Scroll Down To Order
Scroll Down To Order
A flicker of hope
is all that stood
. . . against barbarism.
Another outbreak of such a crisis of madness
[meaning the First World War]
would necessarily involve the destruction of
society in the public order. June 1, 1933
People cried out
for a better future.
Germany neither intends nor wishes
to interfere in the internal affairs
of Austria or to conclude an Anschluss. May 1935
If the problem is solved,
there will be no further territorial damands
in Europe by Germany. Sep 1938
CASTLES OF THE MIND ... VENTURE ACROSS ALL BRIDGES
Events Leading up to War
January 1941
One of the finest chronologies of 1941
Jan 1—Ambassador Grew notates in his diary Japan is on the warpath. When he sends a warning to Washington DC on Japanese attack plans, the warning is not believed.
Jan 4—Warner Brothers cartoon “Elmer’s Pet Rabbit” is released with Bugs Bunny’s name on the title.
Jan 6—FDR delivers his Four Freedoms Speech in the State of the Union Address (freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.)
Jan 7—FDR creates Office of Production Management (OPM).
Jan 10—Lend-Lease plan introduced by Pres. Roosevelt known as “Bill No. 1776”— an effort to promote the defenses of the U.S.; bill gives sweeping powers to the President.
Jan 15—First U.S. troops embark for Newfoundland. Sizable group of conscientious objectors called for non-military duty.
Jan 19—Ensign Laurance MacKallor with a top secret cipher machine hops a train and goes cross-country to Los Angeles to board the USS “Sepulga.”
Jan 22—British-Australian forces capture port of Tobruk, Libya. U.S. cruiser "Louisville" arrives in New York, with $148,342,212.55 in British gold brought from Simonstown, South Africa, to be deposited in American banks.
Jan 23—Charles Lindbergh addresses Congress, recommending that the U.S. negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler.
Jan 24—Four code-breakers Maj. Abraham Sinkow, Capt. Leo Rosin, Lt. Robert Weeks, and Ensign Prescott Currier, with replicas of Purple machines (one eventually sent to Singapore) and code books, board the British battleship “King George V” in absolute secrecy in a rainstorm on Chesapeake Bay and sail for the UK.
Jan 26—Ensign MacKallor boards the “Sepulga” in San Pedro, California and sets sail for the Far East. By the end of next month, an exchange was conducted in Singapore between Britain's Far East Combined Bureau and C, via Lieut. Jefferson Dennis, both tackling the Japanese secret code 5-Num, Japanese codes that were sent in groups of five numbers; the British were far advanced in codebreaking with more information without using the IBM punch card sorters the Americans were utilizing.
Jan 30—Nazi Germany announces that ships of any nationality bringing aid to Great Britain will be torpedoed.
Jan 31—Hollywood studio sensation Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, and the Andrew Sisters, star in Buck Privates. Their first movie was One Night in the Tropics.
February highlights
Feb 4—USO is chartered.
Feb 6—Benghazi captured; Italian armies in N. Africa surrender to Australians; war begins to escalate in North and central Africa. “The Emergency Cargo-Ship Act” appropriates $313,500,000 to the Maritime Commission to provide as rapidly as possible cargo ships essential to the commerce and defense of the U.S.
Feb 8—U.S. Navy Liuet. Commander Arthur McCollum sends an Office of Naval Intelligence report outlining that Japanese agents plan to change from propaganda activities to espionage activities in America.
Feb 10—Sen. Wheeler, leading isolationist, reports army is buying 1,500,000 caskets.
Feb 11—Italian convoy lands 5000 colonial refugees in Naples, from war-torn Libya. General Erwin Rommel arrives in Tripoli, Libya next day.
Feb 14—First units of the Afrika Korps disembark at Tripoli.
Feb 17—Lend-Lease Bill passed by U.S. House 260-165.
Feb 19—The U.S. passes a defense bill authorizing the spending of $245,228,500 in expansion of naval bases at Guam, Tutuila (Samoa), Pearl Harbor, Midway, Wake, and all the bases in Alaska and the Canal Zone. Luftwaffe begins a three-night bombing run over Swansea, South Wales, inflicting about 400 casualties and 230 deaths.
Feb 24—OPM invokes the first mandatory industry-wide priorities, affecting aluminum and machine tools.
Feb 25—Pres. Roosevelt proclaims aircraft pilot trainers, beryllium and graphite electrodes under the export licensing system. Concerning exports to Japan, a thumb-sketch is that the U.S. was not enforcing a complete oil embargo in 1940, but 4 days after Japanese Imperial troops occupies n. Indo-China, the U.S. placed a steel and scrap iron embargo on Japan.
Feb 26—Philippine Airlines is formally incorporated, making it Asia's oldest and first carrier, still to this day, operating under its current name.
March highlights
Mar 1—Bulgarian government agrees to support Germany and joins the Tripartite Pact (the Axis). The first FM radio station in America goes on the air: W47NV, Nashville, Tennessee.
Mar 4—Assets of Bulgaria are frozen.
Mar 5—In a super top secret memo--the Assistant Dir. of Naval Communications authorizes memo to be removed from USN files and replaced with a dummy--from Adm. Thomas Hart to Adm. Harold Stark who is informed Radio Tokyo transmission intercept and exchange between U.S. and the British in Singapore has proceeded pertaining to 5-Num (version 6, additive ver 6) and are awaiting arrival of “Sepulga”; Adm. Hart uses the term Five Numeral System and never calls it JN-25, however, in August it was changed again via new additive. 5-Num is not a diplomatic code. It is high-level Imperial Japanese naval and military communications. The Panamanian government grants the U.S. the right to extend American air defenses beyond the limits of the Canal Zone.
Mar 10—Entire U.S. Army exceeds 1,000,000 men. “Mothers’ Crusade Against Bill 1776” stage sit-down strike before the door of Sen. Carter Glass of Virginia.
Mar 11—Congress passes the Lend-Lease bill; and "cash and carry" provisions of Neutrality Act of 1939 are changed to permit transfer of munitions to our Allies. Lend-Lease becomes law.
Mar 13—Port of Clydebank, Scotland, falls to tremendous bombardment; the destruction forces 35,000 out of 47,000 people homeless.
Mar 15—First flight initiated by Philippine Airlines, between Manila and Baguio.
Mar 20—FBI intercepts Foreign Office Bulletin (#464) a Morimura (secret agent Takeo Yoshikawa) is on his way to serve in the Foreign Office in Hawaii.
Mar 22—Grand Coulee Dam begins operating, two years ahead of schedule.
Mar 25—Allies loose 480 soldiers in shark-infested waters off Africa as transport “Britannia” is sunk.
Mar 25—Germany extends blockade (war zone) of England to within 3 miles of Greenland. USS “Sepulga” arrives in Manila Bay. Yugoslavia joins Axis Pact, and agrees to permit transit through its territory to German troops. The heart of Italian naval Enigma is broken at Benchley Park by Mavis Batey, a story of patterns in history and linguistics only a 19-year old British girl was able to see, an entire battle plan that the main Italian Battle Fleet would set sail in the Mediterranean Sea and its target, the story had remained secret for over 70 years.
Mar 27—Takeo Yoshikawa, Imperial Navy Japanese spy, arrives in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Mar 28—Sea Battle of Cape Matapan British Royal Navy sinks five Italian warships in the Mediterranean, 2003 Italians pay with their lives for Mussolini. The British lost 3 personnel.
Mar 30—U.S. Coast Guard takes over 26 Italian, 2 German and 35 Danish vessels for "protective custody" in U.S. ports.
April 1941 highlights continue
Apr 1—Mexico, Venezuela, Peru, and Ecuador take possession of German and Italian merchantmen anchored within their ports; there is a rumor Axis agents had planned to explode and sink ships in the port of Tampico, and thus block the port.
Apr 2-3—Revolt erupts in Iraq, pro-Axis Raschid Ali el Gailani assumes power.
Apr 4—German Afrika Corps and Italian troops capture Benghazi.
Apr 6—Nazis invade Yugoslavia and Greece with over 1000 tanks.
Apr 9—Greenland and the U.S. sign an agreement protecting Greenland.
Apr 9-16—Rommel's Afrika Corps encircles Tobruk.
Apr 11—Office of Price Administration (OPA), is created with the maintenance of relative price stability and protection of the consumer. By the end of the month, Greece and Yugoslavia (present-day Serbia, Montenegro, Slovenia, and North Macedonia) fall to Nazis.
Apr 12—U.S. troops land in Greenland. Hitler sends German troops into Belgrade.
Apr 13—Japan and Soviet Union sign a non-aggression treaty. It is a 5-yr pact between Imperial Japan and the USSR.
