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Seventy-five years after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 

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Seventy-five years after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 

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Seventy-five years after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, some Americans have never stopped believing that President Franklin Roosevelt let it happen in order to draw the U.S. into World War II.

"It's ridiculous," says Rob Citino, a senior researcher at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. "But it's evergreen. It never stops. My students, over 30 years - there'd always be someone in class [who'd say], 'Roosevelt knew all about it.'"

Conspiracy theories, half-truths and full-on lies are getting new attention as they appear alongside real news and information on social networks - but that's nothing new. The official investigations into the Japanese attack started in the 1940s, and even now, each time new documents become declassified, a headline pops up asking whether Roosevelt allowed it.

No, says Roosevelt biographer Jean Edward Smith.

"He was totally caught off guard by it," Smith says. "The record is clear. There was no evidence of the Japanese moving toward Pearl Harbor that was picked up in Washington."

That's not to say that the White House might not have expected some kind of attack from Japan - possibly against U.S. bases in the Philippines. Roosevelt had been tightening the screws on Tokyo to hinder the Japanese conquest of China, "instituting a full embargo on exports to Japan, freezing Japanese assets in U.S. banks and sending supplies into China along the Burma Road," according to the State Department.

Citino says Roosevelt believed those economic restrictions could get Japan to reduce its ambitions in Asia.

"Sanctions are better than war - if you have time to let them apply, and if there's somebody sensible on the other side." But Roosevelt "was wrong in that assessment," Citino says, and the Japanese were mistaken in thinking they could remove the threat from the U.S. Navy to their operations in the Western Pacific.

"Pearl Harbor [brought about] unintended consequences for both sides," he says.

The U.S. didn't think the Japanese would retaliate militarily. And the use of then-new naval weapons such as aircraft carriers was still being explored. No one had sailed a fleet of carriers 4,000 miles across an ocean to raid an enemy's fleet while it sat at anchor.

For their part, the Japanese did not think the U.S. would have the stomach to rebuild its Navy and then launch a bloody fight, island by island, across the Pacific.

These kinds of bad assumptions and poor intelligence start wars, Citino says - an understanding that seems so obvious today even as the conspiracy theories outlive the eyewitnesses to the battle.

Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Seventy-five years ago tomorrow, the Imperial Japanese Navy launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, destroying much of the U.S. fleet and drawing America into World War II.

It did not take long for the conspiracy theories to spread, including one that continues today alleging that President Franklin Roosevelt knew of the attack beforehand and used it to steer public opinion in favor of going to war. It's World War II era fake news, as NPR's Quil Lawrence reports.

QUIL LAWRENCE, BYLINE: The history of the attack is clear. There are even a few veterans left who saw it happen.

EARL SMITH: I was on the USS Tennessee. And we couldn't fire our guns because West Virginia was leaning over against us. So they put me on a motor launch and let me go out and wrestle the bodies out of the flame.

LAWRENCE: Earl Smith was 93 years old when he recorded this eyewitness account. The day before, he'd played a baseball game with sailors from the U.S. Arizona and the West Virginia.

SMITH: And the next day, every one of the Arizona players and half of the West Virginia ball club were killed.

LAWRENCE: The day after Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed Congress.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT: Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

LAWRENCE: Roosevelt had been pushing for intervention in Europe against the Nazis for years. Historians debate whether he wanted to join the war against Japan. Conspiracy theorists debate what FDR knew and when he knew it in scary books and documentaries all over the internet.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Did President Roosevelt know in advance? And has a government-led cover-up continued to this day?

ROB CITINO: There is not a shred of evidence that President Roosevelt knew about an attack on Pearl Harbor.

LAWRENCE: Rob Citino is senior historian at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. He says the FDR-knew conspiracy never dies.

CITINO: It's ridiculous, but it's evergreen. It never stops. My students - over 30 years, there'd always be somebody in class - Roosevelt knew all about it.

LAWRENCE: Jean Edward Smith wrote a biography of Roosevelt. He says the intercepted intelligence that might have warned the president never made it to him or the U.S. fleet.

JEAN EDWARD SMITH: He was totally caught off guard by it. The record is clear. There was no evidence that the Japanese were moving toward Pearl Harbor that was picked up in Washington.

LAWRENCE: That's not to say the White House wasn't expecting some kind of attack from Japan, maybe against U.S. bases in the nearby Philippines. Roosevelt had been tightening the screws - strong economic sanctions on Japan - to hinder the Japanese conquest of China. Historian Rob Citino says FDR figured sanctions would work.

CITINO: Sanctions are better than war, if you have time to let them apply and if there's somebody sensible on the other side. He was wrong in that assessment. Pearl Harbor was kind of unintended consequences for both sides.

LAWRENCE: The U.S. didn't think Japan would attack, and Japan didn't think the U.S. had the stomach to rebuild its navy then launch a bloody fight, island by island, across the Pacific.

Citino says it's bad assumptions and poor intelligence like this that start wars - things that, in hindsight, look so obvious that the conspiracy theories outlive the eyewitnesses to the battle. Quil Lawrence, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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No, FDR Did Not Know The Japanese Were Going To Bomb Pearl Harbor

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Seventy-five years after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, some Americans have never stopped believing that President Franklin Roosevelt let it happen in order to draw the U.S. into World War II. "It's ridiculous," says Rob Citino, a senior researcher at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.

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The Japanese Naval attack on Pearl Harbor 7th December 1941

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The Japanese Naval attack on Pearl Harbor 7th December 1941

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Asisbiz Archive photo's from Japan and America Archive USN photos,showing,USS Shaw,burning,in,drydock,YFD,2,Perl Harbor,Hawaii,7th Dec 1941-01

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In the early morning hours of Dec. 7, 1941,

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In the early morning hours of Dec. 7, 1941,

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In the movie "Tora! Tora! Tora!" the ship is portrayed by a World War II-built destroyer. In truth, the USS Ward was a relic of the Great War, one of 80 "four-piper" destroyers pulled out of mothballs after 20 years and recommissioned in 1941 to meet the threat of hostilities from Japan in the Pacific and the European war in the Atlantic.

In the early morning hours of Dec. 7, 1941, the Ward was on patrol outside the channel entrance to Pearl Harbor with a crew filled out mostly by 84 naval reservists from St. Paul. Their seamanship had been acquired training on the Mississippi and Lake Superior. At 4 a.m., a minesweeper signaled the Ward that it had sighted a submerged submarine in the area.

