after war 300 Hiroshima 299–300, 308

401

INDEX

Hiryu¯ 133–34 Hitler, Adolf 41, 82; declares war on US 43, 43n137, 66; Munich pact 15; rationale for invasion of Russia 35n93 Hitokappu Bay 43, 47 Hobart 125, 162, 184 Hoffman, Melville 233 Holbrook, Hal 308 Holcomb, Thomas 144, 258, 262, 310 Holden, William 301 Holmes, Jasper 128 Holstrom, Everett 309 Homma, Masaharu 114, 301 Hong Kong 96, 99 Honiara 314 Honner, Ralph 285 Honolulu 48, 60, 74, 295 Hoover, Herbert 14, 37 Hoover, J. Edgar 306 Hope, Bob 291, 293 Hopkins, Harry 65, 79, 116, 150 Horii, Tomitaro¯ 135, 166 Horikoshi, Jiro¯ 98 Hornbeck, Stanley 24–25, 38, 70 Hornet 105–06; and Doolittle raid 117–19, 124; Midway 129, 132–33 Horton, Dick 158 Hough, Frank O. 201, 205, 224 Houston 100, 312–13 Hoyt, Edwin 236 Hu, Shih 33 Hull 172 Hull, Cordell: background 70; possible Roosevelt/Konoe meeting 26; meetings with Nomura 31, 33n76, 62–63; 27 Nov. message to Short 39; Hull Note 36–40, 89; Japanese response to Hull Note 51–53, 60; and Bataan Death March 298 Hunt, LeRoy 138, 169 Hunter, G.E. 314 Hurlbut, James 205–06 Huston, John 74, 274 Huxley, Aldous 12–13 Hyakutake, Harukichi 135, 211, 215, 252, 264 Iba 92–93 Ichiki, Kiyonao 211–12, 214, 218; see also Ichiki Detachment Ichiki Detachment 211–15, 217, 220–21, 223, 226, 233, 235, 258, 305, 316

Ickes, Harold 24 I.G. Farbenindustrie 270 Iida, Sho¯jiro¯ 103 I’ll Be Seeing You 296 Imoto, Kumao 286 Imperial Naval Academy 17, 26n37, 56, 67 Inagaki, Kiyoshi 56 Indispensable Strait 178 Indochina 23–24, 36, 43, 316; buildup of Japanese troops 38 Ingersoll, Royall E. 39 Inoue, Shigeyoshi 108, 127 Inui, Genjirou 214, 315–16 Ioribaiwa Ridge 243 Iron Bottom Sound 288 Ishikawa, Shiro¯ 218, 308 isolationism 19–20, 22, 26, 35 Italy: Tripartite Pact 18 Ito¯, Seiichi 70 Iwo Jima 89, 170, 295, 308, 310 Jackson, Stonewall 257–58 Jaluit 116 James, William 3 Japan: Russo-Japanese War 4–5, 14; attitude toward US 7–14, 33, 67–68; sense of betrayal 5; reaction to racism 7–8, 114–15; chauvinism 4; southern strategy 24; samurai warrior tradition 12, 35–36, 68, 216, 224, 286; militarism 14–16; military training as brutal hierarchy 153, 154n64, 216–17, 257; ferocity 218–19, 218n42, 224–25, 299; attitude toward death in combat 213, 217–18, 286; attitude toward surrender 56, 170, 217–18, 284–86, 305–06; perception of US as decadent 11–13, 65, 75–76, 218, 299; casualties in China 33; imperial policy 13–16; pact with Soviets 24; possible war with Soviets 24, 67, 287; propensity for surprise attack 35–36, 70, 83; resources 23; merchant shipping 64, 64n86; reactions to trade sanctions 24–26; Imperial Conference of 6 Sept. 1941 25; war strategy against US 26–28; tactical inflexibility 215–16; psychological warfare 226; treatment of Allied prisoners 297–98, 301, 313; planned invasion of by US 299; and war guilt

402

INDEX

300–01; war crimes 301; see also Mandates Japanese American population: discrimination against 6–8; internment issue 73–74; Japanese Imperial Army 71, strategy 108; lack of coherent plan 215; units: 8th Area Army 286; 2nd (Sendai) Division 252, 264; South Seas Detachment 135; 35th Infantry Brigade a/k/a Kawaguchi Detachment 211–12, 236–40; 5th Sasebo Landing Force 166; Yokosuka 5th Special Landing Force 212; 17th Army 135, 211, 215; see also Ichiki Detachment Japanese Imperial Navy 5–6; “Ambush and Decrease” Pacific strategy 28; possible reaction to trade sanction 24; 1st Air Fleet 36; 4th Fleet 16n99; Special Naval Landing Force, 4th Fleet 169, 211; 8th Fleet 169, 178; 6th Heavy Cruiser Division 178; 18th Heavy Cruiser Division 178; 22nd Air Flotilla 97–98; 25th Air Flotilla 166n3, 170 Jarvis 172, 182, 189, 217 Java 98, 100, 270; see also Netherlands East Indies Java 100 Java Sea, Battle of 100 Jehol 14 Jitra Line 100 JN-25 encryption 49, 65n89, 86–8, 128, 166, 174–75, 219, 306–07 J19 consular encryption 44–45 John Ericsson 143, 154 Johns, David W. 314 Johns, Harold 314 Johore Strait 100–02 Joint Army and Navy Board (US) 6, 10–11, 158 Joint Chiefs of Staff (US) 20, 107–08, 110, 121–22, 146–47, 150, 199, 244, 254 Jomard Passage 125 Jones, David 309 Jones, James 202 Josselyn, Henry 158 Junyo¯ 280 Kaga 133 Kagoshima Bay 61