Apr 16—British annihilate German convoy near the island of Kerkennah, of 3000 German troops transported, some 1700 perish. London comes under intense German bombers raid at night, with nearly 900 tonnes of high explosives. Raschid Ali agrees to permit British troops to pass through Iraq. Lend-Lease goods are on their way to China.
Apr 17—Yugoslavia falls; allies loose 330,000 troops. Egyptian steamship "Zamzam", en route from New York to Mombasa, Kenya is shelled and sunk by German auxiliary cruiser "Atlantis" in S. Atlantic--138 Americans are among rescued passengers.
Apr 18—First British troops land at Basra; no incident. Alexandros Koryzis Prime Minister of Greece commits suicide.
Apr 20—Gallop Poll reports 79% oppose sending part of the Army to Europe, a 69% opposes sending any of the Air Corps.
Apr 22—Station C decrypts new message that all ten aircraft carriers of Japan are placed under a new fleet command.
Apr 23—America First Committee holds a mass rally in N.Y. City; Charles Lindberg is a keynote speaker.
Apr 24—The FBI secretly breaks into Japanese consulate in Los Angeles, photographs many items and discovers a spy ring on the West Coast.
Apr 27—Swastika Flag waves over Athens; allied resistance is shattered. With the fall of Greece allies loose another 22,000 troops. Raschid Ali issues order to not let more British troops land in Iraq, but when British ignore it, Raschid attacks the British.
Apr 28—Assets of Greek nationals in the U.S. are frozen.
Apr 29—Fever sweeps Iraq. Iraqi and British relations break; war commences.
May—From Vichy Syria trainloads of ammo and artillery move to Iraq, but not from neutral America, it is all a British-Syrian theater of war show.
May highlights
May 1—U.S. Army troops and special secret radio station technicians arrive in Newfoundland. First Defense Savings Bonds go on sale helping to pay for the increased defense program. Imperial Japanese Navy introduces Yobidashi Fugo HY00 8, a brand new radio code system that is believed impervious to decoding. Iraqi police attack British workers on the Haifa/Baghdad road. “Citizen Kane” premieres in N.Y. City. Cheerios breakfast cereal debuts.
May 2—RAF bombers bomb Iraqi positions
May 4—The American Red Cross announces that no vessel carrying only Red Cross supplies has been sunk.
May 5—Station C acquires 52 negatives of the Imperial Navy’s 5-Num. Emperor Haile Selassie returns to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
May 6—Bob Hope performs his first USO show at March Air Field, California.
May 9—Allies secretly secure an Enigma machine after capture of U-boat 110.
May 10—London is pounded by Luftwaffe; since summer of 1940, 40,000 civilians killed. Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland claiming it is a peace mission. British troops begin a desert march to Baghdad.
May 11—Station C decodes HY00 8 and locates the “Akagi” in Sasebo.
May 14—RAF begins systematic raids on Syrian airfields.
May 15—First (secret) flight of RAF jet, Gloster E.28/39.
May 17—Icelandic Parliament declared its independence from Denmark and established itself as a separate state (in 1944 it became a republic.)
May 19—British decipher secret code that Crete will be invaded in 24 hours; RAF aircraft on Crete relocated to Egypt.
May 20—Crete falls to largest German paratroop assault (22,750 troops) and sea-borne invasion; last large-scale usage of German paratroops in combat in WW II.
May 21—Hitler notifies F.D.R. to withdraw diplomatic representatives from Paris by June 10. S.S. “Robin Moore” is sunk in the S. Atlantic by U-69, about 960 miles off Brazil; U-69's commanding officer, Kapitanleutnant Jost Metzler, provides the Americans with rations.
May 23—German Stukas sink cruisers HMS “Gloucester” and HMS “Fiji”.
May 24—In the North Atlantic, newly completed British 46,000 ton battlecruiser HMS “Hood” is sunk by the “Bismarck,” only 3 survive from a crew of nearly 1,500, courtesy of minyaksayur. Jon Pertwee of "Dr. Who" fame on the BBC later after WW II, related was a sailor on the "Hood" but just before it sailed, was ordered to attend an education course. The "Bismarck" failed to chase a wounded battleship "Prince of Wales" although her main guns were intact, but it was damaged.
May 25—Pro-Axis troops seize $10 million worth of goods in Haiphong destined for China.
May 26—(actual sound) London falls to very heavy bombing.
May 27—Pres. Roosevelt proclaims a state of emergency. The President states the national policy as two-fold: active resistance "to every attempt by Hitler to extend his Nazi domination to the Western Hemisphere, or to threaten it," and "his every attempt to gain control of the seas," and giving "every possible assistance to Britain and to all who, with Britain, are resisting Hitlerism or its equivalent." Pocket battleship “Bismarck” Germany’s largest battleship (41,676 tons) reported sunk by British Fleet in the Atlantic after a 1,750 mile chase; only 117 Germans survive from a crew of 2,200; courtesy of PANZER27.
May 29—U.S. Army Air Corps forms Ferrying Command to fly newly manufactured airplanes to Great Britain.
May 30—Hollywood comedy In the Navy staring Bud Abbott and Lou Costello released by Universal Pictures. The comedy duo is most famous for Who's On First; you will die laughing.
May 31—Nazi paratroops conquer Crete.
World War some 80 years ago
when America was still neutral
June (highlights continue)
June 1—Luftwaffe sinks British cruiser “Calcutta” in the Mediterranean.
June 3—Britain and Iraq at peace; British Empire troops hold all Iraqi keypoints for the duration of the war.
June 4—British seize Mosul, oil rich region of Iraq.
June 6—In answer to a May 14 Japanese government proposal asking for a more beneficial trade with an emerging Japan, the restrictions and quotas by the Dutch East Indies on Japan would not be removed while certain branches of industry like mineral oil, fisheries, mining and privileges of radio communication via submarine cables and air line traffic expansion would "remain uncertain" in other words, the doors would not be opened in the Dutch East Indies.
June 8—Free French and British, Australian forces commence campaign in Vichy Syria. Eleven survivors of the Robin Moor are rescued by the Brazilian freighter Osario.
June 12—Weyerhaeuser (Clemons) tree growing farms begins in the U.S.
June 14—German and Italian assets are frozen in the United States. (The freezing of assets also specified Albania, Andorra, Austria, Czecho-Slovakia, [now called Czech and Slovak Federative Republic] Liechtenstein, Poland, Portugal, San Marino, Spain, and Sweden. Under prior orders, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Latvia, Estonia, Rumania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Hungary, Greece, and Yugoslavia had some freezing control.) Soviet credits frozen in the U.S. U.S. Navy begins battleship/destroyer neutrality patrols in part of the Atlantic.
June 15—Naval lieutenant Robert Weeks, 5-Num specialist, arrives in Newport, Rhode Island, and boards the cruiser “Augusta.” Four U.S. cruisers and 5 destroyers start Atlantic neutrality patrols from Brazilian ports.
June 16—German consular, tourist agencies, the Trans-Ocean News Service and propaganda offices in the U.S. ordered closed by the 10th of July.
June 18—Joe Louis ko’s Billy Conn in heavyweight boxing championship in New York, and defends title for 18th time. Nazi Germany and Turkey sign a non-aggression pact.
June 19—The German Reich closes U.S. consulates and American Express offices.
June 20—The “Alien Visa Act” permits consular officials and the Secretary of State to deny visas to aliens who in State Department opinion seek to enter the U.S. for the purpose of engaging in activities detrimental to public safety. (Vichy) French troops battle British Empire forces, over Mezze, Quneitra, Ezraa. Beirut/Damascus RR and road closed. U.S. Army Air Corps officially changed to U.S. Army Air Forces, under Gen. H. H. Arnold. Oil shipments to foreign nations cease, except nations in South America and United Kingdom.
June 21—All Italian consulates in U.S. territory ordered closed, effective July 15. Japanese Consul General Ishizawa reports to Tokyo that the Dutch were cutting all shipping to Japan, and that items like rubber were going to be either cancelled or postponed, and tin which was under a year's contract for export of 3,000 tons, now shrank to a mere 2,300 tons. Vichy troops abandon Damascus.
June 22—Operation Barbarossa, war escalates in eastern Europe as Germany invades Russia and the Baltic states with over 4.5 million troops.
June 24—U.S. releases Soviet Credits.
June 25—The U.S. Civil Aeronautics Board zones air space, and designates air space above 17,000 feet for military operations. FDR signs Executive Order 8802 that prohibits discrimination in the defense industry. British cruiser “Nigeria” and 3 destroyers capture German spy-weather ship “Lauenberg” in N. Atlantic plus a secret Enigma code machine intact.