The crew conducted a search, but nothing was found until, at 6.30 a.m., several of them spotted what appeared to be a conning tower or buoy moving in the water. Alerted, the Ward's captain spied the object and confirmed to his satisfaction that it was a submarine preparing to enter the harbor channel behind another Navy ship. The fact was alarming because all U.S. submarines in the area were under orders to operate on the surface with a destroyer escort.

If there was any hesitation about what to do next, it was short-lived. At 6:45, the captain ordered to "commence firing!" A shell from the ship's No. 1 gun missed, but the nine-man crew of the No. 3 gun next fired a shot that was seen to hit the base of the conning tower. The sub disappeared beneath the waves. The crew had sunk a Japanese two-man midget submarine (the wreckage, with a shell hole in the conning tower, was discovered in 2002).

The Ward immediately notified Naval Command at Pearl Harbor that it had attacked and fired upon a submarine operating in the restricted area. But in a frustrating counterpoint to the swiftness of her captain's and crew's reactions, the message was essentially ignored.

The first of 353 Japanese Zeros, dive bombers and torpedo planes arrived in the skies over Pearl Harbor at 7:55, an hour after the Ward had made its report. By the time their work was done, 2,403 Americans were dead, eight battleships lay sunk or damaged, and more than 300 aircraft on the ground had been bombed.

The failure of the command at Pearl Harbor to react immediately to the Ward's message was just the last of a series. Ten days before the attack, the War Department had cabled a "war warning" and advised of "unpredictable but hostile action possible at any moment."

The warnings were based on information obtained through the breaking of the Japanese diplomatic code. While not specific about an attack on Pearl Harbor, they were foreboding enough to have warranted an alert level more serious than the one the local command declared, for preparedness against internal sabotage.

How a force of such size (six aircraft carriers accompanied by battleships, cruisers, destroyers and submarines) could travel so far (more than 3,000 miles) and achieve surprise has been endlessly debated. An explanation as likely as any is that Pearl Harbor was neither the first nor the last time a determined enemy's intentions and capabilities had been underestimated, with terrible consequences.

Six months later, the same mistakes would not be repeated. By then, codebreakers had cracked the Japanese naval code and learned that Midway Atoll was the next target. When the Japanese Fleet arrived for the attack, they were surprised to discover two task forces from Admiral Nimitz's Pacific Fleet waiting for them. In the ensuing battle, all four Japanese carriers were sunk. It was a turning point in the Pacific War.

As for the Ward, converted to a transport destroyer in 1943, she participated in 16 amphibious landing operations. During the last of those, at Ormoc Bay in the Philippines, three years to the day after firing the first shots of the war in the Pacific, the ship was struck by a kamikaze and had to be abandoned and sunk. Remarkably, on that day and in her entire history, the Ward's crew sustained not a single combat fatality.

After the war, her crew members formed the "First Shot Naval Vets," which held annual reunions on Dec. 7. The group arranged to have the No. 3 gun - which had been removed as part of the ship's conversion and preserved by the Navy - moved to Minnesota for the state's centennial in 1958. Nearly all the "First Shot" veterans have since passed away. But thanks to their efforts, the gun with which they made history can still be seen standing guard on the grounds of the State Capitol.
Kirk O. Kolbo is a Minneapolis attorney.

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Pearl Harbor and the 'first shot' Minnesotans of the USS Ward

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In the movie "Tora! Tora! Tora!" the ship is portrayed by a World War II-built destroyer. In truth, the USS Ward was a relic of the Great War, one of 80 "four-piper" destroyers pulled out of mothballs after 20 years and recommissioned in 1941 to meet the threat of hostilities from Japan in the Pacific and the European war in the Atlantic.

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The attack on Pearl Harbor ranks as the most successful military surprise attack in the early years of combined naval/aerial combat. On December 7, 1941 the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service struck the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory. The attack directly led to the United States' entrance into World War Two. Japan quickly followed up the attack with the invasion of numerous Pacific Islands. They held them through several years of gruesome fighting.

Scroll down to read more about the attack or click below to read up on specific posts about the lead-up to the attacks and the aftermath.

Why Did Japan Attack Pearl Harbor?

(See main article: Why Did Japan Attack?)

The U.S. and Japan had been butting heads for decades and it was inevitable that things would eventually culminate into a war. Japan had imperial ambitions to expand to China to solve some demographical and economical problems and to take over the Chinese import market. When in 1937 Japan decided to declare war on China, America was very against this aggression and responded with trade embargoes and economic sanctions.

Specifically, the oil embargo that America organized with the British and the Dutch was a thorn in the side for Japan, which imported 90% of its oil. Without oil Japan's military could not function and all war efforts would come to an end. Negotiations had been going on for months between Washington and Tokyo, without any resolution, so Japan decided to attack first.

As war was inevitable, Japan's only chance was the element of surprise and to destroy America's navy as quickly as possible. Japan wanted to move into the Dutch East Indies and Malaya to conquer territories that could provide important natural resources such as oil and rubber. By destroying a large portion of the American fleet, they hoped to conquer the Philippines and Malaya while America was still recovering from its own damages - simultaneous attacks were launched on these places while Pearl Harbor was taking place.

Ultimately, Japan hoped that America would accept defeat and that Japan could create a fortress that would stretch across the whole Pacific Rim.

Roosevelt's Suspicions of an Attack

(See main article: Who Was President During the Attack?)

Roosevelt expected an attack by the Japanese, but conspiracy theories claiming that he knew that they were going to strike Pearl Harbor have been rejected by most scholars. The Government rather expected Japan to attack American targets in Thailand or the Dutch East Indies than a target this close to home. The Chicago Tribune published a top-secret war plan, "Rainbow Five" on December 4, 1941, in which the War Department made preparation arrangements for war with Japan.

On December 8, 1941 Franklin D. Roosevelt, delivered his "Infamy Speech" in which he called for war. He referred to the attack as a "date that will live in infamy."

Intelligence Warnings of the Attack Before Dec. 7, 1941

(See main article: Warnings of the Attack)

The day before the death of Sara Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt's mother, the State Department's rebuff of Japanese Prime Minister Konoye's urgent request for a private talk with Roosevelt convinced the Japanese to begin serious plans for an attack.

