Pearl Harbor Betrayed

by Michael Gannon

  In a new book, whose jacket claims that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor “was deliberately provoked through an eight-step program [shown above] devised by the navy [emphasis in the original],” Robert B. Stinnett contends that McCollum’s memorandum became the blueprint for actions subsequently taken by President Roosevelt to ensure an uncontested Japanese act of war against the fleet at Pearl Harbor. His is not, to be sure, the first revisionist attempt to posit a vast conspiracy by Roosevelt and his minions, including, according to Stinnett, the midlevel Far Eastern specialist McCollum, to force the United States into war by a secret and deliberate contrivance that placed the fleet in harm’s way. In McCollum’s case, Stinnett is able to assemble circumstantial evidence in the officer’s eight-step plan for holding that McCollum’s blue-sky scenario became the template for what happened in fact. Stinnett could argue, for example, that, as proposed under McCollum’s item F, Roosevelt did keep the fleet in Hawaii; that, under item C, all possible aid was given to Chiang Kai-shek; and that, under item H, the United States instituted a total trade embargo on Japan. (These were all Stanley Hornbeck proposals.) Items A, B, and G happened for well-known reasons, associated with mutual defense pacts. Under item E McCollum cannot take any credit for the first submarine reinforcements sent to the Asiatic Fleet by Stark in October 1939, a year before his memorandum. The submarine reinforcements sent to CINCAF in October 1940 and again in October 1941 were in response to a worried Admiral Hart’s pleadings, having no connections to McCollum or to his “conspiracy” memo. And it is more than a stretch to say, as Stinnett does under item D, that the Pacific “pop-up” cruises that Roosevelt proposed to Stark in 1941, and which were never carried out, constituted a “division of heavy cruisers” sent to “the Orient, Philippines, or Singapore.”62 Stinnett seems to say, if McCollum proposed it, Roosevelt must have done it—post hoc, propter hoc. Alas for his conspiracy theory, Stinnett cannot place McCollum’s memorandum in the President’s hands at any time, as he himself concedes.63 Many a book since Harry Elmer Barnes’s Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace in 1953 has tried and failed to establish Roosevelt’s complicity in the Japanese attack, while withholding his supposed foreknowledge of the event from Kimmel and Short. The smoking gun so devoutly sought by those who have wanted to blame Roosevelt for the sacrifice of capital ships, aircraft, and 2,403 lives on Oahu in an alleged effort to find a back door into the European war has never been produced.64

  What may have been the most revealing, ironic, and dissembling moment in the brief history of McCollum’s memorandum occurred during his testimony in the JCC hearings, on 30 January 1946:

  SENATOR SCOTT W. LUCAS (D-Il): Captain [McCollum], with all the knowledge that you had as an Intelligence officer, and in view of the top position that you held in Intelligence at that time, do you know of anyone in your branch of the service or any other department of the Navy who attempted to trick or maneuver the Japs into attacking the United States on December 7, 1941?

  CAPTAIN MCCOLLUM: No, sir.

  SENATOR LUCAS: That is all.65

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  The sole operational order contained in the 27 November Navy warning read: “Execute an appropriate defensive deployment preparatory to carrying out the tasks assigned in WPL 46.” The murky nature of the warning message is perhaps best demonstrated by this sentence, which has been parsed repeatedly in the historical literature. The warning’s authors, it will be remembered, were Admirals Turner and Ingersoll, with the approval of Stark and the imprimatur of Roosevelt. If we turn to the authors’ later explanations of the “defensive deployment” order, which may or may not have been enhanced by hindsight, we find a certain disharmony of interpretation. Ingersoll stated that the deployment order had reference mainly to the Asiatic Fleet, whose CINC, Hart, was a coaddressee along with Kimmel, and that the subtext for Hawaii was a directive to establish submarine patrols:

  I think the preparatory deployments that would not constitute provocative action and disclose strategic intention against Japan referred more to the withdrawal of certain units of the Asiatic Fleet from the China Sea area toward the southern Philippines, rather than to any particular deployment of the Pacific Fleet, with the possible exception of sending out submarines for observation.66

  In one place, Turner defined defensive deployment as “a spreading out of forces. A naval deployment means to spread out and make ready for hostilities. To get into the best positions from which to execute the operating plans against the enemy.” He continued:

  Since … the danger position of Hawaii was to the north, because there were no little outlying islands there from which observation would have been made … an appropriate deployment would have sent some fast ships, possibly with small seaplanes, up to the north to assist and possibly to cover certain sectors against approach.… Of course, these ships would naturally have been in considerable danger, but that was what they were there for, because fighting ships are no use unless they are in a dangerous position so that they can engage the enemy.67