June 27—Berlin recognizes the Nanking government of Wang Chin Wei and establishes a commercial treaty that gives German firms full rights in China (eastern China not occupied by Chiang Kai-shek.)
June 28—“Defense Public Works Act” authorizes appropriation of $150,000,000 for the acquisition and equipment of public works made necessary by the defense program. Office of Scientific Research and Development is created, (Dr. Vannevar Bush, chairman) for scientific and related research activities. Organized under OSRD, the Committee of Medical Research had its directive to “initiate and support scientific research on medical problems affecting the national defense”.
June 29—A great roundup of German spies on U.S. soil is conducted.
June 30—Minsk, Soviet Union, encircled; 20 Soviet divisions have disintegrated; 290,000 Soviets fall as prisoners.
July highlights
July 1—First television broadcast when NBC and CBS go on the air; NBC airs on WNBT a baseball game and CBS on WCBW, now WCBS-TV. Locked to the defense of the U.S. (as far as Iceland and Greenland) naval operations are expanded under Admiral Ernest King that includes Fleet and local defense divisions of the Naval Reserve.
July 2—Japan calls up more than 1,000,000 Army conscripts and recalls its merchants from the Atlantic Ocean.
July 5—U.S. destroyer Charles F. Hughes rescues 14 survivors from a Norwegian steamship MS Vigrid that was sunk June 24 in the Atlantic; 4 American Red Cross nurses (out of 10) were among the rescued. Two lifeboats disappeared under a storm (26 in total died.)
July 7—U.S. Marines occupy Iceland under a special agreement with Iceland; Hitler would have converted Iceland into an ideal U-boat base.
July 9—George T. Armstrong is hanged in Wandsworth, England, as the first Britain executed for treason in the war.
July 11—U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom John Winant reports that of the 27 American Red Cross nurses that were on ships sunk by U-boats, 9 had arrived safely, 10 had been rescued (4 in serious condition) and 8 were missing.
July 12—Japan lands 50,000 men in Cochim, China.
July 14—Fighting ceases in Syria with the signing of the Acre Accord.
July 15—The Mitsubishi Company orders its officials in Batavia to evacuate their families.
July 18—First RAF aircraft equipped with radar. Prince Konoye Fumimaro forms new Japanese cabinet.
July 19—Following a midnight BBC broadcast that calls for the slogan “V for Victory” the “V” becomes symbolized worldwide.
July 22—Japan imposes radio and cable censorship.
July 23—Japanese papers report a joint-defense agreement between Imperial Japan and French Indo-China (French Indo-China was under Vichy, who were pro-Axis).
July 24—Japanese troops occupy Indo-China, mainly present-day Viet Nam fearing no hindering of trade relations (July 23 U.S. time). Escorted by aircraft from the Hiryu and Soryu, airfield at Saigon and ports Tourane, Pnom Penh, Siemreap plus Kompon-tom, Cambodia are occupied. U.S. denounces Japanese occupation of Indo-China. Transport "West Point" disembarks German and Italian consular officials and their families at Lisbon, Portugal.
July 25—Executive Order 8832 issued to reporters on Fri. July 25 at Poughkeepsie, NY, signed by F.D.R. next day: Japan’s assets in the U.S. are frozen, about $138 million. (Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. 2 (1943), pp. 266–267.) All British citizens expelled from Vichy France.
July 26—Japan freezes U.S. assets; about $110 million. U.S. notices Japanese merchant fleet put under military control. Transport "West Point" embarks American and Chinese consular staffs from Germany, German-occupied countries, and Italy, at Lisbon and sails for the United States. German troops are unstoppable in the Soviet Union.
July 28—Holland freezes Japan’s assets and applies the Export Licensing Law to all exports to the Japanese Empire, Manchuria, occupied China, and Indo-China. Entire Japanese merchant fleet put under military control. Vichy government agrees to build German aircraft in France.
July 29—Japanese occupy southern Indo-China en force; by month's end there are 40,000 troops in Saigon alone.
July 30—“The government of the U.S.S.R. recognize the German treaties of 1939 as to territorial changes in Poland as having lost their validity” announces Commissar of Foreign Affairs. After the Dutch Commerce Bureau Chief Mr. Hoogstraten and the Japanese Consul General Ishizawa had a meeting, the Japanese Ministry is told as long as Japanese forces remain in Indo-China, Japan will be treated as an enemy by the Dutch East Indies. Office of Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, is created to further the national U.S. defense and to strengthen relations among the countries of the Western Hemisphere.
July 31—Japan apologizes "accident" bomb that hit USS “Tutuila” near Chunking, yesterday. A DC-4 (C-54) flies from Makati City (Manila) to Oakland, California on first Asian airline to cross Pacific, with stops in Guam, Wake I, Johnston Atoll and Honolulu.
August highlights
Aug 1—U.S. exports of crude oil and aviation fuel to Japan ceases; by this month, Japan had a naval base only 799 miles from the Philippines at Cam Ranh and air bases in Taiwan (Formosa) 564 miles from Luzon. The additive to Naval Code 5-Num is changed again (forerunner to JN-25 Kaigun Ango Sho D. Bear in mind, the Navy code breakers and Naval command involved in Codes never used the term JN-25 pre-autumn.) If you are pretty good in math, may we suggest this link that pertains to the inner workings of the 5 numeral system, by historian Stephen Budiansky, from paragraph 17 on.
Aug 3—Gas curfew is imposed on 17 Eastern States, closing filling stations from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. U.S. government makes major shift in policy by promising to send aid to USSR under Lend-Lease.
Aug 6—Japan announces concession to U.S. if its assets are unfrozen.
Aug 8—Riding a wave of popularity, Hold That Ghost with Abbott and Costello debuts in NYC.
Aug 12—Atlantic Charter is secretly signed on board cruiser “Augusta.” Drawing up a plan for maintenance of peace after the aggressor nations become defeated, Roosevelt and Churchill proposed to establish "... a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries... (an) assurance that all men in all lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want." U.S. draft is extended.
Aug 14—F.D.R. and Winston Churchill issue 8-point public declaration of peace aims, entitled “The Atlantic Charter.” Basically, the Charter declared against territorial aggrandizement, for the right of all peoples to choose their own form of government, for the right of access for all to the world's trade and raw materials, for freedom of the seas, and for the disarmament of the aggressor nations–an alternative to forced dictatorships. A security leak of volcanic proportion: the Japanese knew about the Atlantic conference before it became public through a security leak, and behind the scenes all diplomatic intercepts are closed to everyone in Pearl Harbor. Ultra intercepts in DC are also shut off to the President of the United States.
Aug 16—Codename Hollywood, 5th Columnist Nakauchi reports to Tokyo on merchants “St. Claire” and “Fitzsimmons” which took on oil at El Segundo, California, departure times and destination; translated Aug. 22. President Roosevelt disembarks from his yacht Potomac at Rockland, Maine, and returns to Washington DC the following morning.
Aug 17—Pres. Roosevelt and his Sec. of State meet Ambassador Nomura and in secret discuss a possible meeting with Japanese representatives in the hope of peace.
Aug 18—Fire on Brooklyn pier destroys the freighter “Panuco”; 31 die.
Aug 21—First allied convoy to Russia: 7 freighters leave Reykjavik, Iceland, for Archangel in northern Soviet Union. Japanese secret agent in Honolulu Takeo Yoshikawa sends first grid-map of the defenses of Pearl Harbor. To this date, the grid-map remains classified and Top Secret. August-November passenger car production in the U.S. ordered cut 26.6 percent.
Aug 24—British Prime Minister Winston Churchill pledges military aid to the U.S. if the U.S. becomes involved in a war with the Japanese.
Aug 25—Persia (Iran) invaded by Soviet Union and Britain, and the largest oil refinery in the world is taken, within a month all clashes cease in Persia.
Aug 26—Adolf Hitler invites Benito Mussolini to Brest-Litovsk to show-off the capture and destruction of the city's citadel. While this PR event was going on, the Gestapo liquidates 23,000 Hungarian Jews in Ukraine August 26-28.
Aug 27—Japan issues protest against ships sailing to Vladivostok as violating Japanese waters.
Aug 28—Japan secretly proposes a face-to-face meeting with Pres. Roosevelt, expressing a peaceful meeting between Konoye and Roosevelt.
Aug 31—The Great Gildersleeve debuts on NBC Radio.
September highlights
Sep 3—Japanese leaders secretly agree that if a suitable diplomatic solution would not be ready by mid-October, war is probable. Pres. Roosevelt through secret diplomatic channels agreed to collaborate with the Japanese government in supporting four principles; see book A Toast For You and Me, America's Participation, Sacrifice and Victory, vol 1.