At a cabinet meeting on September 6, 1941, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was told to attack unless Konoye somehow achieved peace terms with the United States that would not spark a revolution at home, an uprising in Korea, or the restoration of Chinese morale. Hirohito had been shot at twice, once by a Japanese communist, once by a Korean nationalist. The better men of two cabinets had been murdered or wounded because they were seen as too accommodating to the foreigners who wanted to colonize Japan or reduce the nation that had never lost a war in modern times to a vulnerable third-rate power. Konoye himself had been threatened with assassination if he made too many concessions, and there had been serious attempts to overthrow the emperor in favor of his brother or his son. Hirohito knew that his dynasty itself could be wiped out like the Romanovs or marginalized, as the Japanese themselves had done to the Korean royalty, if he bowed to demands that the Japanese saw as not merely insulting but insane.

Yamamoto, who spoke fluent English, had studied at Harvard, and in happier times had hitchhiked across the United States, knew that Japan could not conquer, or even defeat, the United States. The Japanese grand strategy, if war could not be avoided, was to inflict enough damage and seize enough territory that the Americans would guarantee Japanese sovereignty in return for an armistice and restoration of all or most of what Japan had taken outside Korea and perhaps Manchuria.

Theoretical plans for a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had existed for decades. General Billy Mitchell had warned as early as 1924 that the next war would be fought with aircraft carriers. The U.S. Navy's Admiral Harry Yarnell conducted a simulated attack by carrier-based aircraft in 1932 as part of a war game. The Navy judges ruled that it would have sustained substantial damage if the attack had been genuine, and the attackers won the war game.

Yamamoto had delivered his updated contingency plan for an attack on Pearl Harbor on January 7, 1941, less than a month after the British aerial torpedo attack on Taranto. Minoru Genda, Japan's genius of planning, called Yamamoto's initial plan "difficult but not impossible." More information was needed. By the summer of 1941, Korean patriots who kept an ear to the wall at the Japanese consulate in Honolulu through Korean servants and loyal Japanese-Americans were picking up rumors of intense Japanese interest in the depth of water in the harbor and the strengths and weaknesses of Army and Navy installations in Hawaii.

Roosevelt's restriction on Japan's oil supply shifted Japanese planning into high gear. War was now the only alternative to economic strangulation and political revolution.

In the final months leading up to the attack, the U.S. government issued a memorandum stating, "The Japanese government does not desire or intend or expect to have forthwith armed conflict with the United States. . . . Were it a matter of placing bets, the undersigned would give odds of five to one that Japan and the United States will not be at 'war' on or before March 1 (a date more than 90 days from now, and after the period during which it has been estimated by our strategists that it would be to our advantage for us to have 'time' for further preparation and disposals)."

On December 1, 1941, the emperor met with his privy council. "It is now clear that Japan's claims cannot be attained through diplomatic means," Tojo said. The emperor-perhaps more gun-shy than the elder statesmen-asked for a vote. The cabinet voted unanimously for war. Hirohito agreed. The Japanese fleet was told to attack Pearl Harbor on December 7 unless it received a last-minute cancellation because of a sudden change in America's attitude. Kurusu and Nomura-who had been sincere in seeking peace until they received the Hull note-were told to stall for time. Tojo summed up the situation: Japan, the one Asian, African, or South American nation that had modernized instead of being colonized, could not accept the American demands without riots at home, revolt in Korea, and reversal in Manchuria. "At this moment," he declared, "our Empire stands on the threshold of glory or oblivion."

Japan's Strategy

( See main article: Japanese Strategy)

Japanese strategy in Pearl Harbor was based on relying on naval airpower over land-based planes. This is a customary approach to war today, but in 1941 it was a radically new form of warfare that challenged conventional wisdom in the still-early days of aerial combat.

The oceanic route to Pearl lay along a tangled path of diplomatic, military, and economic concerns. Japan, increasingly aggressive, began fighting China off-and-on in 1931, going at it full time starting in 1937. Tokyo's aggression continued unchecked, and in 1941 it seemed aimed elsewhere-notably French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies. President Franklin D. Roosevelt took action, ordering an oil embargo in July, and the next month Washington warned the Japanese of possible consequences if they attacked nations beyond China.

Tokyo took little heed. Determined to avoid capitulation to what they considered foreign extortion, the cabinet of General Hideki Tojo opted for war. With less than two years of oil reserves, Tokyo had to act quickly and decisively.

Enter the aircraft carrier. It was the lynchpin of Japanese strategy.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto had risen to command the Combined Fleet in August 1939, days before the new war in Europe. An aviation advocate, he had supported Japan's carrier program and, once committed to war, he backed the Hawaii Plan as preferable to the doctrinal "decisive battle" in mid-Pacific. He knew America well, having served there twice between the wars, and he realized that a pre-emptive strike was essential to the success of Japanese strategy-if success were possible at all.

Intensive training began in late August, affording Nagumo's aircrews barely three months to perfect Japanese strategy in Pearl Harbor. Genda's plan involved a triple blow: high-altitude level bombers, dive bombers, and torpedo planes. The Imperial Navy was well versed in all three, but the harbor presented a problem: the average depth was barely forty feet, and Japanese torpedoes needed twice as much to recover, rise to the desired depth, and run safely.

Ordnance engineers found an inspired solution. Large wooden surfaces were fitted to the torpedoes' standard fins, providing larger surface areas. Once in the water the wooden fins were released and the Type 91 torpedoes sped on their way. Last-minute tests confirmed the theory.

On the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, the aircraft carrier was much like the proverbial musician who works twenty years to become an overnight sensation. When the Imperial Navy stunned the world with the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan and the United States had two decades of experience operating carriers, perfecting equipment and techniques; thus it was no surprise that Japanese strategy was so advanced. Both navies had commissioned their first flattops in 1922, and they had experienced a parallel development.

The six Japanese carriers bound for Hawaiian waters were arrayed in pairs: the giant sisters Akagi and Kaga in the First Carrier Division; Soryu and Hiryu in the Second; and newly commissioned Shokaku and Zuikaku in the Fifth. They embarked some 420 bombers, torpedo planes, and fighters, while battleships and cruisers operated catapultlaunched floatplanes. The carriers were escorted by two battleships, three cruisers, nine destroyers, and nourished by seven tankers. The latter were more important than the fourteen escorts, as the striking force could not reach Hawaiian waters and return without replenishing at sea.