Kahuku Point 60; see also Opana Kajioka, Sadamichi 97, 124 Kako 184–88 Kalakaua 6 Kalihi 55, 304 Kaltenborn, H.V. 70 kamikaze 235 Kamimbo Bay 284 Kaneohe Bay 48–49 Kaohsiung 92, 93n20 Kase, Toshikazu 40 Kato, Kenkichi 191 Kawaguchi, Kiyotake 212, 233, 236–40, 252, 301 Kawakaze 199 Keefe, Frank B. 21, 80 Keegan, John 265 Keitel, Wilhelm 18 Kelantan River 96 Keller, Gene 247 Kelly, Wayne 241, 245 Kemakeza, Allan 314 Kennedy, John F. 292–94, 304 Kent, William 206 Keough, M.F. 248 KGEI 51 KGMB 56, 58, 60 Kiangsi incident 34 Kido, Ko¯ichi 51 kido¯ butai see Nagumo, Chu¯ichi Kieta 179, 231 Kikuchi, Dairoku 7 Kimmel, Husband E. 95; background 40; defenses against Japanese attack 29–30, 47–48; demands all intelligence 44; receives War Warning messages 35, 39–40, 46, 82; ferries planes to Midway and Wake 33, 48; not shown bomb plot messages 44–45, 82–83; not shown “winds” message 45; informed of Japanese consular offices destroying codes 46; investigations 76–80; failure to interface with Short 48; reaction to Ward’s sinking sub 55, 83; 6 December interview with Harsch 67, 85; conspiracy theories 82–84; post-war protestations 82–84; family’s efforts to restore rank 304 Kinugasa 245 King, Edward 112 King, Ernest J. 18; background 93–95; qualified pilot 95; FLEX 7 142; and

403

INDEX

amphibious tactics of Holland Smith 142; consoles Kimmel 76–77; Pacific strategy 106–08; Pacific command 121–22; Doolittle raid 117; orders assaults in Solomons 143–44; disputes with Marshall and MacArthur concerning command 121, 121n52, 144–45, 242; demands Pacific commitment from Marshall 152; and TORCH 150, 229; and Battle of Savo Island 188–89; and publicity regarding WATCHTOWER 205; Rochefort controversy 307–08; reviews Fletcher’s performance 161–62, 309; promoted 302–03 Kirishima 281 Kita, Nagao 44, 46 Knobloch, Richard 309 Knox, Dudley 11 Knox, Frank 35; member of Rough Riders 107n7; Republican 35; and strategy of keeping US fleet in Hawaii 18–20; possible attack on Hawaii 29; alleged extra warning to Kimmel 81; receives word of Hawaiian attack 60; excluded by King 107n7; and Battle of Savo Island 189–90; concern about Guadalcanal 253 KNX 241 Koga, Tadayoshi 233 Kokoda 166, 243 Kondo¯, Nobutake 280–81 Kongo¯ 244, 281 Konoe, Fumimaro 29, 301; request for meeting with FDR 26; fall of cabinet 31 Korea 5, 23, 301, 310 Koro 155–56; see also Fijis Kota Bharu 53, 70, 96–97; see also Malaya Kra Isthmus 39, 41, 41n131, 53, 98, 100 Kuantan 98 Kuhn, Loeb and Co. 5n19, 33n76 Kukum 173 Kung, H.H. (Hsiang-hsi) 35 Kungsholm see John Ericsson Kurile Islands 47, 71 Kurusu, Saburo¯ 309; background 31–32; stopover at Wake 70–71; caricatured 70–72; lack of foreknowledge of Hawaiian attack 69, 72; meeting with Baruch 42–43

Kusaka, Ryunosuke 28 Kwajalein 10, 97, 116, 153 Kwangtung Province 33 Kwantung Army 14 Kyu¯shu¯ 299, 302 Lae 103, 109, 116, 285 LaGuardia, Fiorello 298 Lakunai 170–71 Lane, Kerry 140 Langley 100 Larkin, George 119 La Tontouta 148 Lawrence, David 75 Lawrence, John E. 246 Lawson, Ted W. 71, 118–21 Layton, Edwin T. 49n28; intelligence chief to Kimmel 36, 37; Midway 128, 307; vindicates Rochefort 307–08 Lea, Homer 8 League of Nations 10, 10n59, 15–16 Leahy, William D. 18–20, 95, 302 Lean, David 301 Leary, Herbert F. 146 Leckie, Robert 203, 247, 284 Ledo 103 Lee, Willis A. “Ching” 281 Lejeune, John 138–39, 257 Lend-Lease 22, 30, 95, 105, 117, 147, 158 Lengo Channel 189, 196 Let There Be Light 274 Levers Pacific Plantation Proprietary Ltd 157, 169, 294 Lexington 17, 93, 105–06, 116, 174; Battle of Coral Sea 124–27, 129n76; 161–62 Liaotung Peninsula see Port Arthur Lidz, Theodore, MD 200, 220, 254–55, 258, 275–77, 312 Liephart, “Muscles” 265 Lili‘uokalani 1–2, 6 Lincoln Brigade 220 Lindbergh, Charles 19 Lockard, Joseph L. 58, 303 Lodge, Henry Cabot 8 logistics: regarding Great White Fleet 8, 90; battleships 90; in Australia 112; in New Zealand 154–55; in WATCHTOWER 148, 163, 171, 198–99, 244, 254, 287; Japanese 85, 281–85, 286n24 London, Jack 157, 202–03