Sep 4—U.S. destroyer “Greer” torpedoed; the first U.S. warship fired upon by a German sub. U.S. government states the first cargo of aviation gas has reached Vladivostok, U.S.S.R., aboard “L.P. St. Claire.”
Sep 5—“Steel Seafarer,” flying the American flag, is bombed and sunk in the Gulf of Suez; 0 dead.
Sep 6—The Japanese government decides to continue negotiations with America but secret preparations for war are to be completed by Oct 10. Three crewmen that survived a Panamanian steamship Sessa sinking on Aug 17 are rescued in the N. Atlantic by the U.S. destroyer Lansdale.
Sep 8—Germany admits attack on “Greer.” The siege of Leningrad begins.
Sep 11—Pres. Roosevelt issues “shoot-on-sight” orders to Navy; mainly pertains to the Atlantic. U.S. protection expanded to protect all merchant ships. U.S. freighter “Montana” of Panamanian registry is torpedoed and sunk off Iceland; entire crew rescued. Charles Lindbergh's speech to the America First Committee in Des Moines, Iowa.
Sep 12—U.S. Coast Guard “Northland” commanded by Carl C. von Paulsen finds a belligerent meteorological arctic ship at Cape Hold With Hope, Greenland, that was planning a German weather station, and captures it.
Sep 13—U.S. Navy given official green light to shoot any Axis in U.S. patrol area of North Atlantic.
Sep 16—U.S. Navy extends Atlantic convoy protection.
Sep 19—Kiev, Soviet Union, falls; 600,000 Soviet troops captured.
Sep 20—“The Revenue Act of 1941" imposes new or heavier taxes designed to raise an additional $3,553,400,000 annually to pay part of the cost of the nation’s national defense and Lend-Lease programs.
Sep 23—German bombers sink the Soviet battleship “Marat” (23,600 tons).
Sep 24—An espionage surveillance of the Japanese Consulate in Honolulu nets a Mackay interception (not MAGIC translation) in J-19 code showing request by Tokyo for a report outlining aircraft-navy information in Hawaii. An espionage surveillance of a Japanese-American named Nakauchi nets a MAGIC translation showing he had forward to Tokyo a two-part report outlining aircraft production information in So. California, intercepted September 16.
Sep 27—U.S. launches 14 merchant ships in Liberty Fleet Day celebration.
Sep 28—Ted Williams ends the 1941 baseball season with a .400 batting avg, the last player to accomplish this feat.
Sep 29—A detailed grid-map of the defenses and ships of Pearl Harbor is sent to Tokyo from secret agent Ensign Takeo Yoshikawa in Honolulu, via the J-19 code; aka "Bomb Plot." Between end of Aug up to Dec 6, agent Yoshikawa had sent 36 radiograms, spy messages, from Honolulu to Tokyo via RCA or Britain's Mackay radio circuits, in high-speed morse code via J-19 code. ONI had Japanese language specialists Lieutenants Denzell Carr and Yale Maxon, working for Captain Irving Mayfield dealing with code breaking. The "Bomb Plot" remains undecoded in Sept. [Much of the August intercepts still remain under lock and key.] Pres. Roosevelt had a top secret deal with RCA pioneer David Sarnoff to flash all Japanese consulate messages to him, and to bypass the FBI. Beginning this date, under the jurisdiction of the SS, over 30,000 Jews were ordered to Babi Yar ravine, north of Kyiv (Kiev) Ukraine, ordered to strip naked, and machine gunned; the secretive massacre ends Sep 30; in the first 9 months of Operation Barbarossa, an estimated 500,000 non-military captives were shot or hanged by the Nazis; most were Jews.
October highlights
Oct 1—Inter-Island Airways renamed Hawaiian Airlines.
Oct 2—Ultra secretive proposals of a meeting between Konoye and FDR comes to a halt after negotiations fail; see volume 1 A Toast For You and Me, America's Participation, Sacrifice and Victory.
Oct 6—The Yankees clinch the World Series over the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Oct 10—Bomb plot, decoded by Station N, requests to divide the defenses and ships of Pearl Harbor into 5 areas and report on ship locations.
Oct 11—U.S. Naval patrol deposes of German-Norwegian radio station on Greenland.
Oct 16—Hideki Tojo is new Prime Minister of Japan; a warhawk. Recommended reading, on the man who almost prevented Pearl Harbor Our Man in Tokyo, by Steve Kemper. With hush-hush permission, Army Air Force lands eleven specialists on uninhabited Baffenland, Eastern Arctic.
Oct 17—U.S. destroyer "Kearny" torpedoed 350 miles s.w. of Iceland by "U-568" but not sunk; 11 dead, 24 wounded.
Oct 21—U.S. authorizes loan on ninety million dollars to the U.S.S.R.
Oct 22—By this date, Lieutenant Commander Rochefort has decoded that Japanese carrier forces are conducting operations in the Northern Kuriles.
Oct 23—Gasoline restriction comes to a close after the British agree to return 25 tankers. RKO releases the Disney animation Dumbo.
Oct 30—U.S. oil tanker "Salinas" is attacked by a U-boat and rescued by U.S. destroyers in N. Atlantic.
Oct 31—U.S.S. "Reuben James" is sunk in North Atlantic off Iceland with a loss of 115 men.
November highlights
Nov 1 1941—Japanese naval code is profoundly changed, HY009 a new Imperial Fleet signal system instituted. The U.S. Military Intelligence Language School (MISLS) is established on the Presidio of San Francisco; Nisei private John F. Aiso is commissioned a Major, to direct academic training. There are 60 students in the first class.
Nov 5—Ship call signs of Imperial Japan are replaced with a more difficult branch of detection. U.S. Naval Intelligence flooded by radio traffic like crazy from Tokyo. Admiral Osami Nagano, Chief of the Japanese Naval Staff to CinC Combined Fleet issues the following secret message: 1. In view of the fact that it is feared war has become unavoidable with the United States, Great Britain and the Netherlands, and for the self preservation and future existence of the Empire, the various preparations for war operations will be completed by the first part of December. 2. The CinC Combined Fleet will effect the required preparations for war operations in accordance with Imperial Headquarters Order #1. 3. The CinC of the China Area Fleet will continue operations against China and at the same time effect required preparations for war operations. Next day, Admiral Yamamoto approves the day of attack on Pearl Harbor. Japanese passenger ship Kehi Maru hits a Soviet mine and sinks 75 miles off Korea in the Sea of Japan; 131 die, 379 survive.
Nov 6—Tojo reaffirms the determination of Japan to establish a “new order in Greater East Asia.” U.S. reaffirms the Declaration of Panama by capturing the German blockade-runner “Odenwald” disguised as a U.S. freighter off the Brazilian coast.
Nov 7—German bombers sink the Soviet hospital ship “Armenia.” First large-scale RAF bombing of target Berlin with some 160 bombers; little damage at a cost of 20 plus.
Nov 8—Glenn Miller NBC Radio broadcast from New York City.
Nov 14—British aircraft carrier “Ark Royal” reported sunk in the Mediterranean.
Nov 15—Gen. George Marshall holds a top secret press meeting in his office for 7 correspondents from Time, Newsweek, Associated Press, United Press, International News Service, the New York Times, and New York Herald Tribune, letting it be known that the U.S. had broken Japanese codes. He predicted that the U.S. was on the brink of war, and expects everyone to be on the watch “the first 10 days of Dec” of 1941. No single target is named. It wasn’t made public. Station H intercepts “Akagi” 4963 kilocycle transmission.
Nov 17—Congress votes to amend U.S. Neutrality Act; allows U.S. ships to sail in war-fighting zones; merchants allowed to be armed. American intelligence in Hawaii was receiving Purple again after being excluded practically for 3 months due to a leak. Rochefort at Station H had the ability to decipher but had no Purple machine. Japanese carriers “Hiryu” and “Soryu” depart bay of Saeki Wan, Kyushu, but under strict radio silence. U. S. intelligence correctly ascertains Japanese carriers at either Kyushu or Kure or Sasebo. British commandos led by Maj. Geoffrey Keyes raid Rommel's Afrika Korps headquarters in an attempt to kill or capture the Desert Fox--Rommel is miles away inspecting the troops at the front. Special Japanese envoy Saburo Kurusu meets in Washington to assist Ambassador Kichisaburo Nomura in conferring with Secretary of State Cordell Hull.
Nov 19—“Defense Highway Act” appropriates $150,000,000 for the construction and improvements of access roads to military and naval reservations, defense industries and sources for raw materials. Two cruisers fight to the death off western Australia: Germany’s “Kormoran” and Australia’s “Sydney.”