Kido Butai sortied from the Kurile Islands on November 26. Crossing the North Pacific under radio silence, the task force avoided detection during the ten-day transit. Meanwhile, submarines had already departed home waters and bases in the Marshall Islands.

Japanese strategy in Pearl Harbor was well-planned but at the same time put together at the last minute. Emperor Hirohito had approved war against the Western powers barely a month before the attack, but he did not grant approval for the Hawaii operation until December 1. Thus, Nagumo's force represented an arrow launched at the heart of the U.S. Pacific Fleet that might have been recalled in flight. Instead, it flew straight to its target.

The first wave was timed to arrive over Pearl about thirty minutes after Japanese diplomats delivered Japan's refusal to accept Washington's demands. But the message from Tokyo took too long to decode, so the mission proceeded as a surprise. The attack precipitated boiling anger throughout America, fueling a surging rage that never abated until V-J Day.

While the leading squadrons winged southward, Kido Butai continued as briefed. At 7:15 the second wave of 168 planes lifted off its decks, comprising fifty-four level bombers, seventy-eight dive bombers, and thirty-six fighters.

Leading the whole group, Lieutenant Commander Murata's torpedo bombers headed downward to launch their torpedoes, while Lieutenant Commander Itaya's fighters raced forward to sweep enemy fighters from the air. Takahashi's dive-bomber group had climbed for altitude and was out of sight. My bombers, meanwhile, made a circuit toward Barbers Point to keep pace with the attack schedule. No enemy fighters were in the air, nor were there any gun flashes from the ground.

The effectiveness of our attack was now certain, and a message, "Surprise attack successful!" was accordingly sent to Akagi at 0753. The message was received by the carrier and relayed to the homeland.

Once Fuchida signaled "Tora, tora, tora," the Japanese strategy proceeded largely as planned. The first B5Ns over the target were sixteen from Soryu and Hiryu. Briefed to hit carriers on Ford Island's northwest coast, they went for alternate objectives, destroying the target ship USS Utah (née BB-31, re-designated AG-16) and damaging a cruiser.

Akagi's torpedo squadron led a devastating attack. The Nakajimas swept in from the north shore of the harbor, skimming low between Hickam Field and the fuel tank farm, then nudging downward over the water. Making one hundred mph at sixty-five feet, they deployed as per individual briefings and turned onto their attack headings. A quarter mile ahead lay the gray monoliths along Battleship Row.

Combined Army-Navy-Marine aircraft losses were about 175 immediately assessed as destroyed plus twenty-five damaged beyond repair. Some 150 sustained lesser damage.

The Japanese lost twenty-nine aircraft and sixty-five men, mostly aircrew, but including ten sailors in five miniature submarines.

Pearl Harbor was a rarity in history-a clearly defined day when the old order ended, abruptly, violently, and permanently. Not only had Kido Butai initiated a new way of warfare, but it upset the conventional wisdom that naval airpower could not compete with land-based planes. Japanese strategy was a complete disruption of aerial combat. Historian John Lundstrom did not exaggerate when he described Kido Butai as "a 1941 atomic bomb." But retribution was coming.

Timing of the Attack

(See main article: When did the Attack Occur?)

The Attack took place during World War Two, almost halfway through the war, on the 7th of December, 1941 in the morning hours (in Japan, it was December 8). This military strike was a surprise attack from Japanese bombers on the U.S. Naval base in Pearl Harbor. While it was intended to prevent the U.S. fleet from interfering with Southeast Asia military actions, this attack caused America to enter the war.

The attack happened before Japan officially declared war to the U.S. Apparently Admiral Yamamoto intended originally to only start the attack 30 minutes after informing the U.S. that peace negotiations were over.

A 5,000 word notification was transmitted from Tokyo to the Japanese Embassy in two blocks, but it took too long for the Japanese ambassador to have the message transcribed and deliver it in time. U.S. code breakers had actually already deciphered most of the message several hours before the ambassador managed to deliver it.

Japan's declaration of war was printed in the Japanese newspapers on the day of the attack already, while the U.S. only got it the next day.

Time of Attack

The first wave of attack were felt at 7:48 A.M. Hawaiian Time and the attack only lasted about two hours. Six aircraft carriers were used to launch a total of 353 Japanese bombers, fighter and torpedo planes and they sunk four U.S. battleships, while damaging all eight of them. Over 2,000 Americans died in the attack and over 1,000 others were wounded.

America's First Reactions to the Attack

(See main article: America's First Reaction to the Attack)

December 7, 1941, arrived as a quiet Sunday morning on the West Coast. It didn't stay that way for long. In the early afternoon, in Washington, D.C., Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox told President Franklin Roosevelt that a message from Hawaii had reached the Mare Island Naval Shipyard north of San Francisco. It read: "Air Raid Pearl Harbor. This is no drill." The message had arrived at 10:58 a.m. Cali- fornia time, 7:58 a.m. Hawaii time.

Knox told Roosevelt that the attack was in progress even as they spoke.

Secretary of State Cordell Hull was scheduled to meet that afternoon with Japanese ambassador Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura and special envoy Saburo Kurusu to discuss the American trade boycott of Japan. Roosevelt phoned Hull and told him to say nothing to the Japanese diplomats.

The president next called his press secretary, Steve Early, and told him to issue a statement to the wire services, and Early got the Associated Press, United Press, and the International News Service on a three-way call. At 2:22 p.m. Eastern Time, the first bulletins went out, reading "Washington-White House Announces Japanese Wave Attacked Pearl Harbor." Within minutes, the radio networks were interrupting their regular broadcasts with the news.

The NBC Blue Network got the story in its most graphic form. A reporter with KGU, the NBC affiliate in Honolulu, had gone up to the roof of the Honolulu Advertiser Building with microphone in hand and telephone in the other and had called NBC with the first eyewitness account to reach the mainland. "This battle has been going on for nearly three hours.... It's no joke, it's a real war."

By now, and over the course of the coming hours, additional bulletins flooded in, telling of the simultaneous Japanese air strikes against the Philippines and Thailand. Both Hong Kong and Wake Island were also under attack.

"Japanese parachute troops are reported in Honolulu," CBS reported. "They have been sighted off Harbor Point. At least five persons have been reported killed in the city of Honolulu. The Japanese dive bombers have been making continuous attacks, apparently from a Japanese aircraft carrier. A naval engagement is reported in progress off Honolulu. And there's one report that a Japanese warship is bombarding the harbor. Aerial dogfights are raging in the skies over Honolulu itself."