404

INDEX

London Naval Limitation Treaty (1930) 13, 16, 17, 23, 27 LONE WOLF 143 Los Angeles Times 206 Loudon, Alexander 33 Louie the Louse 226 Louisiades 125 Lourenço Marques 309 Low, Francis 117 Loxton, Bruce 179–80 Luganville 151 Lull, the 239n52 Lundstrom, John 90, 163 Lunga region /k/a “Lengo” 136, 157–59, 158n83, 167, 171, 194, 226, 229; distances to other bases 268 Lunga River 136 Luzon see Manila; Philippines LVT “Alligator” 169 Maas, Melvin J. 189, 302 MacArthur, Arthur, Jr. 3 MacArthur, Douglas 235, 259; personality 17, 109–11, 109n18; characterized in film 113; adulation by US public 110–13, 110n19; rumored political rivalry with FDR 110, 147; and Bonus Marchers 111–12; in Philippines in 1930s 16–17; reaction to Hawaiian attack 91–92; strategy to defend Philippines 30, 33, 67; confidence in B-17 30, 38, 67, 93n17; declares Manila open city 103–4; retreat to Bataan 103–04, 109–14; decision to leave the Philippines 109–10, 115; in Australia 115–16; disputes with King concerning command 121, 121n52, 144–45, 242; splitting command with Nimitz 121–23, 144, 147–48, 151, 302; TULSA plan to retake Rabaul 122; attempt with Ghormley to postpone WATCHTOWER 148, 193n69; and Battle of the Coral Sea 124; comment regarding Battle of Savo Island 189; warns Marshall about control of sea 252–53; New Guinea campaign 242–43, 285–86; billeted far from the front 110–11, 242–43, 243n63, 285–86; informed of Bataan Death March 298; Marines’ perception of 241–42, 284; and Eleanor Roosevelt 293; governs

Japan 300–01, 306, 308; fired by Truman 302 McCain, John Sidney 158, 227, 288; 26 July meeting 162–63; reconnaissance and Savo Island 178–81, 181n14, 192; meets with pilots 230; assesses Guadalcanal 229; 12 Sept. meeting with Vandegrift; meeting with Fletcher 309 McCawley 175–76, 178–81, 196 McCloy, John J. 73 McCormick, Frederick 114 McCormick, Robert 43, 174, 311–12 McDonald, Joseph 58–59 MacFarlan, Don 171 Mackinac 181 McMillan, George E. 205, 209, 241, 256 “Magic” 66; see also “Purple” diplomatic encryption Mahan, Alfred Thayer 10; SpanishAmerican War 3; battleship culture 95; doctrine of keeping fleet intact 40; Japanese interest in 4, 8–9; Hawaiian acquisition 1; see also decisive engagements Maine 2, 2n10, 14 Maitland, Patrick 206 Makambo 169 Makin 116 Malaita 181, 181n14, 314 malaria 111, 264, 268–71, 278–9, 283, 283n8, 286, 288–90, 295 Malaya 19, 41, 53, 75, 81, 100 Maloelap 116 Manchester, William 91, 195, 202, 279 Manchukuo see Manchuria Manchuria 14–15, 23, 244n70 mandates 10–11, 10n59, 15–16, 16n99, 47–48, 138 Mangrum, Richard C. 228, 231, 240–41 Manhattan see Wakefield manifest destiny (US) 2–3 Manila: in Spanish-American War 3; declared open city 103–04; see also Bataan; Philippines Mao, Zedong 15, 297, 301–02, 312 Marco Polo Bridge 15 Marcus Island 116, 261 Mare Island 296 Marine Corps Schools 138, 238 Marine Corps, US: history 139; recruitment 139–42, 250, 275; training 143, 155–56, 206–07, 222,

405

INDEX

275; morale 257–58; attitude toward Japanese 219–25; casualties in World War II 294–95; units: 1st Division 137–43, 269, 276, 278–79, 284, 289–91, 299, 311; 2nd Division 143–44, 152, 169, 284, 311; 6th Division 311; 1st Defense Battalion 23, 97; 3rd Defense Battalion 130, 152; 6th Defense Battalion 130; 1st Engineer Battalion 229; 1st Parachute Battalion 170, 236–39; 1st Raider Battalion 144, 152, 155, 170, 222, 224, 236–39, 255, 315; 2nd Raider Battalion 275, 297; 1st Brigade 139, 142; 2nd Brigade 106, 139, 143; 1st Marines 142, 148, 152, 173, 213, 289; 2nd Marines 169, 176; 4th Marines 33, 113; 5th Marines 142, 144, 152, 167, 169, 199, 202–03, 207, 218, 239, 265, 284, 289; 7th Marines 142, 143, 152, 206, 209, 235, 243, 246, 265, 284, 289; 8th Marines 281–82; 11th Artillery Regiment 142, 148, 152, 197, 236, 284, 289; 1st Engineering Battalion 173; Marine Corps Expeditionary Force 138; see also Cactus Air Force; China Marines; Guadalcanal; “Old Breed”; Wake Island Marine Scouting-Bombing Squadron 241 174 Marion, Ore 140–41, 202–03, 226, 315 Markey, Gene 249, 288 Marshall, George C. 27, 39; early declared intention to burn Japanese cities 30, 118–19, 299; B-17 strategy 30, 30n61, 59, 67; and Eisenhower 95–96, 107, 150; activities on 6–7 December 53–55, 78, 80–81, 80n21, 80n22; investigations of Hawaiian attack 45, 78–81; disputes with King and MacArthur concerning Pacific command 107–08, 144–47; and BOLERO 150; and TORCH 150, 229; commitment to Pacific 150, 152; orders MacArthur to increase air support 252–53; promoted to five stars 302 Marshall, Katherine 80n21 Marston Matting 229–30 Martin, Frederick L. 30 Marumo, Kuninori 124 Maruyama, Masao 264

