Threshold of War

by Heinrichs, Waldo;

  American determination to achieve more credible deterrence and the increasing availability of matériel and manpower in 1941 partially explains this new disposition to reinforce. But equally significant was a rising determination in the face of increasing Japanese threat to defend American interests and possessions in East Asia. Strategic write-offs seemed irrelevant; the fundamental human passion for defending one’s own was aroused. Nations seeking American help and protection would not be impressed by abdication of responsibility for defense of the Philippines.

  The Japanese advance into southern Indochina brought a new stage of American commitment. On July 26 the president, following plans laid earlier, called the Philippine army into service and placed it with United States Army forces in a new combined command. The same day MacArthur was recalled to duty in the American army and appointed commander. The immediate substantive difference was negligible since the Philippine units had little in the way of officers, weapons, and training. And Washington had no intention of reinforcing by as much as an infantry division; Europe retained its strategic priority. Nevertheless, the raising of an army of 120,000 in the Philippines and the more direct American responsibility for their defense were evidence of a new determination and were intended to be.

  An anti-Japanese coalition was inconceivable without China, which so absorbed Japanese manpower and resources, including one and a half million casualties in four years of war.35 China’s plight was painful and worsening: a drying up of aid from Russia since the Soviet-Japanese Pact, accelerating inflation, demoralization of the army, and still only a trickle of supplies finding their way through from the United States. Washington pressed on with existing programs such as currency stabilization, improvement of the Burma Road, and Lend-Lease supplies. In July, Claire Chennault’s Flying Tiger pilots were sailing for Rangoon and China aboard a Dutch ship escorted through the Japanese Mandates by two American heavy cruisers. At the same time, in American priorities China always ranked after Britain, and now after the Soviet Union with its vast needs, and, since supply was too small for these and American needs, China got the left-overs. American dissatisfaction with Chungking’s slack prosecution of the war, the persisting failure of the Kuomintang and the Communists to unite and turn on the enemy, importunate and ill-considered requests for supplies—such as tanks too heavy for Chinese bridges — Chinese corruption, and the daunting size of China’s needs shrank enthusiasm for new undertakings. Roosevelt offered praise and encouragement at every opportunity but kept his distance. He never answered Chiang directly, he told Morgenthau on July 10. He urged transmission of reports of Japanese troop and plane withdrawals from the Chinese front (probably for redeployment to Manchuria) to the Chungking government with the suggestion that “one or two powerful attacks on weakened Japanese positions might do real good at this time.” An astute British observer described Roosevelt as “willing to give Chiang Kai-shek just enough, but no more than enough, aid to continue the war and counteract the defeatists in Chungking.”36

  A stimulus for Chinese morale seemed essential, nonetheless.37 On July 23, Roosevelt approved the sending of an American military mission in China to assist in procurement, transportation, and use of Lend-Lease war matériel. Though the mission would act under cover of the military attaché’s office for the time being, it established for the first time a direct military connection with China. Roosevelt also approved the dispatch of 269 additional fighters and 66 bombers to China and promised to train Chinese pilots to fly them. All the planes were marginal or obsolete so far as the British and American services were concerned and none would be ready until November. The Chinese spoke longingly of B-17s but none were available. Even so, the inclusion of bombers, an offensive weapon, meant another firebreak had been crossed. Gaining ground was the idea of using China as a base for bombing attacks against Japanese cities, particularly incendiary raids. Japanese fears that the United States would use China against-them, at least looking ahead to 1942, were not entirely misplaced.

  In contrast to the military program of the ABCD coalition, which for the time being was more show than substance, American economic measures against Japan were a tightening band of steel. The settled policy of not cutting off export of oil for fear it might precipitate Japanese seizure of the Dutch East Indies remained in effect, but step-by-step curtailment in the spring of 1941 steadily reduced the flow. Earlier restrictions had been ineffective. After the prohibition against export of aviation-grade gasoline and lubricating oil in July 1940, Japan greatly increased its purchases of all other petroleum products, including especially gasoline of an octane rating and oil of a viscosity just below the prohibited levels, which could either be used in Japanese airplanes or converted for such use.