At 4:10 p.m., the Jack Benny Program on NBC Red was interrupted on California affiliates with news of civilians reporting for volunteer duty, and to issue a warning about avoiding "hysteria."

Many of the 9.7 million people of the Pacific Coast States wondered what they should be doing. The immediate fear was of air raids. The images from the newsreels of the London Blitz the previous year, the firestorms and devastation wrought by German bombs during the Battle of Britain, were deeply ingrained in the minds and imaginations of Americans. For those on the Pacific Coast, knowing that the Japanese had projected their airpower as far as Hawaii clearly suggested that they could reach Washington, Oregon, or California.

It was assumed that the best form of civil defense against air raids was a blackout-turning off all lights in the evening so as not to aid enemy bombardiers in identifying cities, bridges and other targets. Throughout the West, lights were ordered to be turned off at 11:00 p.m. Likewise, civilian radio stations went off the air, because aircraft could use radio waves to locate cities, though most people did not realize that this was why the radio was suddenly silent on the night of December 7. It was unnerving. It was scary.

At 6:56 p.m., the sky was already getting dark in Seattle when radio station KIRO, announced that "in the states of Oregon, Washington, and California...every farm house, every light of any kind in that area must be out by eleven o'clock. To test your blackout, you will have plenty of time between the hours of seven and eleven...to make arrangements to get heavy black paper to seal your windows, or heavy drapes or some- thing. . . . No lights are to be used on automobiles and no lights whatever are to be shown anywhere on the Pacific coast in the states of Oregon, Washington, and California until thirty minutes after daylight."

As the sun rose on Monday morning, those in urban areas well knew that it had been an imperfect blackout. Many had not gotten the word that there would be a blackout and large sections of downtown areas, with their lighted neon signs, had remained bathed in their usual glow. In San Francisco, master switches plunged neighborhoods into darkness while Market Street blazed brightly. William Harrelson, the general manager of the Golden Gate Bridge District, ordered his bridge into darkness shortly after 6:00 p.m., but he turned the lights back on an hour later to prevent automobile accidents.

In the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles, the Lockheed Aircraft factories, including the air terminal in Burbank went dark, but they were merely patches of darkness in a twinkling sea. In many places, streetlights were on individual timers and had to be turned off individually. There had been no prior planning to get this job done, and it was still not completed by morning.

Civil Defense volunteers swung into action, but most people were simply confused by the well-intentioned air raid wardens. The Associated Press reported that a woman in San Francisco phoned the police to report "a crazy man prowling about my place shouting 'Lights out.'"

In the composing rooms of the newspapers, typographers reached for the largest fonts they had to set the headlines that screamed "WAR," and readers stripped the newsstands as soon as the morning papers appeared.

"Japan has asked for it," read the editorial in the Los Angeles Times. "Now she is going to get it. It was the act of a mad dog, a gangster's parody of every principle of international honor."

America's Search for Scapegoats

( See main article: America's Search for Scapegoats After the Attack)

When the news about Pearl Harbor reached Washington, President Roosevelt was thunderstruck-not because he was surprised by the attack itself, but because the attack had been far more dreadful than anything the administration had expected.

Faced with losses and humiliations they had not anticipated when they dictated unacceptable conditions to a proud but threatened nation-now enraged and filled with ferocious self-confidence-Roosevelt and the men around him began a frantic search for scapegoats.

Their first target was Admiral Husband Kimmel. As his predecessor Richardson had done, Kimmel had warned the president about the Navy's lack of preparation for war. Roosevelt, however, did not warn Kimmel about the impending attack-not even after he had read the decoded Japanese message on December 6. Ten days after the attack, Kimmel and General Walter Short were both demoted and replaced.

Kimmel saw it coming. As he watched the last phase of the attack on the morning of December 7, a spent .50-caliber slug from one of his fleet's own antiaircraft machine guns hit Kimmel in the chest, shredded his white linen uniform, and tumbled to the ground at his feet. Kimmel stooped over, picked up the half-inch-wide bullet, and looked at it glumly: "It would have been merciful had it killed me."

General Short took his demotion humbly. Kimmel-whom Roosevelt had appointed because he was a scrapper-fought for the rest of his life to win exoneration. "The Pacific Fleet deserved a fighting chance," Kimmel wrote in Admiral Kimmel's Story, published in 1954. "Had we had as much as two hours of warning a full alert of planes and guns would have greatly reduced the damage. We could possibly have been able to locate the Jap carriers, and our own carriers Lexington and Enterprise already at sea to the westward of Oahu might have been brought into the picture instead of expending their efforts to the southward as a result of faulty information. The great intangible, the element of surprise, would have been denied the Japs."

The question whether Kimmel was substantially to blame for a lack of vigilance remains open. But why didn't the White House or the War Department telephone Hawaii when the president read a decoded message that said, "This means war"? That question is unanswered by anything Kimmel did or did not do.

Pearl Harbor had been an obvious target-so obvious, in fact, that John Huston was at work at the time on a movie about a fictional Japanese air attack. After the attack, Huston scurried to change the target in the film from Pearl Harbor to the Panama Canal. The film kept its original title, Across the Pacific, perhaps because it was almost completed when the Japanese struck. Had the film been released before the attack, Roosevelt's embarrassment might have been even deeper than it was.

Three days after the attack, Henry Morgenthau Jr. asked J. Edgar Hoover what he thought about rounding up the entire Japanese and Japanese-American population of the west coast. Hoover was appalled and bluntly told Morgenthau that Attorney General Francis Biddle would not approve any "dragnet or round-up procedure." Many of these ethnic Japanese were American citizens, Hoover reminded Morgenthau, and such an action would be illegal. He also knew that such a move was unnecessary. Based on information from loyal Japanese-Americans, including Togo Tanaka, and from Korean dissidents, including Kilsoo Haan, as well as information obtained by burglarizing the Japanese consulate in Los Angeles and the Black Dragon Society's office, Hoover had a comprehensive list of people he wanted to arrest, and he had already started.