  In another place, Turner focused his explanation on what else the fleet was expected to do in its own defense:

  It will be noted that the dispatch orders a defensive deployment. We expected all war scouting measures to be undertaken, submarines to be sent out to protect our Fleet and territory against enemy naval forces; we expected the carriers with their protective vessels to put to sea and stand in readiness for war; we expected, in the Asiatic, the movement of ships to be made to the South in accordance with the plan agreed on. We expected a high degree of readiness on board ships against attack of any form.68

  Stark’s explanation made no mention of the Asiatic Fleet as having been the prime addressee, or of “spreading out forces.” His concern, he said, in endorsing the language used, was that Hawaii “take action against surprises.” Where Kimmel was concerned, defensive deployment meant “taking a position as best he could with what he had for the defense of his fleet, whatever he had either at sea or in port, to the best of his ability and to guard against being caught unawares.” “This appropriate defensive deployment was a new term to me,” Kimmel stated. “I decided that what was meant was something similar to the disposition I had made on October 16, which had been approved by the originator of both these dispatches.”69 Elsewhere, Stark said that he had anticipated that Kimmel would invoke in Hawaii full readiness (which would be the fleet’s Condition I) and that he would institute distant aerial reconnaissance.70

  There are three problems with these after-the-fact explanations. The first is that we have no way of knowing, apart from the trust we place in the oaths they took before testifying, how far these officers may have read into the key phrase “defensive deployment” what, later, they thought they had meant, or even wished they had meant. These are honorable men, but Monday-morning quarterbacking tempts even the best of men. Second, their expression here of specific expectations raises once again the question, If this is what they meant, why did they not say so at the time, when it counted? Third, it should be remembered that, following the words “defensive deployment” there came the important qualifier, “preparatory to carrying out the tasks assigned in WPL 46 [emphasis added].” Turner and Stark both stated that, under that rubric, Kimmel was expected to establish “all war scouting” (Turner), or “distant aerial reconnaissance” (Stark). But that is not what WPL-46 directed, particularly in its more detailed form, WPPac-46 (the U.S. Pacific Fleet Operating Plan, Rainbow No. 5 [Navy Plan 0–1, Rainbow No. 5]), which was approved by Stark on 9 September 1941, and which should have been well known to all principals throughout OpNav.71

  It would appear that, if the drafters of the 27 November Navy warning had wished Kimmel to divert from WPPac-46, they would have told him so, and in language that was not what the Italians call sfumato—blurry, ambiguous, and up to the imagination. But they did not. One may reasonably assume, therefore, that Kimmel was justified in holding to his original orders in the absence of any countermand. And those orders were predicate
d on the following time schedule:

  At the date of issue of this plan [WPPac-46], the U.S. Pacific Fleet has virtually mobilized, and is operating, with intensive security measures, from the Pearl Harbor base. It is expected, therefore, that the major portion of the Fleet can be ready for active service within four days of an order for general mobilization. To provide for the contingency of M-day [mobilization] being set prior to the date on which hostilities are to open, the day of execution of this Plan is designated throughout the Plan as W-day [Japan in the war]. The day that hostilities open with Japan will be designated J-day [Japan]. This may or may not coincide with W-day.72

  Upon commencement of W-day (also called Phase IA) and not before, the Patrol Plane Force, designated Task Force 9, will:

  (1) Having due regard for time required to overhaul and upkeep planes and for conservation of personnel, maintain maximum patrol plane search against enemy forces in the approaches to the Hawaiian area.

  (2) Initially base and operate one patrol-plane squadron from Midway. At discretion increase the number of planes operating to westward of Pearl Harbor to two squadrons, utilizing Johnston and Wake as the facilities thereat and the situation at the time makes practicable.…

  (8) Modify patrols as necessary in order to carry out tasks assigned in Marshall Raiding and Reconnaissance Plan (Annex II to Navy Plan 0–1).73