Maryland 62, 89 Mason, Paul 170 MATADOR 41, 52, 100 Matanikau River 209, 218, 244n70, 252, 281, 310, 312–14 Matsui, Iwane 34 Matsunaga, Sadaichi 97 Matsuoka, Yo¯ suke 24, 26 Matsuyama, Mitsuharu 191 Maya 245 Mayer, Louis B. 113 medical evacuation 268 Meiji era 12 Meiji Kenpo¯ 15 Melbourne 289–92 Mendaña de Neira, Alvaro de 156 Menninger, William C., MD 273 Merillat, Herbert C. 191, 205, 226, 292 Michener, James A. 209, 292 Midway 22, 48, 105, 127–34 Midway, Battle of 90, 127–34, 135n98, 174, 232, 308; influence of Doolittle raid 128; as turning point 286; King’s suggested exploitation of 144; and Japanese public 188, 308; Japanese characterization of 188; comment by Halsey 281 Mikawa, Gunichi 166; desire to retake Guadalcanal 211; in Battle of Savo Island 178–96, 222 Milestone, Lewis 299 Mili 116 Miller, E.B. 138 Miller, Robert 206, 222 Milne Bay 170, 178–80, 218n42 The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek 296 Misima 125 Missing in Action and Presumed Dead 314 Missouri 302, 311 Mitchell, William L. “Billy” 90, 98, 106 Mizuno, Horonori 6 modus vivendi 32–37, 88–89 Monaghan 55 Mongolia 14–15, 31 Monroe Doctrine (US) 3, 8 Monssen 184 Montgomery, Robert 249, 288, 303 Montrose, Sherman 206 Moore, Bryant 243 Moore, Paul, Jr. 140, 167, 187, 244, 246–47, 269, 273, 310–11 Moore, Robert 309–10

406

INDEX

Morgenstern, George 82 Morgenthau, Henry, Jr. 32 Morison, Samuel Eliot 75, 161, 243; Battle of Savo Island 180–81, 180n10; concerning Guadalcanal 288, 311– 12; comment on battle fatigue 279 Morse, Ralph 188 Morton, Lewis 62 Mozambique 309 Mugford 171 Mukden 4, 14, 68 Munda 170n21, 231 Munich agreement 15 Munson, H.G. 179 Myoko 245 Nachi 100 Nagano, Osami 25, 70 Nagasaki 299–300 Nagato 84n31 Nagumo, Chu¯ichi: Hawaiian attack 36, 64, 86–87, 86n35, 105; Midway 131; Saipan 307 Nanking, Rape of 34, 121 National Origins Act (US) 8, 14, 32 National Rifle Ass’n (US) 310 Naval Institute (US) Proceedings 93 Naval War College (Japanese) 17 Naval War College (US) 1, 2, 11, 15, 17, 66, 138, 155, 163, 180 Nave, Eric 45n10, 49n28, 65n89, 87 Ndeni 151, 176, 178 Neosho 125 Netherlands East Indies 18–19, 24, 36, 53; attitude toward US 96; Japanese blockade of 109 Netherlands Royal East Indies Army (KNIL) 98 Nevada 62, 89, 105 New Britain 99, 145–46, 294; see also Rabaul New Caledonia 41, 106, 124, 135, 145, 155, 288; see also Nouméa New Georgia Sound see the Slot New Guinea 10, 146, 170, 285–86; casualties 286; see also Kokoda; Lae; Milne Bay; Owen Stanley Range; Port Moresby; Sanananda; Seven Mile airstrip, New Hebrides 107–08; see also Efate New Ireland 145–46, 178 New River, NC 142, 269 New York Times 188

New Zealand 10; troops sent to aid Britain 100; requests repatriation of troops 102, 108; war preparation 109; oil embargo 25; troops in Fijis 107; US Marines dispatched to 143; as base 154; race issue 114; forces slated for Guadalcanal 259–60; peace force dispatched to Honiara in 203, 314 Nicaragua 138, 225, 228, 255–56 Nichi-Nichi Shimbun 68 Nichols, Joy 291 Nimitz, Chester 89, 169, 293; Hawaiian submarine base 64; perspectives on Hawaiian attack 84–85; Battle of Coral Sea 124; Battle of Midway 90, 128–30; command bifurcated with MacArthur in PESTILENCE 123, 144, 147–48, 151; Battle of Savo Island 189, 191n56; concerned about control of sea 252–53; orders to Ghormley 163; relieves Ghormley of command 259–61; comments on Battle of Guadalcanal 281; subsequent bifurcation of command with MacArthur 302; succeeds King 302–03; promotes Fletcher 309; fame 295, 304 97-shiki O¯bun Injiki see “Purple” diplomatic encryption Nolan, Lloyd 113, 250 Nomura, Kichisaburo¯ 13, 25, 26; early friendship with FDR 31; and Mandates 16n99; appointed ambassador to US 31; urges soft line with US 31; conversations with Hull 31; lack of foreknowledge of Hawaiian attack 69, 72; interned 188; released 308–09 Non-Recognition Doctrine see Stimson, Henry North Africa see TORCH North Carolina 84n31, 161, 208 North Island Naval Air Station 233 Nouméa: French colonial atmosphere 148, 258–59; US Army arrives 108, 116, 199; air capability 108; headquarters of Ghormley and Turner 196; base for Guadalcanal supply 199, 268, 290; Eleanor Roosevelt’s visit 293; Casual Camp 294; see also La Tontouta; New Caledonia