Nov 20—Annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in N.Y.C.
Nov 20-Dec7—Japanese representatives begin new public talks with leaders in Washington DC to defuse the growing crisis in the Far East.
Nov 21—Sixteen B-24s depart Bolling Field, Washington D.C. for the British at Cairo. Great fleet exercise conducted by U.S. warships in Hawaiian waters, including 120 aircraft. Lend-Lease extended to Iceland.
Nov 22—Secret Japanese code deciphered by MAGIC: After the 29th, things will automatically begin to happen. (November 28th, U.S. time.) There was no sign in the intercepted Purple messages from the Japanese Foreign Office that an attack on Pearl Harbor was planned or in progress.
Nov 24—The entire sea exercise off Hawaii is called off, around 3:30 pm based upon a warning from Washington DC, Rear-Adm. Ingersoll: "a surprise aggresive movement in any direction . . . is a possibility." Captain Mayfield in Honolulu receives orders from Rear Admiral Anderson to leave his duties at secretive ONI and to report and serve on some court-martial hearing. Free French secure Lend-Lease. At 8:48 pm, Radioman Second Class Jack Kage monitored a radio alert from Yamamoto’s fleet. It was deciphered to be some kind of radio silence order for “the main force and its attached forces” with no specifications. According to the book Pearl Harbor by Vice-Adm. Homer K Wallin, Adm. Yamamoto issued instructions to “advance into Hawaiian waters” on this date. Further Japanese dispatches of this date, if any, remain classified and unreleased.
Nov 25—The last day for official diplomatic negotiations with America is re-extended to Nov 27, and more negotiations take place between Nomura, Kurusu and Sec. of State Hull in the hope of peace, meaning America had to back down. British battleship “Barham” sunk by "U-331" in the Mediterranean; 868 men are drowned. Yamamoto’s carrier fleet (Nov 26 in Tokyo) led by the flagship “Akagi”, with 408 aircraft in total, secretly sails from her northern port of Hitokappu Bay trekking 3,500 miles toward Oahu. Ahead of them are thirty fleet-type submarines. Decoded by the British (decoded by the Dutch Nov 17): “Task Force will move out of Hitokappu Bay on the morning of Nov 26 (Tokyo time) and advance to the standing-by position on the afternoon of 4 Dec … complete refueling,” issued by Yamamoto. (Pearl Harbor Hearings, Congressional Hearings, 1946 Congressional Report, vol 1 pg 180, transcript pg 437-38.) Movement is detected by U.S. intelligence in Dutch Harbor and Station H; Adm. Kimmel is notified; destination appears to be the Marshalls and SE Asia. But, there is no mention of carriers. A priority dispatch, known as Presidential monographs, in a leather pouch with gold letters “For THE PRESIDENT” is sent to Roosevelt who is having dinner with Princess Martha of Norway. The U.S. Navy orders all U.S. trans-Pacific shipping to take southerly routes (Pearl Harbor Hearings, 1946 Congressional Report, vol 12 pg 317.)
Nov 26—Sec. of State Hull hands a document to the Japanese representatives stating various principles which the U.S. abides. He sends suggestions for a comprehensive peaceful settlement covering the entire Pacific area; in essence issues a diplomatic modus vivendi to Japan; Japan had to withdraw from China and Indo-China. President Franklin Roosevelt signs a bill establishing 4th Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day. Station H and Chief Radioman Robert Fox, traffic chief for Station King at Dutch Harbor, intercept Akagi 4963 kilocycle transmission; destination unknown. Sgt. Delmer E. Park, of Phoenix, Arizona, U.S. Army observer with the British in Libya is killed in a German tank attack.
Nov 27—Japan again rejects the U.S. demand for their withdrawal from China. Entire Pacific fleet and U.S. Army placed on war alert by a secret dispatch: “This dispatch is to be considered a war warning” began a new dispatch from Washington DC to 15 Army and 4 Navy commands--from Manila to Panama to London and all points in between--including “Negotiations with Japan looking toward stabilization of conditions in the Pacifica have ceased and an aggressive move by Japan is expected within the next few days....indicates an amphibious expedition against either the Philippines or KRA Peninsulas or possibly Borneo.” All American troops and bases put on red alert. Admiral Kimmel dispatches aircraft carrier “Enterprise” to Midway to deliver Marine air units. An account that is interesting regarding an Imperial HQ secret radio dispatch. Vicious fighting is waged in North Africa between British and Axis. New Zealand Brig. General James Hargest is taken prisoner by the Italians. U.S. freighter "Nishmaha" rescues 72 survivors (5 succumb to their wounds) from British cruiser HMS "Dunedin", torpedoed by U-boat 3 days earlier. German 7th Panzer Div. reaches the Moscow-Volga Canal, the last major obstacle before Moscow, 22 miles from the Kremlin, before the Soviet 1st Shock Army administers a halt. Other German forces reach Krasnaya Polyana, 18 miles from the Kremlin, before being halted.
Nov 27—The last of the 27th Bombardment Group USAAF hits Manila; most arrived on the SS President Coolidge troopship on Nov 20 as part of TOP SECRET Operation PLUM, part of the U.S. buildup in the Far East. She had carried 1,209 men. While sailing, all of the 27th dined on roast duck and prime rib, and the officers had a tennis court, boxing area and a swimming pool. They had sailed from San Francisco's Pier 45 (where the officer's belonging's accidentally broke while being loaded and into the bay it fell) and via Oahu. Their planes and ammunition were in convoy ships behind them and they never arrived on time. On board was Lt. Damon "Rocky" Gause, from Georgia, who when Bataan and Corregidor fell, led one of the war's most daring escapes from the Philippines including sailing on a tiny fishing boat 3,200 miles to Australia.
Nov 28—Tokyo Naval Radio sends a message in 5-Num to warships of Adm. Nagumo's Pearl Harbor strike force of a ferocious winter storm in their path. Sec. of State Hull secretly issues another warning to U.S. military of possible attack by Japan, but the United States must not make the first move. No single target is named. Nazi SS units are within 20 miles of the Kremlin; the temperature drops to minus 32˚c. German forces were never given sufficient winter clothing. U.S.S.R. small 1,282 ton merchant vessel “Uritski” departs San Francisco for Oregon. FDR departs on his special railroad car, the Ferdinand Magellan, from Union Station for Warm Springs, Georgia.
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Nov 29—President Roosevelt attends a special (delayed) Thanksgiving dinner with patients of the Polio Institute. Passenger steamship “Lurline” departs San Francisco bound for Long Beach and Honolulu. Germany secretly reaffirms to Japan to join her in war against the U.S.
Nov 30—Driven off course by typhoon-like storm, unknown to the world, Adm. Nagumo orders his flagship “Akagi” to break radio silence and beam radio signals on 4960 kilocycles at very low power to round up his ships scattered all over the sea, but a rare demonstration of the power of the Sun aids U.S. intercept stations who pick up radio chatter from the “Akagi.” The Sun?
Yes, the low power transmissions which were supposed to go only about 100 miles were fanned out due to solar hitting the ionosphere and carried all over the Pacific basin, as far as the West Coast. What precisely was read or failed to be deciphered and translated remains under security classification. Far-north weather reports from Baffenland start guiding Lend-Lease pilots flying to Europe across the “North Atlantic highway in the sky” route. Station H intercepts a specific movement report by an oil tanker, “Shiriya,” that it is proceeding 30-00 N, 14-20 E and will proceed along the 30-degree north latitude at 7 knots. The temperature in Moscow dips to -49˚F.
December Events Leading up to War
December
Dec 1---Four Japanese carriers are detected by main fleet intelligence officer of the Pacific Adm. E. Layton to be near Formosa (Taiwan) and in the Mandates. Station C is composed of some 75 counterintelligence experts. Station H about 140. Station N in Washington DC about 300. Pago Pago, Samoa, Midway, Dutch Harbor (Alaska) has some 33 RDF specialists. (see vol 1 A Toast For You and Me, America's Participation, Sacrifice and Victory). President Roosevelt received four Purple intercepts, one from Nov. 28: “In a few days, US-Japan negotiations will be defacto ruptured. Do not wish you to give the impression that negotiations are broken off.” Japanese call signs are changed again. [First time a change of Japanese code occurred within a month; over 20,000 call signs, including 5-Num were changed.] Agent Yoshikawa sends first of his 10 messages of Dec. via RCA to Tokyo. ONI language specialist Carr out with the flu, only Maxon left to encode. Rochefort by this date made privy to secret RCA arrangement between RCA and FDR. One of two governing houses of Japan, the Cabinet, secretly presents to Emperor Hirohito the final decision to open hostilities against the U.S., Great Britain and Holland (Dec. 2 in Tokyo). Japan publicly rejects the Hull proposals (see vol. 1). A Purple dispatch is sent to Japanese attaches in Berlin warning Hitler and Ribbentrop that war may break between Anglo-Saxon nations and Japan “quicker than anyone dreams” however, negotiations in Washington DC are continuing. Station H averages about 42 messages/hour 24 hours.