  Evidence of Japanese stockpiling prompted export control officials to seek further restrictions on quality and a reduction in the quantity permitted to peacetime levels, before the war with China. While awaiting a policy decision, they withheld approval of new export licenses. None had been issued since April 8. At the same time the government, concurrently with the British, exerted pressure on oil companies to withdraw tankers under foreign charter from the Japan trade. With American-flag tankers already unobtainable, the Japanese had to depend on their own fleet and in fact were unable to move all the oil for which they had licenses. A sizable freighter traffic in oil was sharply reduced by a ban on export of steel drums. A further impediment arose from American assistance in hauling British oil from the Caribbean to East Coast ports to compensate for heavy British tanker losses to U-boats. The resulting gas shortage in the Atlantic and Gulf states led to a ban on oil exports from there to other than British Empire ports. By July the cumulative effect of these measures was a decline in oil exports to Japan, and in fact in Japan’s oil stockpile as well.38

  But perception lagged behind restriction: Japan seemed to be getting more oil than ever. In the ten months after the aviation-gas embargo the Japanese took away almost four times as much gasoline as they had taken in 1939 and almost three times as much lubricating oil. Five million licensed gallons awaited shipment. Two million more gallons had been applied for. Shipments from California in May were the highest in ten months—over two million barrels—on account of a coincidence in tanker sailings, according to the board chairman of Stanvac.39 Photographs and stories of Japanese ships loading oil infuriated Americans, who were reported to be two to one in favor of taking steps to keep Japan from becoming more powerful, even at the risk of war. They bitterly criticized continuing shipment of oil to Japan. It was “incomprehensible.” Why should people in the eastern United States give up their Sunday drive so Japan could carry on war with American oil “to extinguish the lamps of China”? It was “ghastly” how we were letting Japan “pile up” oil to attack us with, said Morgenthau.40

  Once Japan’s purpose in Indochina became evident in July, the sentiment for oil sanctions became overpowering. Cabinet hawks—Stimson, Ickes, and Morgenthau in particular—led the way. Hull was a distant, wavering voice from White Sulphur Springs. His Far Eastern Division, steadfastly a restraining influence, was weakening. Only the navy held out against shutting off Japan’s oil. Admiral Turner in a memorandum circulated to the president and Welles argued that a Japanese attack on Russia was more likely than on the British and Dutch, in which case the United States could intervene in the European war without concern for the Pacific. However, a complete embargo was likely to send Japan south and possibly lead to a Pacific war, which would be contrary to American strategic interests.41

  Roosevelt seemed at first to lean against further restrictions. Would it be advisable, he asked Lord Halifax, to exert maximum economic pressure now? Would it “work as a deterrent”? Or would it precipitate Japanese action southward? The United States, he reminded the British ambassador, could not fight both wars at once. Dearly wishing to know which way the president’s mind was working, the British replied that their strongest card was Japan’s fear of war with the United States. It was imperative to
choose a course that would maintain Japan’s uncertainty about oil supply.42

  The president’s concerns were many and contradictory. He was anxious to deter an attack on Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, which he regarded as vital because of their resources and British supply in the Middle East, but he was not prepared to make a critical issue of southern Indochina itself, which seemed important only as a stepping stone. To draw the line precisely, the American response would have to come after the Japanese moved into southern Indochina. Economic pressure had not been ineffective in the past according to Stimson and Morgenthau, who in 1940 had pointed out that in 1918 during the joint Japanese-American intervention in Siberia, restriction on the export of American cotton had made Japan more cooperative.43 Yet Roosevelt did not want to precipitate a further advance by cutting off Japan’s access to oil entirely, nor anger Japan with a formal embargo. If Japan was to have some oil, a rationale and prescription of quantities and qualities were necessary. On the other hand, public prescription was something of a commitment, making oil policy less unpredictable and more difficult to change.