On March 18, 1942, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9102, establishing the War Relocation Authority, which Senator Robert Taft called the sloppiest criminal law he had ever heard of. Japanese-Americans born and raised in the United States, many of them Christians, many of them graduates of American high schools and colleges, were moved on a few days' notice to ten concentration camps in isolated mountain and desert locations. Some collapsed of heat stroke before they arrived at the hastily constructed tar-paper and clapboard barracks, where multiple families shared a single room.

By June 7, 112,000 American men, women, and children were interned behind barbed wire, eating wretched food in harsh climates.

Operation Snow-Was Foreign Espionage Responsible for the Attack?

(See main article: Operation Snow)

Historians have long discussed whether foreign espionage was responsible for Japan's military attack on Pearl Harbor. But new research has connected major pieces of that Soviet activity within the United States in much detail. And most of it leads to one man.

Much of the evidence points to one American government worked-turned-spy: Harry Dexter White. He was the top official in FDR's Treasury Department and had the ear of prominent New Dealers such as his boss Secretary Henry Morgenthau, as well as others in President Roosevelt's Cabinet.

White was in close contact with Vitaly Pavlov, the "second-in-command" in the NKVD (predecessor to the KGB). The two plotted a strategy-"Operation Snow"-that initiated a toppling of dominoes that utlimately led to December 7, 1941. The main issue was oil. Japan didn't have any and had to acquire it from the Soviet Union or the United States. White worked furiously to pull levels of American government power to provoke an attack from Japan, sparing the Soviets.

He did so by influencing the Roosevelt administration against reaching a diplomatic deal with the Japanese. White worked overtime once the Hitler-Stalin pact abruptly ended, since a Japanese attack on Russia would divert Russia's forces away from its Western Front, making Germany's conquest of the Soviet Union all the more likely.

Much of what we know about White comes from his August 1948 testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. But because the former Treasury official failed to exonerate himself in these committee appearance, he took his own life three days later in a disguised suicide

Other Articles
U.S.-Japanese Diplomatic Attempts to Divert War Before the Attack Soviet Mole Harry White's Efforts to Trigger the P.H. Attack 7 Things You Didn't Know About P.H. The Meeting of the Spy Masterminds Who Triggered P.H. Russian and Japanese Conflict in the Lead-Up to P.H Dusko Popov: The Triple-Agent, Real-Life James Bond Who Warned the U.S. About P.H.

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Pearl Harbor: The Ultimate Guide to the Attack - History

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The attack on Pearl Harbor ranks as the most successful military surprise attack in the early years of combined naval/aerial combat. On December 7, 1941 the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service struck the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory. The attack directly led to the United States' entrance into World War Two.

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What were the critical events leading up to the devestating Pearl Harbor attack on Dec 07, 1941 at 7:55 a.m.

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What were the critical events leading up to the devestating Pearl Harbor attack on Dec 07, 1941 at 7:55 a.m.

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What were the critical events leading up to the devestating Pearl Harbor attack on Dec 07, 1941 at 7:55 a.m.

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Their next big test was on october 25 1944 two hours after sunrise the U.S.S. Santee

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3The idea of kamikaze suicide pilots was born in october 1944 to a full scale. The Japanese used them to great effect in Pearl harbour in 1941 and this was the first time the Japanese Kamikazes were...

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President Franklin Roosevelt called December 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy." On that day, Japanese planes attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory. The bombing killed more than 2,300 Americans. It completely destroyed the American battleship U.S.S. Arizona and capsized the U.S.S. Oklahoma. The attack sank or beached a total of twelve ships and damaged nine others. 160 aircraft were destroyed and 150 others damaged. The attack took the country by surprise, especially the ill-prepared Pearl Harbor base. (American library.gov) December 7, 2017 marks the 76th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

EDITORS NOTE: AD BLOCKERS CAN CAUSE THE PHOTOS AND CAPTIONS TO GET OUT OF SYNC LEADING TO INCORRECT INFORMATION

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PHOTOS: Attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941

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President Franklin Roosevelt called December 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy." On that day, Japanese planes attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory. The bombing killed more than 2,300 Americans. It completely destroyed the American battleship U.S.S. Arizona and capsized the U.S.S. Oklahoma.

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On December 7, 1941, the residents of Honolulu, Hawaii, awoke to the sound gun fire. At 8 a.m. that morning, Japanese planes flew over Pearl Harbor - the U.S. Naval base located just outside the Honolulu - and dropped bombs on the harbor and the surrounding airfields. More than 1,500 crewmen died and two ships sank to the bottom of the harbor.

The day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Congress voted and declared war on Japan, thus entering World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt described the day of the attack as a "date that will live in infamy."

Though it's been more than 70 years since the attack, Pearl Harbor still has many stories to share. Read more about the history of the harbor, the attack and the harbor's preservation.

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Attack of Pearl Harbor Archives - Pearl Harbor Memorials

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On December 7, 1941, the residents of Honolulu, Hawaii, awoke to the sound gun fire. At 8 a.m. that morning, Japanese planes flew over Pearl Harbor - the U.S. Naval base located just outside the Honolulu - and dropped bombs on the harbor and the surrounding airfields.

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Intelligence Warnings of the Pearl Harbor Attack Before Dec. 7, 1941

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Intelligence Warnings of the Pearl Harbor Attack Before Dec. 7, 1941

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The following is an excerpt from John Koster's Operation Snow: How a Soviet Mole in FDR's White House Triggered Pearl Harbor. Using recently declassified evidence from U.S. archives and newly translated sources from Japan and Russia, it presents new theories on the causes of the Pearl Harbor attack. It is available to order now at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
The day before the death of Sara Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt's mother, the State Department's rebuff of Japanese Prime Minister Konoye's urgent request for a private talk with Roosevelt convinced the Japanese to begin serious plans for an attack on Pearl Harbor.

At a cabinet meeting on September 6, 1941, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was told to attack unless Konoye somehow achieved peace terms with the United States that would not spark a revolution at home, an uprising in Korea, or the restoration of Chinese morale. Hirohito had been shot at twice, once by a Japanese communist, once by a Korean nationalist. The better men of two cabinets had been murdered or wounded because they were seen as too accommodating to the foreigners who wanted to colonize Japan or reduce the nation that had never lost a war in modern times to a vulnerable third-rate power. Konoye himself had been threatened with assassination if he made too many concessions, and there had been serious attempts to overthrow the emperor in favor of his brother or his son. Hirohito knew that his dynasty itself could be wiped out like the Romanovs or marginalized, as the Japanese themselves had done to the Korean royalty, if he bowed to demands that the Japanese saw as not merely insulting but insane.