407

INDEX

Noyes, Leigh 160; 26 July meeting 162–63; decision to leave battle area 192 Nye, Gerald 298 Office of Censorship see censorship Office of Naval Intelligence (US) 2, 27, 30, 45 O’Hagan, Jack 291 O’Hare, Butch 116 oil: storage at Pearl Harbor 90; in Burma 100; as reason for Fletcher’s leaving WATCHTOWER battle zone 194–95, 195n85, 195n86; see also embargoes Okichi 12 Okinawa 89, 295, 311, 315 Oklahoma 62, 89–90, 105 Okumiya, Masatake 98 Okumura, Katsuzo 52 “Old Breed” 139, 142, 250 O’Leary, Jeremiah 205 OLYMPIC 299 Omaha Beach 170 Onoda, Hiro¯ 306 Opana 58, 83, 303 Open Door policy (US) 4–5, 13, 301 OPERATION FS 124, 135 OPERATION MO see Port Moresby OPERATION RI see Port Moresby OP-20-G office 219 “Orange” war plans 6, 11, 16–18, 21, 22, 103–4, 121, 138 Oscar 226 Owen Stanley Range 109, 170, 178; see also New Guinea PA-K2 consular encryption 50 Palembang 99; see also Sumatra Palmyra 106 Panama 6, 10, 17, 54, 74 Pan-American air service 32, 33, 44, 71, 250 Panay incident 33–34 Pandeglang 313 Papua see New Guinea Parks, Floyd 129–30 Patch, Alexander M. “Sandy” 199, 206, 274, 283 Pattani 96 Patterson 183–84 Patton, George S., Jr. 48, 111, 220–21, 278–79

Payne, John 272 Pearl Harbor: US granted rights 6; choice as base 6; construction of base 6; failure to improve facilities 11; Japanese naval strategy and 10; as strategic target 17; rumors of aerial attack 29–30, 42–43; failure to employ appropriate defenses 29; aerial reconnaissance 47–48; oil storage 90; weather 17, 60; Japanese espionage regarding 21; Japanese attack 60–62; investigations of (see Kimmel, Husband E.; Marshall, George C.; “Purple” diplomatic encryption; Short, Walter C.; Stark, Harold R.; Turner, Richmond Kelly; United States Army Pearl Harbor Board of Investigation; United States Naval Court of Inquiry); arrival of B-17s 58–60, 62; failure to destroy infrastructure 64, 105; see also sabotage Peleliu 10, 140, 294, 311, 315 Percival, A.E. 102, 302 Perkins, Frances 65 Perry, Matthew 4, 12, 22 PESTILENCE 144, 151, 268 Peyton, Thomas 163 Philippines: and Spanish-American War 2–3, 138; annexation criticized 3, 16; in 1930s 16–17; deemed vulnerable to Japanese attack 6; US relinquishes right to improve naval base 13; US inability to defend or relieve 17, 17n104, 21, 22; possible US reaction if Japan invaded 19, 67; Japanese blockade of 104, 112; Stark warning 35; invaded by Japanese 103; see also MacArthur, Douglas Phillips, John 125 Phillips, Tom 98 Pineau, Roger 37–38, 180, 180n10, 308 “Pistol Pete” 244, 244n70; see also Tani, Akio Pitkin, Walter 8, 12 Plan Dog Memorandum 18n110 Plasmodium falciparum 289 Plasmodium vivax 269, 289 Point Cruz 219 Pointe de Ca Mau 49 Point Luck 129–30 Polifka, Karl F. 158

408

INDEX

Pollock, Edwin A. 213 Pope 100 Port Arthur 4–5, 35 Port Moresby 179; Japanese amphibious assault 103, 108–09, 124, 127, 135; Japanese attack overland 135, 166, 211, 243; see also New Guinea Power, Harry 167 Prange, Gordon W. 80 President Jackson 284 Pride of the Marines 71, 220, 226 Prince of Wales 97–8, 101 psychological stress 200, 204, 230, 240–41, 245, 254–55, 263, 272–79, 283, 291, 295–96 psychological theories of childhood, US 139, 274–75, 298 Puller, Lewis B. “Chesty” 220–21, 246, 254–55, 257, 265, 294, 310 “Purple” diplomatic encryption 27, 28, 219; does not indicate Hawaiian attack 72; response to Hull Note 49–51, 89; setting negotiations deadline 36; Turner’s control 87; and Pearl Harbor investigations 77–80 The Purple Heart 299 Puttick, Edward 260 Pye, William 144 Quezon, Manuel Luis 16 Quincy 162, 167, 177, 182, 184, 312 quinine 264, 269–71, 270n16, 288; see also malaria Rabaul 10, 116, 124, 153, 231, 306; Japanese takeover 99; airfields 170; MacArthur’s TULSA plan regarding 122; base for Mikawa’s force 178–95; base for Imperial Army forces 208; planes grounded by weather 239; sighting of “holdout” 305 race 114–15 radar: Hawaii 56–59, 83; Luzon 92; Coral Sea 125–26; Midway 130, 133; Guadalcanal 167, 181–82, 187, 260–61, 280 Radio Tokyo 45n10, 119, 167, 302 Rainbow war plans 18, 22, 39, 43, 66, 92; see also Plan Dog Memorandum Ralph Talbot 177, 182 Ramgarh 103 Ramsey, Logan 55, 60

Rangoon 98, 100, 103; see also Burma; Burma Road rat transport 212, 282 Ray, Nicholas 232 Read, W. Jack 172, 179 Redman, John 307–08 Redman, Joseph 307–08 Rekata Bay see Santa Isabel Rennell Island 178, 286n24 Repulse 97–98, 101 Richardson, James O. 17–21, 67, 77, 95 Riefkohl, Frederick L. 177, 192 Rivers, Johnny 215 Roberts, Owen see Roberts Comm’n Roberts Comm’n 76–77, 82 Robinson, Lewis 309 Rochefort, Joseph J. 49n28; PA-K2 encryption 50; not assigned to most important Japanese naval encryption 87–88; partially decrypts Moresby invasion plan 109, 128; Midway decryption 128, 174; contribution recognized 307–08 Roebling, Donald 169 Rogers, Will 16 ro¯maji 27 Rommel, Erwin 102 Roosevelt, Eleanor 271–72; goodwill tour 290–93; visits Guadalcanal 293–94, 313–14 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano: as assistant-secretary of the Navy 147; friendship with Nomura 31; proNavy 147; in Haiti 147; and Bywater 11; 1930s naval construction program 17; placating isolationists 19, 35n92; “Quarantine” speech 34; Lend-Lease 22; trade sanctions against Japan 17, 23–26; oil embargo 25–26, 67–68; attitude toward China 34–35; friendship with Evans Carlson 297; decision to keep fleet in Hawaii 18–19; Atlantic Charter meeting with Churchill 25, 30, 43; misutilization of US intelligence capability 88–89; modus vivendi 33–38; knowledge of Hull Note 37–38; attempt to provoke Japan 43; defense of Philippines 103–04, 110; reacts to thirteen-part Japanese message 50, 80; alleged 9–7 war cabinet meeting 81; telegram to Hirohito 50–51; circumstances