  Thanks to MAGIC, Roosevelt had two weeks to ponder these conflicting objectives and sift suggestions from two Cabinet meetings, consultation with the British and discussions among State and Treasury officials. On July 12 Tokyo instructed its ambassador at Vichy to see Pétain and present Japanese demands for bases in southern Indochina. Military occupation would take place in any event, the Marshal was warned; if the French wished it to be peaceful they must accept the demands. Vichy acquiesced. Japanese troops landed at Saigon July 24. By the time of Vichy’s capitulation Roosevelt was ready with a response.

  He put together a three-tiered system for the control of trade with Japan. At the public level he froze Japanese assets in the United States, just as in June he had frozen German and Italian funds. The Japanese now not only had to secure a license from the agency responsible for controlling export of products related to national defense; they also had to secure a license approved by an interdepartmental committee to unblock dollars to pay for the oil before it could be shipped. But no embargo: no new prohibitions, quotas, restrictions; indeed no public guidance at all as to what the trader might or might not ship; in short maximum uncertainty.

  At the policy level, but not publicly, Roosevelt did indeed plan new restrictions reducing the quality of gasoline and lubricating oil and the quantity of other petroleum products permitted. These, as soon as they could be drawn up, would guide the decisions of the export control authorities. A system would exist for Japan to get oil but the Japanese could only guess what kind and how much from transactions approved or disapproved. Finally, at the operational level, the means would exist to halt shipments abruptly without notice or change of regulations. As E. H. Foley, a Treasury official, pointed out, the freezing control was “a very flexible instrument.” For now, licenses for dollars would be granted as export licenses were presented, but “any day,” the president said, funds could be denied, with immediate effect on shipments. The new system was decided upon at the Cabinet meeting of July 24 and the freezing order promulgated on Friday, July 26, after the president had left for a weekend at Hyde Park.44

  The British and Dutch followed suit but in a state of puzzlement and annoyance. They welcomed the firming trend of American policy but feared it would not be carried far enough to stop the Japanese in their tracks but far enough to bring the Japanese down on them. They wanted close consultation, joint action, and American guarantees of support. This would be the moment for a joint warning.45 Roosevelt, as he demonstrated July 24 in disapproving plans for a combined convoy system, was not ready for close collaboration with Britain before meeting with Churchill at Argentia. At the moment he was intent on establishing a trade control system, not an embargo, and was divulging to no one—probably was himself unsure—how far he would carry it. Thus the British and Dutch had no idea what they were tying onto. In fact each cable from the British embassy in Washington left the Foreign Office more confused. Rather than be accused of weakness, however, they renounced their trade treaties with Japan, froze Japanese accounts in sterling and guilders, and settled down to see what the United States would do next.46

  The democracies had yet to bite, but the implications for Japan still were enormous. American ownership of much of the oil in Latin America and the Good Neighbor policy of consolidating relations — military, political, and economic—with Western Hemisphere nations ensured that Latin American policies would move more or less in step with the United States. American, British, and Dutch companies owned all the oil of southeastern and southwestern Asia and were working in the closest collaboration with their governments.47 With the British Commonwealth, the Dutch East Indies, and the Western Hemisphere in a position to stop doing business with Japan, and with access to Germany closed, Japan risked having all trade cease beyond the zone of its military control.