Dec 2---Second straight day, Leslie Grogan assistant radio operator on board the SS “Lurline” makes a log of bearings of strange wireless signals from northern Pacific, and broadcasts from shore stations in Japan beaming toward the Northeast Pacific. Climb Mt. Niitaka 1208 intercepted at Station C and Station H at 1:30 am, but it is unclear if Kimmel read this later nor what it means. German U-boat "U-43" sinks unarmed U.S. tanker "Astral", no survivors. Some German units are about 12 miles from the Kremlin. Pres. Roosevelt laces diplomatic inquiry to Japan about her increased strength of her troops in Indo-China. No reply given until Dec. 5. Japanese under #902 specified 5-Num version 7 would still be used alongside version 8.
Dec 3---Japanese Foreign Ministry orders their Honolulu spies to destroy their code systems, excludes Otei, extended to listening posts in North America except the embassy in Washington DC so that final instructions could be received. Station H intercepts 6 messages from Radio Tokyo to Japanese units in South China/Formosa area. The SS “Lurline” docks in Honolulu and Grogan presents a transcript of his broadcasts and RDF findings to naval Lieut. Commander George Pease; Pease died in a 1945 airplane crash. Note: the “Lurline” episode is built from Grogan's account, the only inconclusive facts in this chronology. According to public records, Roosevelt receives a final monograph, the last one before the attack. Station V on Pago Pago, 1500 miles east of Australia, picks up message of submarine "I-10" missing a scout plane. U.S. merchantship "Sagadahoc" is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine "U-124" in South Atlantic; 1 death.
Dec 4---According to Captain Duane Whitlock, who was posted at Station C, they had on this date succeeded in identifying Japan's new top-secret call signs of admirals Yamamoto and Nagumo and sent via TESTM, a super secret U.S. Navy code system, to Station H; only stations C, H and N had the ability to decode TESTM. No TESTM report is available on Nagumo to modern-day researchers, although historian Stephen Budiansky in an article for Naval Proceedings Dec 1999 admitted how much was readable before Pearl Harbor is not established but he discovered in 1999 "month-by-month, date-stamped progress reports on how many code groups in JN-25 had been deciphered"; and makes no reference to TESTM or 5-Num. Station C, as of midnight, discovers to their horror 5-Num version 8 was placed in effect; not even 3000 code groups had been assigned of the 50,000 values. From this date on, it is claimed F.D.R. is cut off from direct TESTM dispatches. As of this date, Nazi Germany has lost 85,000 troops on the Russian Front; it is so cold, mechanical vehicles on both sides cannot even move. U.S. carrier “Lexington” steams from Hawaii with a shipment of aircraft for Midway then heads back to Pearl expected arrival Dec. 6, but stormy waters causes a delay.
Dec 5---Captain Homer Kisner (at Station H) has historically related, before he passed away, that he had delivered 10 messages to Joseph Rochefort about Yamamoto. [Those 10 are still hidden to historians.] Kisner claims the intercepts were from Radio Tokyo and Radio Ominato in north Japan along the frequency 12,330 kilocycles and 32 kilocycles, the former bounces off the ionosphere for long range and the latter is more a close ground-wave frequency; ideal for subs. Most Japanese shipping is in home port. Moscow-Radio announces counterattack around Moscow. They have 34 Siberian divisions, Nazis retreat some 11 miles. After an unusual diversion to Astoria, Oregon, the merchant ship “Uritski” is sighted by the attack fleet of Yamamoto, but Adm. Nagumo lets it proceed [some sources indicated that the “Uritski” did radio Soviet authorities of the finding, and the Soviets notified the Japanese fleet that if “Uritski” was to be spared, the Soviet Union would not report the incident to anyone, but actual proof is lacking]. “Uritski” resumes her journey west toward Petropavlovsk. Japan replies to F.D.R. her troop movements in French Indo-China are only needed to combat Chinese troops. An RCA message (357) intercepted Dec 1 is deciphered by Station H today: No changes observed So far they do not seem to have been alerted. Shore leave as usual. From Cavite, Station C had relayed intercepted Message 357, Dec. 1 or Dec. 2 Manila time, to Station N in DC, however what more Washington was told still classified to historians. Message 357 is also believed sent to signal tower of the "Akagi" by 5-Num; Commander Fuchida remembers reading the secret dispatch from Tokyo and this report was written about in a 1969 book when Fuchida was still alive, The Japanese Navy in World War II, by U.S. Naval Institute Press; candid evidence the attacking fleet was not 100% in radio silence. Fuchida, incidentally, was a major source of the Hollywood film Tora Tora Tora; released Sept. 30, 1970. Tora Tora Tora in English means Tiger Tiger Tiger the military code used by the Japanese during the attack on Pearl Harbor and which Commander Fuchida radioed to his carrier that complete surprise had been achieved. It is also an abbreviation for totsugeki raigeki (突撃雷撃), which translates to "lightning attack." Tora Tora Tora won an Oscar for Best Visual Effects but lost to Patton as Best Picture. Twentieth Century Fox took too long to release it, had they release it in 1969, chances are they would have beat the X-rated film Midnight Cowboy as Best Picture. British battlecruiser "Repulse" ordered to Port Darwin, Australia, and sets sail from Singapore with destroyer escort.
Dec 6---On the other hand, U.S. military forces are tracing Japanese troop convoys in South China seas. Pres. Roosevelt makes an appeal to Emperor Hirohito to intervene in Japanese foreign-policy making and avoid a war with the U.S. Secret Agent Yoshikawa sends secret coded message via RCA teletype in PA code on the defenses of Hawaii & Panama; intercepted in San Francisco by Station Two, but the diplomatic message was not translated until after Dec. 7 by NEGAT. Broadcasts from Yamamoto to fleet units via newly deciphered call signs of Yamamoto are delivered to Kimmel personally by Rochefort in the morning. They were sent from Station C contradicting the popular belief traffic from Yamamoto was observing radio silence. Noon Hawaii time, Rochefort so exhausted by decoding work, takes the rest of the weekend off; so does everybody else at HYPO, except two operators. A secret report from radio translators Station H, Maynard Albertson, Radio Second Class, and Jesse Randle, Radio Third Class, are given to their boss Captain Homer L. Kisner who shortly after noon leaves his special analysis atop a stack of 900 intercepts, HYPO office of Rochefort. That night Lieut. Cdr. Alvin Kramer of the Navy’s Cryptographic Department drives around Washington DC showing the message to his superiors presuming the Japanese intend to break off negotiations completely. Initially, Kramer does not see Roosevelt, only Hopkins. By 10 p.m., the 13 parts of Tojo's war plans were decrypt by the Army and Navy. When the secret documents were sent to the President, he exclaimed to Harry Hopkins, “This means war.” But Part 14 still missing. No destination is announced. Gen. George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, and Rear Adm. Richmond K. Turner, Chief of War Plans, cannot be reached. World wide news on CBS radio, including London and the "Moscow Front"; Britain declares war on German puppets. Radio station KGMB is ordered to stay on the air after midnight to guide in a flight of 12 B-17 Flying Fortresses due in from the West Coast. A Purple dispatch is sent to Japanese attaches in Bangkok that “X Day” would be December the 8 Tokyo time, December 7 Hawaii time and was intercepted by Station C, however, it would not be translated until two days later. In Pearl Harbor Hawaii, everyone enjoying rest and relaxation, with the bands of battleships "Arizona" and "Pennsylvania" having a big "battle of the bands." "Repulse" and her British escorts recalled back to Singapore upon sighting of an invasion fleet close to Singapore. A Russian counteroffensive drives German forces away from Moscow.