Yamamoto, who spoke fluent English, had studied at Harvard, and in happier times had hitchhiked across the United States, knew that Japan could not conquer, or even defeat, the United States. The Japanese grand strategy, if war could not be avoided, was to inflict enough damage and seize enough territory that the Americans would guarantee Japanese sovereignty in return for an armistice and restoration of all or most of what Japan had taken outside Korea and perhaps Manchuria.

Theoretical plans for a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had existed for decades. General Billy Mitchell had warned as early as 1924 that the next war would be fought with aircraft carriers. The U.S. Navy's Admiral Harry Yarnell conducted a simulated attack by carrier-based aircraft in 1932 as part of a war game. The Navy judges ruled that Pearl Harbor would have sustained substantial damage if the attack had been genuine, and the attackers won the war game.

Yamamoto had delivered his updated contingency plan for an attack on Pearl Harbor on January 7, 1941, less than a month after the British aerial torpedo attack on Taranto. Minoru Genda, Japan's genius of planning, called Yamamoto's initial plan "difficult but not impossible." More information was needed. By the summer of 1941, Korean patriots who kept an ear to the wall at the Japanese consulate in Honolulu through Korean servants and loyal Japanese-Americans were picking up rumors of intense Japanese interest in the depth of water in Pearl Harbor and the strengths and weaknesses of Army and Navy installations in Hawaii.

Roosevelt's restriction on Japan's oil supply shifted Japanese planning into high gear. War was now the only alternative to economic strangulation and political revolution.

***

In 1941, the newly formed Tojo cabinet announced that negotiations with the United States would continue but urged the Americans to be willing to make some concessions. The State Department interpreted this to mean that the Japanese war lords intended to continue their expansionist policies-after Konoye had offered to back out of China and had been rebuffed.

Both sides temporized-temporarily. Japan was not ready for a long war; it lacked manpower, oil, iron, aluminum, and food. America, which lagged behind Japan in fighter planes and warships, was also not ready for a war within the next six months. Then, while the Americans were trying to castigate the Japanese war lords for their aggressive posture, an astonishing spread appeared in the October 31 issue of United States News (the predecessor of U.S. News & World Report), showing just how easy it would be for United States B-17 bombers to blow Japan off the map in case of trouble.
Japan is today within range of bomber attacks from seven main points. Bases at those points are being kept at wartime strength and readiness by the United States, Britain, China and Russia. In airline miles, distances from the bases to Tokyo are as follows: Unalaska-2,700; Guam-1,575; Cavite, P.I.-1,860; Singapore-3,250; Hongkong-1,825; Chungking-2,000; Vladivostock-440. Comparable figures for flying time from the bases are shown by the Pictogram. These figures are based on the use of a bomber with a flying range of 6,000 miles and an average speed of 250 miles an hour, a type representative of those to be turned out on a large scale for American air forces and for shipment to Britain and China. Principal targets for enemy bombers attacking Japan would be the Tokyo-Yokohama area and the city of Osaka, 240 miles southward. These two areas are the head and the heart of industrial Japan. Tokyo, city of rice-paper and wood houses, is the center of transportation, government and commerce. Only 15 miles away is Yokohama, home base of the Japanese Navy. Damage to the repair and supply facilities there would seriously cripple the fleet, Japan's main striking force. At Osaka is concentrated most of the national munitions industry. Hastily expanded during the last three years, the arms factories are built of wood. Acres upon acres of these wooden buildings in and near the city present a highly vulnerable target for incendiary bombs. This same strategic liability is true of other cities, making it imperative to keep attacking planes at a distance. Use of aircraft carriers by hostile forces would intensify the difficulty of this task for the Japanese Navy and air force. These facts influence the decision of Japan's leaders today. And the facts are made ever more pointed for them by the spectacle of American-produced bombers, aviation gasoline and supplies flowing into Vladivostok, nearest source of danger to their capital.
This article, published on Halloween, was a lurid fantasy. U.S. B-17s did not have the range to reach most of Japan and return to the Philippines, and the desperate Russians battling Hitler at the gates of Moscow and Leningrad had no plans to invite a Japanese attack by allowing Americans to land in Vladivostok. But the Japanese probably did not know that. A major U.S. magazine had proposed American incendiary attacks on Japanese cities-five weeks before Pearl Harbor.

Chiang Kai-shek, the generalissimo who had told his unpaid soldiers to fight to the death for Nanking and had then run out on them, must have seen the article, because he started to ask the United States for more aircraft and an ultimatum to Japan. The State Department passed the request on to the War Department and the Navy Department. The professional military men knew that money sent to Chiang was more likely to go for bribes than for bullets or bombs. On November 5 the memo came back from Chief of Staff George Marshall and Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox:
[T]he dispatch of United States armed forces for intervention in China against Japan is disapproved. . . . [m]aterial aid to China [should] be accelerated consistent with the needs of Russia, Great Britain, and our own forces. . . . that aid to the American Volunteer Group (the Flying Tigers) be continued and accelerated to the maximum practicable extent. . . . that no ultimatum be delivered to Japan.
Chiang was told on November 14 not to expect American troops or aircraft. The next day, General Marshall held a confidential press conference where the possibility of bombing Japanese civilians in case of war was once again discussed-this time before reporters who were pledged to silence, though Marshall himself confirmed the interview. Marshall-who may have been the source for the story in United States News -said that America would use the threat of bombing to keep Japanese "fanatics" peaceful, but that the bombings would be carried out in case of war.

"We'll fight mercilessly," Marshall said. "Flying Fortresses [B-17s] will be dispatched immediately to set the paper cities of Japan on fire. . . . [T]here won't be any hesitation about bombing civilians-it will be all out."

Even as Marshall spoke, B-17s were being sent to defend the Philippines, if not to prepare for the threatened destruction of Japanese paper cities. These were the same B-17s that Admiral Richardson and Admiral Kimmel had urgently but unsuccessfully requested for long-range reconnaissance around Hawaii to protect Pearl Harbor.