  While the United States was beginning to “stiffen things up all along the line” against Japan, to quote A. A. Berle, the German offensive in Russia was losing momentum.48 Army Group North faced an ever-widening front and thick, swampy forests. Panzer leaders Rheinhardt and Manstein waited impatiently at the Luga River, eighty miles from Leningrad, for infantry and supplies to catch up. The Panzer groups of Army Group Center had encircled Smolensk, but Guderian’s had become embroiled with a ragged but fierce Russian counterattack to the southeast in the Yelnya-Roslavl area. Movement along the high road to Moscow had ceased. Army Group South, on the other hand, was now making rapid progress. Kleist, having concentrated his three Panzer corps west of Kiev, sliced southeast, and soon his tank columns were combing the Ukrainian wheatlands. Beyond the Dneiper lay the rich Don basin, boasting “wheat as tall as a shaft and potatoes big as a wheel,” but Kleist had yet to cross the river in force.49

  In late July the German army was worn but not severely damaged. It had reached its first-stage objectives and was capable of further enormous strides and annihilating blows. But it had failed to destroy the Red Army in the frontier battles. It had used up its rations and left is railheads and supply dumps far behind. The army was so short of trucks that it was using Russian horse-drawn wagons. Army Group Center was receiving only eight to fifteen of the twenty-five provision trains it daily required. By mid-July the wear on machines and men was beginning to tell. Exhausted tank crews fought for days with hatches closed. Engines, sprockets, and tank treads were giving out. The combat strength of the fast forces in Army Group Center was 60 percent of normal, that in Army Group South 40 percent.50

  On July 19, Hitler ordered a halt in the advance on Moscow and sent the fast forces of Army Group Center north to assist in the attack on Leningrad and south to join in the envelopment of Kiev. Generals of that army group, particularly Guderian, strongly objected, arguing that it was vital to smash on and capture Moscow. In fact, Moscow was beyond the reach of the Germans for the time being. The shock of discovering that the Red Army was much bigger than expected and was feeding fresh divisions constantly into the battle; the widening gaps between formations as the front broadened, leaving Russian armies, however disorganized, wedged into the open flanks; guerrilla attacks in the rear; the chilling expanse of Russia; and the bravery and stoicism of the Russian soldier—all these factors dampened enthusiasm for smashing eastward immediately. But most important, the supply situation made a pause for replenishment not only advisable but inescapable. During the last ten days of July this “monstrous awe-inspiring war of movement” became relatively static.51

  President Roosevelt learned of these developments the way most Americans did, by reading the newspapers. The American embassies in Moscow and Berlin were slow to pick up the trend, in the former case because of a tendency to discount Soviet claims, and in the latter because information was so scarce. Newspapers, lacking correspondents at the front, depended on war communiqués. In the battle of the communiqués the Germans for once had little to offer, leaving the field to the Soviets, who were not slow in grabb
ing the headlines to claim full credit for stopping the German offensive. And these claims were eye-catching, usually in four- to six-column headlines. Berlin only enhanced their impact by alluding to fighting around Smolensk as the “greatest and bloodiest battle in history.”

  First reports of the stalemate arrived July 21. The New York Times headline that day was RUSSIANS REPORT NAZI DRIVES HALTED IN FOUR SECTORS WITH HEAVY LOSSES. Competent observers were reported to have said that the blitzkrieg had been braked. The Russians had stood their ground near Smolensk for five days now, the Times reported. Could they hang on until autumn? In June the time until the autumn rains and first frosts had seemed unimaginably long. Now one could count the weeks; comparisons with Napoleon’s campaign appeared.

  Every day now reports of German difficulties and Russian resistance appeared. On July 24, in the headline announcing Vichy’s surrender of bases in southern Indochina was word that NAZIS ADMIT RUSSIANS SLOW DRIVES. Berlin acknowledged “extremely ferocious counterattacks” by fresh troops. Over the weekend, while the president was at Hyde Park, the Russians were said to be holding firmly, in fact to have smashed three German divisions. Monday, July 28, a Soviet spokesman described the blitz as a “washout.” The Germans had captured Paris in thirty-six days, he pointed out, but were nowhere near victory on the thirty-seventh day of their Russian campaign. So far, the New York Times wrote, the Germans had failed to capture Leningrad, Moscow, Kiev, or Odessa and had suffered losses beyond expectation. This was indeed “slow-tempo Blitzkrieg.”