Dec 7---At 5 mins past midnight Pacific time, Part 14 is sent via telegraph, known as Message 380 in history. At 1:37 a.m. Message 381 is secretly picked up by telegraph. Message 381: VERY IMPORTANT. WILL THE
AMBASSADOR PLEASE SUBMIT TO THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT (IF POSSIBLE THE SECRETARY OF STATE) OUR REPLY TO THE UNITED STATES AT 1:OO PM ON THE 7TH YOUR TIME. In Washington DC, it also stipulated to burn all codes. Interception is dispatched secretly by teleprinter to Washington DC. It is in Purple Code. At NEGAT, a Purple machine decrypted the message. It was then passed to SIS for translation. Army Colonel Rufus S. Bratton and Navy Lieut. Cdr. Kramer independently inspected the decrypts. It spelled out to deliver the message no later than 1 p.m. DC time December 7 and to destroy their cipher machines. As Bratton stated later, that “stunned me into frenzied activity because of its implications”, which were that the suspected Japanese attack would occur very soon after 1 p.m. local time. Both Bratton and Kramer tried to alert their superiors. 11 a.m. F.D.R read final part; Sec. Knox read it at 11:15 a.m.; Chief of Staff Gen. Marshall not til near 11:25 a.m. who was handed both the 14-part message and the subsequent deadline message. All Army Pacific commands were to be alerted. Bratton took Marshall's warning message, encoded it, and delivered it to the War Department Message Center. In Hawaii, at 6:45 a.m.the destroyer USS Ward fires at a Japanese midget sub and 8 mins later radios the incident, but the reports were discounted and disbelieved by Navy HQ. In a different military branch, an American Army radar set personnel on Opana Point, Oahu, reported to HQ of air disturbances at 7:06 a.m., but were told to forget it. Circa 7:10 a.m. the two are told they should be U.S. B-17s flying from the U.S. mainland. At 1 p.m. Eastern Time the Japanese Ambassador asked for an appointment for the Japanese representatives to see the Secretary of State to give a reply to the U.S. ultimatum; it was planned to follow diplomatic protocol, planned to be given to the American administration before the Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor. An appointment was made for 1:45 p.m. This meeting was late as the Japanese embassy officials had problems with the translation into English. The Japanese representatives arrived at the office of the Secretary of State at 2:05 p.m. On this fateful Sunday morning, a military message was sent to Pearl Harbor as a Western Union Telegram warning but due to poor atmospheric conditions, Hawaii did not receive it on time. Soaring high with her student, flight instructor Cornelia Fort, from Nashville, catches sight of the advance elements of Japanese planes, and when their craft fly so close to her, her little plane shakes violently, before she dips away to lower Hawaiian altitude to escape. Her aircraft had no radio. The U.S. military aircraft at Honolulu was a considerable force, totaling over 400 combat aircraft. Japan has complete surprise and attacks Pearl Harbor International LINK to Dec. 7 with over 300 aircraft in 2 waves and 5 mini-subs. Attack route map, courtesy of National Museum of the Pacific. The attack was such a surprise, the bulk of the U.S. aircraft never had a chance to fly into combat. The destruction was relentless.
Radio: Come in Honolulu, Come in Honolulu, this is CBS calling.
The header for the link states Dodgers, yes there was a Brooklyn Dodger NFL team (1930-1943) then in '44 renamed Brooklyn Tigers, subsequently left the NFL to join the AAFC where it died. It had nothing to do with the baseball Brooklyn Dodgers other than sharing the same Ebbets Field.
Two hours after the bombing, a rare live report from Honolulu from a KGU reporter to NBC in New York. Speaking from Manila, Philippines to America radio report, all 3 visuals above courtesy of 20th Century Vision, Smithsonian and World War Radio.
The radio program that was heard across the United States Between Americans, with Orson Welles (and nostalgia commercials) heard the evening of Sunday December 7th on the Guild Screen Theater of CBS, courtesy of Chesterton Radio.
The attack was filmed in b & w from the air by Japanese airmen. The attack continued for over two hours. Smoke, death, fire permeated Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki became the first Japanese Prisoner of War after escaping from his mini-sub. The attack cost the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps 2,117 officers and men killed, later revised to 2,125; 960 missing and over 1000 wounded. 300 U.S. aircraft damaged or destroyed; 18 ships sunk or damaged. The Army lost 218 with 364 wounded. Sixty-eight civilians were killed. The Japanese attacking force lost 29 airplanes. Infographic-map, courtesy of Encyclopedia Britannica. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt radio address heard nationwide on Dec. seventh, courtesy C-Span. The day that changed America, via FDR Library, contemporary Inside the White House 55 mins. Photo below is at 8:10 a.m. when the USS Arizona explodes.
Kept secret for decades from the general public, except for a magazine ad which I found, the attack was shot in color by motion picture cameramen in 8 and 16mm film by 6 different people; 4 were in the U.S. Navy. One rare film for the archives
is from sailor CWO4 Clyde Daughtry (in duotone).
Dec 8---Malaya (now Malaysia and Republic of Singapore) invaded by Japan. Britain declares war on Japan. British Prince of Wales and Repulse set sail for the coasts of Thailand and Malaya minus their aircraft carrier escort Indomitable which had run aground in the Caribbean and never makes it on time to Asia. Japanese forces also land in Singapore, Laos, Cambodia (aka Indo-China). NBC radio, almost one hour Don McNeill's Breakfast Club; many bulletins come in, so far Manila has escaped bombing they relate, best after 10 minutes. President Roosevelt will address the nation and Congress at 12:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Congress declares war on Japan after Roosevelt addresses the nation. Below is the declaration of war by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Mon. Dec 8. (press) Order vol. 1 here.
Actual speech by FDR, Pg 1, Pg 2, and Pg3.
Live radio December 8, 1941 via CBS.
Drums of war. The vision of peace, sadly, is no more. The first months of the war were jittery. A world that struggled in chaos, with a global population of 2.29 billion.
Dec 9---Flying Fortress bombs a Japanese battleship off the coast of the Philippines; pilot, Capt. Colin Kelly declared the first hero as he piloted the B-17 after being heavily damaged, and allowed his crew to bail out; in reality the B-17 missed but he still saved his crew (graphics Capt. Kelly was from Florida and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, posthumously, courtesy of U.S. Air Force and Wikipedia. Philippines is in dark red.) Bangkok, capital of Thailand, occupied by Japan. China declares war on Japan, Germany, and Italy. There was no live video (films) released to the public. Movietone News had a newsreel cameraman named Al Brick who was in Pearl Harbor the morning of December 7 yet, his exclusive pictures were not released in full until 1942, all in black-and white, narrated by Lowell Thomas. It was not disclosed until months and months after December 7 that 5 battleships were damaged so seriously they would be useless for some time. From a capsized Oklahoma, 32 men were pulled out from the upside down hull within 24 hours, and 3 sailors were found to have survived for 16 days in the West Virginia sealed in a compartment. But, the rescue was too late and they were found they had perished. Trapped at Pearl Harbor: Escape from Battleship Oklahoma by Stephen B. Young is a book released from one of the 32 trapped sailors.
Dec 10---Japanese landings on the Philippines announced. Guam captured. British retreat from Tobruk. British evacuate Kowloon, mainland China. British battleship Prince of Wales (38,000 tons with a crew of 1612) and cruiser Repulse (32,000 tons with a crew of 1309) are sunk off Malaya by Japanese dive bombers; 840 are lost along with Vice Admiral Tom Phillips but 1,612 sailors are rescued by destroyers, and the Japanese did not machine gun anyone. British Buffalo aircraft from Singapore arrive too late. U.S. steamship Lurline returns to San Francisco, and the official radio log of the Lurline is confiscated by the U.S. Coast Guard. It is never returned to Matson Shipping Lines, owner of the Lurline. [Radio log has since disappeared.] In FBI custody are 1,291 Japanese (370 in Hawaii), 857 Germans, and 147 Italians suspected to be disloyal. Japanese-American citizens educated in Japan, the Kibei, remain free. The 6th German Panzer Division on the outskirts of Moscow has not one operational tank. SBD Dauntless from Enterprise sinks Japanese sub I-70 off Hawaiian Islands. Los Angeles, went into complete darkness on reports of an enemy plane flying over southern California--Black-out called, loud sirens wail.
Dec 11---Germany and Italy declare war on the United States. The U.S. declares war on Germany and Italy. (see vol 2 A Toast For You and Me, America's Participation, Sacrifice and Victory for a complete detailed list of what country declared war and to whom, the first 12 days after Pearl Harbor). Seven U.S. long-range PBY Catalina scout planes are shot down over the Philippines. Japanese invade Burma. U.S. garrison in Peking, China, (now called Beijing) are taken prisoner. The freighter Lahaina ventures too close to a Japanese sub on patrol, is torpedoed 700 miles northeast of Hawaii, sinks.