409

INDEX

supporting US declaration of war 41–43, 52–53; reaction to Japanese attack 65–66, 69; congressional inquiry concerning 79–80; conspiracy theories regarding 81–88; ignorance of Hawaiian attack 38n115; and Doolittle raid 116, 150, 154; and relative commands of Nimitz and MacArthur 122, 145, 147; viewing Pacific as secondary front 113, 150, 198, 254; and BOLERO 150; and Germany First strategy 103, 113, 150, 294; and TORCH 150; concern about Guadalcanal 254, 254n5 Roosevelt, James 147, 254n5, 292 Roosevelt, Theodore: as assistantsecretary of the Navy 2; Rough Riders 3, 109, 137; Russo-Japanese War 4–5; “Gentlemen’s Agreement” 6–8; Manchuria 14; Philippines 16; Spanish-American War 2–3; carrier named for 304; see also Great White Fleet Roosevelt, Theodore, Jr. 11 Rosecrans, Harold E. 169 Rossel Island 125 ROUNDUP 108 Rowlett, Frank B. 27 Royal Air Force (British) 43, 49, 98–99, 232 Royal Australian Air Force 99, 116, 179–80, 218 Royal Australian Navy 158, 179 Royal Naval College, Greenwich 4 Royal Navy (British) 97–98, 101, 125, 162 Royal New Zealand Air Force 158, 281 Rugg, Charles 79 Rupertus, William H. 169 Rusbridger, James 87 Russell, John 138 Russell Islands 182 Russia see Russo-Japanese War; Soviet Union Russo-Japanese War 4–5, 7, 14, 68 sabotage 30, 48–49, 74, 78 Safford, Laurence F. 45n10 Sagebiel, James, MD 277–79 Saipan 10, 295, 307 Saito, Masahisa 170 Sakai, Saburo¯ 222, 234, 308

Sakamaki, Kazuo 56, 306 Sakhalin 5 Salamaua 103, 109, 116, 285 Samoa 10, 103, 106, 124, 135, 143, 206, 221, 235 Sanananda 166, 286 San Cristobal Island 196 San Diego 105–06, 156, 167, 233, 255 Sandino, Augusto 256 San Domingo 138 San Francisco 280 San Francisco School Board 6, 73 San Juan 162, 167, 181–82, 184 Santa Barbara see McCawley Santa Cruz Islands 151; Battle of 280 Santa Isabel 177, 178, 181, 190, 226 Santa Maria see Barnett Saratoga 17–18, 83, 93, 105–06, 161; torpedoed off Hawaii 129n76, 129n77; situs of 26 July 1942 meeting 162–63; Sarawak 99; Guadalcanal 167, 173, 229; Fletcher’s departure 193–95; Battle of the Eastern Solomons 208, 232; destroyed 304–05 Sarawak 99 Savo Island 177; Battle of 177–92, 295; Allied casualties 187; characterized in Allied news 191–92; characterized by participating officers 191–92; perceived by Marines 187, 200 Scanland, Francis 62 Schmid, Albert A. “Al” 213, 215, 220, 222, 310 Schreiber, Julius, MD 255 Schurz, Carl 3 Scott, Norman 177, 280 Scott, Winfield 137 Seabees 229 Seiler, Lewis 250 Sendai 236 Settedugati, John 247 Seven Mile airstrip 178 Shanghai 15, 34, 96 shell-shock see psychological stress Shepard, Edgar 315 Shigemitsu, Mamoru 31 Shima, Kiyohide 124 “Shoestring” 198 Shoho 124 Sho¯kaku 124–27, 208 Short, Walter C.: radar 58, 83; receives 27 Nov. War Warning message 39; is

410

INDEX

not shown bomb plot messages 44–45; measures taken prior to 7 Dec. 47–49, 59; warned of possible air attack 30; failure to interface with Kimmel 48; failure to place radar warning system on alert 59; investigations 76–80, 304 Shortland Island 190, 212, 231, 243, 282, 306 Shoup, David 297 Siberia see Soviet Union Sidney 116, 155 Signals Intelligence Service (US) 27 Silver Sound 178 Simpler, L.C. 233 Sims 125 Singapore 19; strategic position 101–02; linchpin of British Pacific defense 97, 101; Japanese march toward 96–98; Churchill and 101–02; defense and collapse 97, 100–02; Japanese occupation 102 Singora 96, 100 Sino-Japanese War 3, 7, 35 Sitai, Silas 158, 312 Sittang River 100 Sledge, Eugene B. 140 SLEDGEHAMMER 108 Slim, William J. 103, 283 the Slot 178–82, 211, 223, 282, 285, 292, 307 Smith, Donald 119 Smith, E.L. II, MD 240–41, 246–47, 278 Smith, E.R., MD 296 Smith, Holland M. 142 Smith, John 228, 230–31 Smith, Michael 235 Smith, Walter Bedell 81n22 Smithsonian Institution 314 Solomon Islands 10, 108, 124, 145, 148, 152, 202, 206, 283, 314; history 156–57; see also Bougainville; Guadalcanal; Tulagi Solomon’s Island 144 Solomon Sea 173, 178, 189, 194 sonar 47 Soong, T.V. (Tzu-wen) 35 So¯ryu¯ 133 Sousa, John Philip 140 South Dakota 281 South Manchurian Railway 5, 14, 23 South Pacific Combat Air Transport Command (US) 268

