Current FDR knew about PH attack

The lead article in the current issue of 'Naval History' ('Advance Warning: the Red Cross Connection' by Daryl S. Borgquist) claims that President Roosevelt knew the attack on Pearl Harbor was coming, as evidenced by his personal instructions to the Red Cross to ship medical supplies to Hawaii before December 7. The article is on the USNI web site at <http://www.usni.org/Naval_History/Articles99/ NHborgquist.htm>. I'd be interested in other s.h.w.ww-ii readers' views on this article. My reaction is: why in the world would FDR share this information with the Red Cross if he would not share it with Marshall, King, Stimson, etc.? The main thrust of the article is that Adm. Kimmel and Gen. Short should be exonerated from blame for Hawaii's unpreparedness, because FDR had information that he did not give them. My opinion on this topic is that, even if FDR was guilty of what amounts to treason in this regard, there was enough information on the public record that was transmitted to Kimmel and Short that they should have been patrolling, had ships and airfields fully manned, and in general been prepared for an attack, so their responsibliity and blame is not mitigated. Along that line I have to ask if any other individuals (e.g., King, Richardson, Stark) would have been more aggressive in being prepared for a suprise attack on Hawaii on a Sunday morning. Merlin Dorfman

To ship the supplies to Hawaii, or to get them there before the 7th? Big difference.

Also, if we went to war with Japan, where was the military likely to stage from? Los Angeles or halfway across the Pacific in Hawaii?

It would seem more likely that FDR knew there would be war, but had no idea when or where. But then again, the only folks that didn't see war coming were Lindburg and his Isolationist people.

'The supplies might have been kept secret for several reasons. Hawaiian Red Cross officials might have wanted to protect them from potential Japanese saboteurs, about whom military officials had been duly warned. Those officials also were soliciting donations and volunteers from the community to help in preparing supplies. Publicizing receipt of the medical supplies might have dampened enthusiasm and support for Red Cross projects.'

They missed the biggest reason to not publicise the shipment. To avoid an unfounded scare. There was no war for certain in late 41 until 7th Dec. To let folks know of a large, expensive shipment of medical supplies, intended only for disaster use, as hospitals got theirs from commercial sources, would have started a panic.

Apply Occam's Razor here, see what you get.

<*> V-Man A Knight is sworn to Valor His Heart knows only Virtue His Blade defends the Weak His Word speaks only Truth His Wrath undoes the Wicked

Delete the '.CanDo' from my addy to reply!

It has always struck me that Occams's Razor ought to apply to this topic. Much of what passes for corroboration in the article is details about mobilization which preceded 7 Dec ($75,000 of medical supplies and 6 nurses showed up in PH in 1941, etc.)

One of the greatest myths about Pearl Harbour is that the Americans were totally unprepared and that war with Japan was a complete surprise.

The Americans did expect trouble with Japan. The policy for several years had been to build up American resources to deter such a conflict. Thats the reason the Philippines were being reinforced. The Americans were shuttling their new B17s to the Philippines to provide a strike force that could threaten Japanese bases in Formosa if necessary. That was the reason behind the flight of B17s that flew into Pearl Harbour on Dec 7th.

Even on Pearl Habour the Americans were gearing up for trouble. The Japanese wrecked the US planes because most of them were laid out in nice neat rows on the airfields instead of being in protective bunkers. This was done because the Americans feared commando style raids by Japanese saboteurs infiltrated into the large local Japanese population. The planes were deployed in the open accordingly to make it easier to guard them with troops.

Ships were on patrol. In fact the harbour defences depth charged Japanese min subs. The incoming Japanese air raid was spotted by an experimental radar system. The report was dismissed as the officer concerned assumed it must be the incoming B17s. It never occurred to him that it could be a Japanese attack. The unbelievable aspect is that clear local warnings were ignored by usually middle ranking officers.

America did expect an attack by the Japanese. There was extensive information to indicate that they were planning something. The trouble was that nobody really knew what. It could have been an attack on any of; the Netherlands East Indies (vital for its oil), China, Malaya, Philippines or Russia. American expectations were that the Philippines were the most likely target. Naively perhaps it simply didn't really occur to anyone that the underrated Japanese would try such a stunning move as a sneak attack on Pearl Harbour.

Steve Thomas.

Another factor to consider is that when the threat of Japanese attack was thought about, American planners assumed that such an attack would come from the southwest.