  In the Marshall Islands plan task forces would (a) reconnoiter the Marshalls, particularly Eniwetok atoll, preparatory to a raid in force and to eventual capture; and (b) raid the Marshalls with ships and aircraft and small landing groups in order to destroy enemy mobile forces, fixed defenses, and facilities. The U.S. seaborne force would depart Pearl Harbor beginning on J-Day plus one and continuing through J-Day plus five. All elements would proceed to rendezvous at Point Tare (latitude 16 degrees north; longitude 127 degrees east), arriving on J-Day plus eleven. Beginning about J-Day plus thirteen the force would carry out the raiding plan, based on information acquired by patrol plane reconnaissance. The Patrol Plane Force (Task Force 9), leaving two squadrons (twenty-four aircraft of which twelve could be utility aircraft) at Oahu, would have advanced in “maximum practicable strength” prior to J-Day plus five to Wake, Midway, and Johnston Islands. The Wake-based aircraft would make preliminary air reconnaissance of Taongi and Bikar Atolls on J-Day plus five, and thereafter conduct search to prevent surprise attack from the westward. The Midway-based aircraft would search sectors to the southwestward of Midway to prevent surprise attack across that sector. And the Johnston-based aircraft would search along the fleet’s route of advance to longitude 178 degrees west. All aircraft would be expected to make such additional air reconnaissance immediately prior to the attack as best met the existing situation. Upon completion of the raid, the patrol aircraft would be withdrawn from the advance bases, if necessary, to avoid disproportionate losses. Kimmel asserted before the JCC that “without [this air reconnaissance] the task forces might be exposed to surprise attack if they entered the dangerous Marshall area.”74

  * * *

  All the same, Kimmel did give consideration to mounting distant aerial reconnaissance around Oahu on 27 November. He had before him the Martin-Bellinger report of 31 March, and, no doubt, he referred again to its bleak estimate: “The aircraft at present available in Hawaii are inadequate to maintain, for any extended period”—beyond “perhaps four or five days,” Bellinger would testify in May 194575—“from bases on Oahu, a patrol extensive enough to ensure that an air attack from an Orange [Japanese] carrier cannot arrive over Oahu as a complete surprise.” Only within those “narrow time limits” could the available PBY-3 and PBY-5 Catalinas fly outbound legs of the seven hundred nautical miles thought to be the distance required to detect a carrier before it launched its aircraft. And, even then, through unlucky timing or poor visibility, “in a dawn air attack there is a high probability,” Martin and Bellinger had written, chillingly, “that [an attack] could be delivered as a complete surprise in spite of any patrols we might be using.”76

  For a complete sweep on a 360-degree arc to the maximum range of the patrollers, eighty-four aircraft would each be required to make a single flight of sixteen to eighteen hours. Since the same planes and crews could not make such a flight every day, the Navy required a fleet of 250 operational aircraft if it hoped to conduct effective reconnaissance over a protracted period. Admiral Bloch, Bellinger’s immediate superior in the airman’s capacity as Commander, Naval Base Defense Air Force and Commander, Patrol Wing 2, and whose responsibility it was to implement distant reconnaissance, had only forty-nine ready status patrol aircraft at his disposal for that purpose in the first week of December, most of which were being used for training in anticipation of the offensive combat assignments in the Marshalls raid. Kimmel stated before the JCC that, “I had been ordered, not once but twice, to be prepared to carry out the raids on the Marshalls under WPL-46, which meant the extended use of the fleet patrol planes from advanced bases in war operations.”77 For those planes spare parts were extremely scarce—many of the Catalinas on hand were grounded by cracked engine nose sections—experienced aviation machinist mates were also in short supply, and there were no spare crews. The newer PBY-5 types, ferried to Hawaii in October and November, were experiencing shakedown problems and required extensive modifications to qualify them for continuous operation, not to mention combat. Twelve older PBY-3s (of squadron VP-22) at Pearl returned from Midway on 5 December in parlous material condition; and ten of the twelve were due for overhaul. In sum, extended reconnaissance would have incapacitated many of the PBYs after just four or five days of distant scouting. Addressing the issue twelve days after the Japanese attack, Bellinger wrote in a memorandum to Kimmel that “the material situation of the patrol squadrons made the maintenance of continuous extensive daily searches impracticable.… Under the circumstances, it seemed advisable to continue intensive expansion training.… Operations by the PBY-5s was certain to result in rapid automatic attrition of the already limited number of patrol planes.”78

  In the JCC hearings, war plans chief Soc McMorris testified that, after receipt of the 27 November warning, Kimmel and his staff carefully considered the availability of flyable patrol planes, the status of training, the patrol wings’ responsibility for supplying trained personnel for new squadrons, the tasks assigned the wings in WPPac-46, and the fact that, given aircraft shortages and maintenance limitations, seaward patrols would be “largely token searches.” The question was one on which Kimmel and his staff had gone up and down the scale many times. The conclusion, McMorris stated, was that “training would suffer heavily and that if we were called upon to conduct a war, that we would find a large proportion of our planes needing engine overhaul at the time we most required their services.” Exhaustion of crews was another consideration. Kimmel therefore decided to concentrate on expansion training until more aircraft, or more information, became available.79