Soviet Union: Japanese army trained to oppose 15, 24, 287; possible Japanese attack 24; pact with Japanese 24; Allied commitments to 106–08; refusal to let US use Siberian air bases 30–31, 286; possible entry into Pacific war 286; alliance with China 302; rumor of Japanese invasion 153 Spanish-American War 2–3, 6, 138, 183 Spanish Civil War 220 Spruance, Raymond A. 129, 161 Stalin, Josef 24 Stalingrad 285 Stark, Harold R. 17n110, 18, 22, 25, 29; appointed chief of naval operations 95; modus vivendi 33; on 6–7 December 53–54, 79–80; warnings to Kimmel 35, 46; “War Warning” 39; investigations of Hawaiian attack 78–80 Station HYPO 50, 87 Station SAIL 50–52 Stevens, John L. 1 S-38 179 S-44 188 Stilwell, Joseph 103, 117 Stimmel, Charles 313 Stimson, Henry: Republican 35, 104; non-recognition doctrine 14–15; 27 Nov. message to Short 39; modus vivendi 33, 35, 37–38; and defense of Bataan/Corregidor 104, 113; Guadalcanal 198–99 Stinnett, Robert B. 87 Sturges, Preston 296 submarines (Japanese) 13, 47, 55–56, 74, 85, 97–98, 127, 130, 167, 181, 190, 199, 280, 282 submarines (US) 13, 48, 64, 64n86, 98, 100, 129, 162, 179, 280, 282 Sugiyama, Hajime 71 sulfa drugs 267 Sumatra 26; see also Netherlands East Indies Sunda Strait, Battle of 100, 312 Sundblom, Haddon 140 Sutherland, Richard 91, 93n17, 110 Swett, Jim 231 Szyk, Arthur 70 Taber, Dave 238 Taiwan see Formosa

411

INDEX

Takagi, Takeo 100, 125–26 Takumi, Hiroshi 96 Tanabe, Moritake 70 Tanaka, Raizo 282, 287 Tanambogo 169 Tanaka Memorial 14 Tani, Akio 286, 316 Taranto 29 Tarawa 170, 261, 294 Tasimboko 236, 239 Task One, Task Two, Task Three 151, 176, 208; see also PESTILENCE Tassafaronga 212, 281; Battle of 282 Temple, Shirley 249 Tenaru River 209 Tennyson, Alfred 212, 216 Tenryu¯ 184 Tentative Manual for Landing Operations 138, 142, 262 Terasaki, Gwen Harold 42, 300, 308 Terasaki, Hidenari 42, 52, 300, 308 Terasaki, Taro 52 Terkel, Studs 316 Thach, John S. “Jimmie” 116, 133, 233–34 Thailand 19, 36, 41, 53, 75, 81, 96, 98 Theobald, Robert 82 They Were Expendable 113 Thomas, Gerald C. 206, 235 Thompson, Malvina 293 III Amphibious Corps 299, 311 Tibbets, Paul 308 Timor 41, 100 Tinian 10 Tjilatjap 100–01 To the Shores of Tripoli 272 To¯go¯, Shigenori 31, 68; Hull Note 40, 49–50; and Hawaiian attack 71; and US decryption capability 88 To¯jo¯, Hideki 31; Hull Note 40–41; Doolittle raid 121; war crimes trial 69, 71, 301 Tokyo, bombing and planned invasion of 299 “Tokyo Express” 212 Tokyo Rose 167, 167n7, 241, 264, 270–71, 290, 293 Toland, Gregg 74 Tol Plantation 99 Tomonaga, Joichi 130–31 Tongatabu, Tonga Islands 107–08, 155 Tora! Tora! Tora! 60, 304, 308

TORCH 150, 154, 198, 229, 244, 253–54 torpedoes (Japanese) 29, 47, 56, 61–62, 105, 126, 131, 132–34, 172, 183, 183n23, 191n56; 282, 308 torpedoes (US) 124, 127, 130–31, 172, 292n46 Torres Strait 109 Townsville 109, 179–80 Tregaskis, Richard 206, 219–20, 250 Tripartite Pact 18, 28, 31, 36, 63 Truk 10, 16, 16n99, 145, 153, 178, 208 Truman, Harry S. 79–80 Tsingtao: German outpost 4; Japanese attack 36, 54 Tsukamoto, Hatsuo 166 Tsushima, Battle of 4, 68 Tulagi 136; British colonial outpost 157; invaded by Japanese 124; as strategic base 124; US aerial attacks on 124, 167; King decision to assault 144–45, 151; Japanese forces on 169; initial Marine engagements 167–71; religious services 246–47; as base for PT boats 282, 292 Tunney, Gene 109n18 Turnbull, Peter 218 Turner, Richmond Kelly 259, background 151; qualified aviator 95, 152; senior naval intelligence officer 24, 152; War Plans Division 17n110, 18; control of Purple intercepts 87; opines on ramifications of oil embargo 24; denies seeing bomb plot message 44; “War Warning” 39, 46; congressional investigation 152–53; Pacific strategy meetings with King, Nimitz and Fletcher 151–54, 162–63; meeting Crutchley and Vandegrift 175–77; Battle of Savo Island 178–90; reflections upon 190, 190n52; reaction to Fletcher’s departure 195–96, 292; proposes second lodgment on Guadalcanal 209; 12 Sept. meeting with Vandegrift 235–36; Battle of Guadalcanal 280; promotions 302 Twain, Mark (Samuel L. Clemens) 3 Twining, Merrill B. 158, 200, 235–36, 256, 283, 291–92 Tyler, Kermit A. 58–60, 303–04 Ugaki, Matome 214