Dec 12---San Francisco blacked-out for 2 hours and 40 minutes. The U.S. declares war on Bulgaria. Seventh (and last convoy of 1941) Allied Convoy reaches port of Archangel; a total of 800 fighters, 1400 vehicles, 750 tanks and over 100,000 tons of supplies and aid have been transported to the Russian people under Lend-Lease since midsummer; before they relocated some 15,000 factories to the East. U.S. freighter Vincent is shelled and sunk by Japanese armed merchant cruisers Aikoku Maru and Hokoku Maru some 600 miles n.w. of Easter Island. The entire civilian crew is captured.
Dec 13---Thailand Field Marshal Phibun Songkhram concludes a secret pact with the Japanese to help occupy Burma.
Dec 14---Report is issued of a captured Japanese pilot on Niihau that was killed after recovering a pistol with aid from a disloyal American-born Japanese couple named Yoshio and Irene Harada; Yoshio later committed suicide. Pilot was killed by Hawaiian Benny Kanahele, who had been shot three times by the pilot, upper leg, stomach, and in the groin. Benny's wife Ella, had wrested the pistol from the pilot, so that he could not get a clear shot at first in the struggle, but the Zero pilot was strong. Benny was stronger and despite being shot, picked up the pilot and threw him against a wall like if he was a wrestler. Ella then bashed the Axis pilot on the head, and Benny slid his throat to kill him. Poor Ella got no recognition, but Benny later was awarded a Purple Heart and the highest award a civilian could receive, the Medal for Merit.
Dec 15---Approaches to Chesapeake Bay announced screened by mines. Bill of Rights Day. Radio program from the pen of Norman Corwin, We Hold These Truths, excellent sound, with Jimmy Stewart and other Hollywood notables, aired on CBS, courtesy of Arsenal Exchange. British loose Galatea in the Mediterranean. Few remaining B-17s on Philippines withdraw to Australia.
Dec 16---Japanese invade British Borneo. Admiral Kimmel and Gen. Short are relieved of their commands in Hawaii.
Dec 17---Not far from Honolulu, SS Manini is sunk by a Japanese sub. As part of convoy 2005, Lurline departs San Francisco.
Dec 18---Japanese troops aided by Fifth Column invade Hong Kong Island with minimal opposition. Office of Defense Transportation created “to assure maximum utilization of the domestic transportation facilities of the nation for the successful prosecution of the war.” The steamship Samoa, on a dark early morning, is attacked by a Japanese sub 15 miles off Cape Mendocino, California. Shelled, lucked out as the one torpedo passed under the ship. The Samoa arrived in San Diego two days later, and escapes the attack.
Dec 19---Office of Censorship, national agency that caused to be censored, communications between the United States and foreign countries, is created. Official communiqué acknowledges 7th Chinese Army cannot relief allies surrounded at Hong Kong. Twenty hospital staff at Salesian Mission are brutally tortured and executed in Shaukiwan, Hong Kong; two eyewitnesses survive to testify at post-war crime trials. SS Prusa is sunk by a Japanese sub near the big island Hawaii. Gen. Guderian along with Field Marshall von Brauchitsch, Germany's highest ranking commander disregard Hitler's "Halt Order" of no retreat; along with 40 other senior officers would be all dismissed within a week.
Dec 20---SS Emidio fired upon north of San Francisco by a Japanese submarine, it did not sink but a few days later ran aground off Crescent City, California. Oil tanker Agwiworld was shelled by a sub about 20 miles off Monterey Bay and 75 miles south of San Francisco, California.
Dec 21---U.S. Coast Guard cutter Shawnee rescues 31 survivors of the SS Emidio. British escort carrier Audacity is sunk in the Atlantic, but after it is able to sink four attacking German U-boats. General Delos Emmons, Commander of the Hawaiian Department, pledges to the Japanese American community in Hawaii that they will be treated fairly. He states on radio broadcast that “there is no intention or desire on the part of the federal authorities to operate mass concentration camps." Convoy 2005 arrives at Pearl Harbor.
Dec 22---Boston and Portland screened by mines. The Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce urges all Japanese in the U.S. be put “under absolute federal control.” U.S. oil tanker SS H.M. Storey was bringing oil to Los Angeles, California when she is chased and attacked by sub I-19, 55 miles n. of Santa Barbara, California. The torpedoes missed and a U.S. Navy plane came to the rescue, dropped depth charges and the sub scurried away under the sea.
Dec 22-28--Imperial Japanese army of 80 ships with 43,100 troops landed on Lingayen Gulf, Philippines. U.S subs and some aircraft attack armada. In the first night, four B-17s based in Australia attack the transports.
Dec 23---Japanese troops on Borneo, third largest island in the world, with tons of oil, advance to capital, Kuching. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are removed from Washington DC and taken to Ft. Knox for safety. Rangoon (now called Yangon) is bombed by air. Wake Island falls. Less than 12 fighter aircraft hold on at Manila. Oil tanker Montebello never made it to Vancouver as she is sunk by Japanese sub I-21 four miles south of Piedras Blancas light, California. U.S. sub Seal sinks Japanese cargo ship Soryu Maru off Luzon. U.S. tanker Larry Doheny is shelled by sub I-17 off Cape Mendocino, but escapes.
Dec 24---Last 2 remaining American destroyers evacuate Manila. Imperial Japanese land at Lamon Bay just south of Manila and begin their advance on the capital. Imperial Japanese massacre doctors and wounded soldiers in St. Stephen’s College Emergency Hospital in Hong Kong. MacArthur's headquarters transferred to fortified island of Corregidor. At the entrance of the Port of Los Angeles, steamship Barbara Olson narrowly escaped a Japanese torpedo. U.S. Navy patrol boat Amethyst went after the submarine; it escaped. But, later this Japanese sub I-19 found another target. At Long Beach, California, people by the hundreds witness the ship Absaroke blow in flames by a torpedo, but she does not sink and is later towed into the harbor. SS Dorothy Philips is shelled by sub I-23 off Monterey Bay, California, and escapes. Dutch air forces evacuate Borneo fly to Sumatra. British troops enter Benghasi; Rommel had cleverly withdrawn.
Dec 25---British in Hong Kong surrender, allies loose a great port and 12,000 troops including 1,689 Canadians. Secret convoy, Orizaba, Mount Vernon, West Point, Dickman, Leonard Wood and Wakefield transporting British troops to Far East arrives in Mombasa, Kenya. The steamship freighter Absaroka, named after the Absaroka Range of mountains in Montana is reported towed and beached off Fort MacArthur, near San Pedro, California. U.S. troops of MacArthur evacuate Manila and head for the jungles and low mountains of the Bataan peninsula. The Japanese march for the great port of Manila.
Dec 26---Prime Minister Churchill addresses joint session of Congress. MacArthur declares the island capital Manila an open city.
Dec 27---Prime Minister John Curtin of Australia passes word in a published article in Melbourne Herald that Australia looks to the U.S. for help. The U.S. Army orders mandatory fingerprinting of all civilians over 6 years of age on Oahu. U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Tiger rescues 14 survivors from sunken Prusa. A second group of survivors (11) after a 2,700 mile journey is rescued by a Fijian vessel. U.S. tanker Connecticut is shelled by sub I-25 some 10 miles from the mouth of the Columbia River and escapes. Nazi German forces have been pushed back 100 miles from Moscow, with the loss of over 800,000 soldiers; the Soviet Union has lost some four million soldiers since June.
Dec 28---Famous phrase in American popular culture, “Sighted Sub, Sank same.”
Dec 29---Japanese aircraft attack Corregidor for the first time.
Dec 30---Hilo, Hawaii shelled by attacking sub I-1.
Dec 31---The first U-boat “periscope” along the eastern seaboard is sighted off Maine. Announcement made that Maui, Kauai, and Hawaii shelled by Japanese submarines. Leningrad, 395 miles from Moscow, holds on after three months of siege.
Convoy escort Reuben James on her 2nd voyage to Iceland was torpedoed by U-boat 552 and sank in under 6 minutes. A folk song composed by Woodie Guthrie in 1941 and published in 1942 became a great hit.
Early days of war. Below is war-time San Francisco in a postcard before a black out, and the Kremlin, Moscow, with blackened roofs; this pic is later in the war because the guns on the rooftops have already been removed. Cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle feared that the Japanese would target the mainland next. Cities and towns all along the West Coast instituted air raid drills and sirens, strict black outs and coastal defense guns: the very last picture shows an artillery emplacement on the West Coast during a practice drill, which were very loud affairs. Fear and unjust suspicion against Japanese Americans ensued, too. Trying a last ditch effort to prevent war Aug-Sept Prince Fumimaro Konoye, see vol 1 A Toast For You and Me by author Valentine. Next: an example of hysteria, a surgery room complete with gas masks. Not even three months after Pearl Harbor, The Battle of Los Angeles. All photographs in this section are from the author's collection.