  No witness in later investigations or hearings cited a specific order given after the reconnaissance matter was deliberated upon and decided, although Bloch stated that Kimmel made his decision on 27 November.80 For his part, Kimmel said, simply, “However, I want it clearly understood, it was my responsibility and I would give the orders to the planes.”81 The Navy court in 1944 judged that the “the mission of this reconnaissance was not due to oversight or neglect. It was the result of a military decision, reached after much deliberation and after weighing the information at hand and all the factors involved.”82 Halsey, the senior Navy air commander in the Hawaiian area, said after the war, “Any Admiral worth his stars would have made the same choice.”83

  Kimmel’s critics have drawn attention to the fact that he did not share knowledge of, or consult about, the 27 November warning with Rear Admiral Bellinger, his commander of Patrol Wings 1 and 2, as though that was a serious negligence. Several observations might be made in that connection. Bellinger already had his marching orders within the narrow confines of his fourfold mission:
daily reconnaissance over the operating area; training; distant reconnaissance beginning on W-Day; and departure of the wings for the Marshalls raid prior to J-Day plus five. He had rarely been engaged in broad-based executive decisions at the staff level and probably did not come to Kimmel’s mind as a necessary consultant now. His remarks to Kimmel made in the memorandum of 19 December reveal that his mind was at one with Kimmel’s on the inadvisability of attempting a 360-degree search over an extended period, a fact that was already well known to Kimmel, thus obviating any need for further consultation. In any event, Bloch, Bellinger’s immediate superior, was in regular consultative contact with Kimmel. Finally, Bellinger was not alone among officers to whom neither the existence nor the content of the war warning was communicated by Kimmel. As the latter stated before the JCC: “[Bellinger] was not the only air man we had there. He was rear admiral in charge of this patrol wing.… I did not tell a great many other admirals about the war warning. I did not tell a great many other people in Hawaii about the war warning. But Admiral Bellinger was there directly under my orders, and I felt capable of giving him any orders that he required.”84

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  Kimmel’s critics have furthermore argued that while Oahu may not have had sufficient patrol aircraft for a 360-degree search, it did have enough for an arc of lesser scope. Following the Marshall-Herron alert of June 1940, Kimmel’s predecessor, Admiral Richardson, for a brief time had increased the regular training searches out of Oahu from a distance of 180 nautical miles to 300. Since only six aircraft were employed, it was only a very partial search, and, in Kimmel’s view, “At no time did [Richardson] have, in my opinion, any real reconnaissance flying from Pearl Harbor that would have been successful, except by chance, in discovering an attack in time to be of any real use.”85 In his fourth endorsement to the findings of the NCI, dated 13 August 1945, Secretary James V. Forrestal expressed his opinion that “there were sufficient fleet patrol planes and crews, in fact, available in Oahu during the week preceding the attack to have flown, for at least several weeks, a daily reconnaissance covering 128 degrees to a distance of about 700 miles.”86 His opinion raises a number of questions. A 128-degree sector is just over one-third of the compass rose, but which one-third would be covered? Richardson did not cover 128 degrees but his small patrol concentrated on a sector from west to northwest. Those happened to be the sectors from which Pearl Harbor had been successfully “attacked” by air at dawn on 30 March 1938 during the U.S. Navy’s Fleet Problem XIX. Two carriers, USS Saratoga (CV-3) and USS Ranger (CV-4), launched the attacking SBU-1 biplane aircraft. (USS Lexington [CV-2] was scheduled also to participate, but was forced to make for Honolulu when an epidemic throat infection afflicted 500 of her company.) Under the overall command of Vice Admiral Ernest J. King, commander, aircraft, Battle Force, who had broken his three-star flag in Saratoga, and had chosen Bellinger for his chief of staff, Ranger advanced on Oahu from French Frigate Shoals to west-northwestward, while Saratoga steamed from the northwestward behind an eastward-moving front of bad weather. Ranger, we know, launched at 0500. The aircraft from both carriers caught patrolling Army Air Corps aircraft at low altitudes and achieved what was declared to be a successful attack. The Navy’s postproblem report concluded that “with the forces then based on Hawaii it would be impossible to defend the area.”87