On November 15, as Ambassador Grew, the most pro-Japanese diplomat in the State Department, was warning the United States to expect a Japanese surprise attack if negotiations were not concluded, Saburo Kurusu arrived as a special envoy on an emergency visit to Washington. "Daddy" Kurusu, known to Japanese diplomats as a kindly father figure, fluent in English and married to an American, joined Nomura on a visit to the White House two days later. Kurusu told Roosevelt and Hull that the Tojo government continued to hope for peace. Unfortunately, Kurusu was the signer of the Anti-Comintern Pact with Hitler and Mussolini. Hull lectured Kurusu and Nomura about the alliance with Hitler-the alliance that Konoye had indicated Japan would let slide in case Germany attacked the United States.

"I made it clear," Hull recalled, "that any kind of a peaceful settlement for the Pacific areas, with Japan still clinging to her Tripartite Pact with Germany, would cause the President and myself to be denounced in immeasurable terms and the peace arrangement would not for a moment be taken seriously while all of the countries interested in the Pacific would redouble their efforts to arm against Japanese aggression. I emphasized the point about the Tripartite Pact and self-defense by saying that when Hitler starts on a march of invasion across the earth with ten million soldiers and thirty thousand airplanes with an official announcement that he is out for unlimited invasion objectives, this country from that time was in danger and that danger has grown each week until this minute."

The Japanese listened to Hull's fantasies about Hitler's taking over the United States, appalled at his lack of information about Nazi Germany's actual military potential. The Germans had no four-engine bombers except for a few converted airliners used as long distance patrol planes. Their best battleship, the Bismarck, had been surrounded and sunk by the British in May 1941. The Wehrmacht had failed to cross the twenty-mile-wide English Channel in 1940 despite temporary air supremacy. Did Hull really expect the Germans to take on the British and American Navies at the same time and then ferry troops three thousand miles across the Atlantic when they were already badly over-committed in Russia, North Africa, and the Balkans?

***

In the final months leading up to the Pearl Harbor attack, the U.S. government issued a memorandum stating, "The Japanese government does not desire or intend or expect to have forthwith armed conflict with the United States. . . . Were it a matter of placing bets, the undersigned would give odds of five to one that Japan and the United States will not be at 'war' on or before March 1 (a date more than 90 days from now, and after the period during which it has been estimated by our strategists that it would be to our advantage for us to have 'time' for further preparation and disposals)."

A memoradum from Harry Dexter White called for Japanese withdrawl from Indonesia, much of the Southeast Pacific, China, and to allow its internal economy to be highly regulated by Western colonial powers. (As White was a Soviet mole, the memorandum was drafted with the purposes of demanding impossible conditions). When the news of the American ultimatum reached Tokyo, the Japanese were horrified. Foreign Minister Togo tried to resign to avoid the shame of having to negotiate such preposterous terms. The emperor, groping for a way to save his throne and perhaps his life without war, called a meeting of Japan's former prime ministers. One by one, the weary old men, fearful for their country if not for their own lives, appeared before the emperor to try to find a way to avoid a revolution at home or destruction at the hands of America or Russia.

Reijiro Wakatsuki, born in 1866, a lawyer known as "the liar" in a pun on his name, had become prime minister for a second time after his predecessor, Hamaguchi, was critically wounded in an assassination attempt. He had unsuccessfully opposed the annexation of Manchuria. His position was that the war with the United States could not be prevented given America's impossible demands, but that the Japanese should try to end hostilities as quickly as possible.

Keisuke Okada, born in 1868, the prime minister who had escaped by hiding in the toilet on February 26, 1936, knew only too well what would happen if the cabinet bowed to the foreigners. He had no answer to America's demands either.

Kiichiro Hiranuma, born in 1867, was a reformer who had made his name prosecuting corrupt monopolies and the politicians who accepted their bribes. A nationalist and an anti-communist, he had resigned in 1939 because he feared that Japan's developing alliance with Germany would draw his country into an unwanted war with Britain and the United States. Hiranuma also understood that giving up Manchuria under American pressure was political suicide.

Mitsumasa Yonai, born in 1880, an admiral nicknamed "the white elephant" because of his pale skin and large ears and nose, had just avoided assassination on February 26, 1936. He was visiting his mistress at her home when the death squad showed up at his office. Yonai was pro-British and pro-American and had opposed the alliance with Hitler. Despite his narrow escape in 1936, Yonai thought that the Japanese should risk popular outrage one more time: "I hope the nation will not jump from the frying pan into the fire."

Koki Hirota, "the man in the ordinary suit," came next. He asked the cabinet to consider that a diplomatic breakdown might not lead to war. He doubted that America would go to war for the sake of China and said that, in any case, the Japanese should look for a peace settlement as quickly as possible if war broke out. None of these elder statesmen could suggest an offer to the United States that might ameliorate its drastic and startling demands. They were baffled by a once-friendly country that had, until recently, been selling them not only oil and scrap iron but military training aircraft and spare parts. Roosevelt, for whatever reason, seemed to have lost all interest in avoiding war in the Pacific and had left Hull, Hornbeck, and White minding the store.

On December 1, the emperor met with his privy council. "It is now clear that Japan's claims cannot be attained through diplomatic means," Tojo said. The emperor-perhaps more gun-shy than the elder statesmen-asked for a vote. The cabinet voted unanimously for war. Hirohito agreed. The Japanese fleet was told to attack Pearl Harbor on December 7 unless it received a last-minute cancellation because of a sudden change in America's attitude. Kurusu and Nomura-who had been sincere in seeking peace until they received the Hull note-were told to stall for time. Tojo summed up the situation: Japan, the one Asian, African, or South American nation that had modernized instead of being colonized, could not accept the American demands without riots at home, revolt in Korea, and reversal in Manchuria. "At this moment," he declared, "our Empire stands on the threshold of glory or oblivion."
This article is part of our larger selection of posts about the Pearl Harbor attack. To learn more, click here for our comprehensive guide to Pearl Harbor.
This article is from the book Operation Snow: How a Soviet Mole in FDR's White House Triggered Pearl Harbor © 2012 by John Koster. Please use this data for any reference citations. To order this book, please visit its online sales page at Amazonor Barnes & Noble.
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Intelligence Warnings of the Pearl Harbor Attack Before Dec. 7, 1941 - History

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The following is an excerpt from John Koster's Operation Snow: How a Soviet Mole in FDR's White House Triggered Pearl Harbor. Using recently declassified evidence from U.S. archives and newly translated sources from Japan and Russia, it presents new theories on the causes of the Pearl Harbor attack.