The Japanese controlled the Marshall Islands, only about 3,200 km from Hawaii; they had air and naval bases there. Attacking Hawaii directly from Japan, 6,000 km away, was a far more risky and difficult operation.

Also, the US fleet, when it was out on maneuvers, went out to the south and west. Many thought the war might start with an ambush of the fleet by Japanese submarines.

So Admiral Kimme ordered regular, intensive patrols of that sector. There were not enough patrol planes on Oahu for 360 degree patrols every day. Planes were also being used for training new crews as the Navy prepared for war. Kimmel, faced with conflicting demands, chose to sacrifice patrols to the NW.

First comment: I cannot easily read the article without either doing some manual reformatting or buying a wider monitor, so I skimmed it more than read it. (Further details belong in an .html group.)

Anyway, it looked to me like there were three arguments in support of FDR knowing about Pearl Harbor.

First, people were predicting imminent war. Duh. We knew that already.

Second, medical supplies and personnel were being brought into Pearl at a rapid rate. Well, yes. Anybody with half a brain and a vague knowledge of affairs would have known that war with Japan was possible. It was less clear where the fighting would be. Where do you want to put the medical concentrations? Manila? Chicago? San Diego? Pearl Harbor seems like a reasonable choice.

Third, the report of a seventy-year-old man that a conversation thirty years ago had left him with no doubt that FDR expected Pearl Harbor to be attacked, this report being posthumously relayed by his daughter. Assuming that everybody is being honest, was General Smith accurate in his memory of the thirty-year-old conversation? Was his daughter's recollection of his comments accurate twenty years later? Was Smith correct in his conclusions in 1941? Memories change over time, and events change in the telling. (Besides, I'd be uncharitable enough to conclude that one woman was lying for her own reasons rather than conclude that FDR did know about the attack.)

According to Prange, the commander at the Canal Zone was much better prepared for attack than General Short was. I've read that Chennault (of 'Flying Tigers' fame) liked to take his fighters on Sunday patrols before sunrise, just in case.

No, actually it was the fact that they didn't credit the IJN with being able to invade indochina, malaya, NEI, the phillipines, _and_ raid PH. They didn't think the IJN had the naval assets to be able to do so much at one time.

In the event they were correct. Those 'inferior' F4F's maintained a positive kill ratio against all types and a wash against the zero, mostly because while the IJN a/c were excellent flying machines, they lacked most of the atributes of a first rate carrier borne comabt a/c. The cutting edge of the IJN air arm was crushed by Wildcats before any significant numbers of F4U and F6F showed up.

S9o did the IJN. The Zero and the Wildcat were the respective first monoplane fighters for both navies.

Brad Meyer

'It is history that teaches us to hope'

The plan dates back to the end of the Spanish-American war

Stephen Brown wonders where the moniker 'Orange' came from. Duane Schultz in his 1981 biography of Wainwright, 'Hero of Bataan' p 32 has it that 'That was the Army's color code for Japan. Yellow had been the first choice but it was changed out of concern the Japanese would immediately suspect that it referred to them. The plan was predicated on the assumption that Japan would initiate hostilities with a surprise attack'. Or so says

The same author does not mention the two variants given by Brown,though the version ultimately implemented was 'War Plan Orange-3', suggesting a modification of earlier plans. Neither does Schultz suggest the genesis of WPO,(as it is frequently shortened),with the end of the Spanish-American war. Rather, he puts its formulation in the first years of the '20's, with Wainwright himself directly involved in the planning, an interesting irony since he later had to implement it. The WPO version related by Schultz is somewhere in between Brown's 'forward defense' and 'other variant' schemes.

'Once war began, the U.S. Army would go on the defensive in the Philippines. Manila...would be abandoned and the American forces withdrawan into the Bataan peninsula...where they would fight a delaying action. The forces on Corregidor...would be able to prevent Japanese ships from using Manila harbor. Meanwhile in this scenario, the powerful American naval fleet would steam out of Pearl Harbor to destroy the Japanese in a massive sea battle somewhere around Guam', (Schultz, p.32). It's worth noting that military commanders in general were skeptical of this plan almost from the start.

When MacArthur implemented WPO-3 on December 23rd it was with the clear under- standing that there WAS no US naval fleet capable of engaging the Japanese on the high seas. WPO-3 was meant to, and did, initiate the immediate withdrawal of American and Filipino troops from elsewhere on Luzon into Bataan.

Regards,