412

INDEX

“Ultra” see “Purple” diplomatic encryption Ulufa’alu, Bartholomew 314 Umi Yukaba 213, 264 United States: attitude toward Japan 7–14, 74, 300; ambivalence toward annexation of Philippines 3; inadequate defense of Philippines 17; reaction to Japanese expansion in Manchuria 14–15; prewar public polls regarding intervention 19–20; misperception of Japanese aerial capability 66–67; reaction to Hawaiian attack 75–76; polls after war 299–300; see also Bataan; Japanese Americans United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) 91, 93 United States Army Pearl Harbor Board of Investigation 78–79, 81 United States Naval Academy, Annapolis 4, 40, 82, 86, 93, 147, 151, 158, 160, 256, 261, 303, 307–08, 312–13 United States Naval Court of Inquiry 45, 77–78, 78n15 United States Navy: the “doldrums” 2; and manifest destiny 2

Vichy 24, 38 Victoria Point 100 victory disease 108, 135, 287 Vietnam 310, 316; see also Indochina Vincennes 162, 167, 172, 177, 184, 192 Vinson, Carl 17, 304 Vladivostok 15, 30–31; and Doolittle raid 117, 119 Vouza, Jacob 212–13, 312

Vandegrift, Alexander Archer: leadership 170, 236, 245–46, 256–58, 283, 295; coauthor of Tentative Manual 138; arrives New Zealand 143; prepares WATCHTOWER 147–48, 153; 26 July meeting with Fletcher and Turner 162–63; offloading 171–72, 175–76, 197; meeting Crutchley and Turner 175–77; deployment on Guadalcanal 208–10; comment on Cactus Air Force 228, 231; attitude toward Japanese 225; 12 Sept. meeting with Turner regarding Japanese attack 235–36, 240; concern about control of sea 252; 8 Nov. meeting with Halsey 263; comment regarding Battle of Guadalcanal 281; final order as c.o. 283–84; in Melbourne 289; comment by Halsey 281; subsequent career 310 Vella Lavella 178, 211 Vera Cruz 137, 161, 256 Versailles, Treaty of 10, 99, 270

Waddell, Nick 158 Wainwright, Jonathan M. 112–13, 235, 281, 302 Wakefield 143 Wake Island 22–23; delivery of aircraft to 48, 105; Japanese attack 97; decision not to relieve 144, 161, 195; attack by Halsey 116, 261; see also Fletcher, Frank Jack Wake Island 71, 225, 249–50 Wallace, William 228 Walsh, James Edward 33n76 Walt, Lewis W. 224, 266 Wanger, Walter 297 Ward 55–56, 59, 83 Warm Springs 41 Warner, Denis and Peggy 179 Warner, John 304 War of the Worlds 71 “War Warning” 39, 91 “Washing Machine Charlie” 226 Washington 84n31, 281 Washington, George, Farewell Address 2, 70 Washington Naval Conference (1921–22) 10, 16, 105, 105, 114 Washington Post 188, 205, 253 Wasp 105–06, 161, 173, 194–95, 208 WATCHTOWER 144, 153; aerial reconnaissance concerning 178–79 Watson, Robert 274 Wavell, Archibald P. 98–99, 102 Wayne, John 233 Weiler, Francis B. “Bo” 312–13 Weiler, George, MD 313 Welles, Orson 71 Welles, Sumner 25; modus vivendi note 36–37 Wellington 148, 154–55; see also New Zealand Wendt, Lloyd 311 West Virginia 62, 89, 95 Whaling, William J. 207, 218

413

INDEX

What Price Glory? 139 “When a Boy from Alabama Meets a Girl from Gundagai” 291 White, H.D. 32 White, Thomas R., MD 121 White, Wallace 298 Whittlesey, Frank Russell 315 Whyte, William H. 216, 247 Widdy, Charles 158 Wikawa, Tadao 33n76 “Wildcat” see aircraft (Allied) Wilkinson, Gerald 243 Willard, Wyeth 248 Williams, Dion 138 Willkie, Wendell 19, 103 Willson, Russell 152 Wilson 177 Wilson, Dean 215 Wilson, Woodrow 70 Winant, John G. 53, 65 “winds execute” message 45–46, 78 Winthrop Chemical Co. 270 Wisconsin 304 Wolfert, Ira 246 Wooten, George 286 Wotje 116, 261 WPL-46 plan 22; see also Rainbow war plans Wright, Wesley 128

Yamaguchi, Tamon 133–34 Yamamoto, Isoroku 19, background 26–29; heads Panay investigation 34; Hawaiian strategy 28–29; sailing orders 38n115; instruction to initiate Hawaiian attack 49; Port Moresby operation 103, 122; Midway engagement 122, 127–30; and possible US surrender 264; death 306–07 Yamashita, Tomoyuki 96, 102, 301 Yamato 17, 67, 130 Yangtze River 15, 33, 35 Yarborough, Thomas 206 Yardley, Herbert 27 Yarnell, Harry 17–18, 28, 60 “Yellow Peril” 7, 8, 73 Yerger, Ben 245 YOKE transports 167, 172, 182, 196 Yokoi, Sho¯ichi 305 York, Edwin 119 Yorktown 105–06, 116, 305; constructed 17; Coral Sea 124–27; Midway 129, 132–34, 161 Yoshida, Juichi 52 Yoshikawa, Takeo 45–47, 306 Yoshimura, Akira 287–88 Yubari 183–84 Yunagi 183

XRAY transports 167, 170, 172, 175, 182, 196

Zacharias, Ellis 30, 68 Zane 55 Zanuck, Darryl F. 299 Zero see Aircraft (Japanese) Zimmerman, John L. 195, 238–39 Zuikaku 124–25, 127, 208

Yale Institute of Human Relations 220 Yalu River, Battle of 4 Yamada, Sadayoshi 166n3, 170

414

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