German infantry September 1939, the east had 23 first, 6 second, 9 third and 3 fourth wave divisions, the west had 12 first, 10 second, 12 third and 9 fourth wave units. There were other units in places like Czechoslovakia. At the point of contact in the Saarland the French had 12 divisions under two separate army commands; the Germans ten divisions, plus a division-size frontier command. The offensive occupied two small pieces of German territory jutting into France and never reached more than some of the covering outposts of the Westwall. The Germans had mobilised earlier than the French.
When negotiations with the US became serious in 1941 the Japanese terms to China were set in a message to the US on 22 September as,
1. A good neighbour policy
2. Respect for national sovereignty and territorial integrity.
3. Mutual defence by Japan and China.
4. Withdrawal of troops: Troops sent to China to carry on the "China Incident" to stay, 25 years was the preferred time.
5. Economic cooperation. which translated into preferential tariffs and treatment for Japanese goods and services.
6. Merger of the Chiang and Wang governments.
7. No annexation of territory, (Except for Manchuria.)
8. No reparations.
9. Recognition of Manchukuo
Then on 4th November came two offers for the US, proposal A
Non discriminatory trade with China, but Japan has a special case because it is a neighbour, if the US does not like this then Japan will give the non proposal of universal free trade, which we still do not have. In other words Japan is considered special or nothing. When to activate the Tripartite pact is for Japan's discretion, and there will be no explanation of Japan's defence sphere. Troops to stay in North China, Mongolian Border areas, Hainan Island, for suitable period (Note ambassador forbidden to give a firm time figure). Rest of troops to be removed at the end of the war. Immediate resumption of trade. Help Japan obtain needed resources from SW Pacific. Japan will respect Thailand, NEI, the Philippines after independence, the US will "alleviate military measures in the SW Pacific area".
Final point none of the troop proposals are to be allowed into the draft treaty. The explanatory note to the ambassador says Japan will call the troop removals evacuations "but although it would please the US for us to make it the exception rather than the rule (to retain garrisons) this would be out of the question" No more troop concessions. In other words get out of the way and give us what we need to go conquering.
The other (B) milder one was as follows, The most generous terms of Japan's solution were
1) Japan would stop were it is, keep French Indo China
2) US helps Japan obtain oil from Dutch East Indies
3) All trade restrictions lifted, US sells oil to Japan according to Japanese requests.
4) US will engage in no activity which might put an obstacle in the way of Japan in her efforts to make peace with China. (Japan to
define activity)
5) Japan will withdraw from French Indo China after peace has been obtained.
6) Non discriminatory trade
7) If the US is involved in a European war Japan will automatically carry out what she understands to be her obligations under the agreements with Italy and Germany.
it was all of this or nothing as the bottom line.
Hull's reply was
A seven power non aggression pact
Evacuation of China and Indo China
Mutual renunciation of extra territorial rights in China
Japanese recognition of Chunking government
A new US-Japan trade agreement on most favoured nation basis.
Mutual unfreezing of assets
Stabilisation of the Dollar-Yen exchange rate.
In other words the 1922 nine power treaty, UK, China, Japan, Dutch, USSR, Thailand and US.
The McCollum Memo is addressed to the directors, not someone in the white house, yet it is supposed to make it to FDR in time for him to make it the lunchtime conversation the next day, the "proof" FDR saw the memo, just ignore the diary of the person FDR lunched with.
"Op-16-F-2 ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence) 7 October 1940 Memorandum For The Directors Subject: ESTIMATE OF THE SITUATION IN THE PACIFIC AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION OF THE UNITED STATES..."
A. Make an arrangement with Britain for the use of British bases in the Pacific, particularly Singapore." The USN did not use British bases until after the war started. There was a conference in Manila about cooperation but it ended with the sighting of the IJN invasion convoys heading for Malaya. So this never happened pre war. By the way the German Japanese naval base agreement had been signed in 1940 or earlier.
"B. Make an arrangement with Holland for the use of base facilities and acquisition of supplies in the Dutch East Indies" (now Indonesia)." As for point A. Never happened pre war.
"C. Give all possible aid to the Chinese government of Chiang Kai-shek." 30 aircraft in 1940, 141 in 1941, compared with 1,507 for the British in 1940 and 5,249 in 1941. The USSR received more aircraft than China, in fact the "other foreign" column has 787 aircraft delivered at the US factories. All possible aid would have been a lot more aircraft for a start. By the way the 30 aircraft for China in 1940 were trainers, 70 of the 1941 aircraft were trainers, 53 fighters, 18 light bombers. I presume the German sale of 12 aircraft to China in 1937 is an indicator Germany is giving all aid as well? How about the German military advisors present on the Chinese side in the late 1930s? I think they were withdrawn in 1939.
"D. Send a division of long-range heavy cruisers to the Western Pacific, the Philippines and Singapore." Didn't happen, hint Manila is in the Western Pacific, it had a heavy and a light cruiser plus the occasional extra cruiser passing through.
"E. Send two divisions of submarines to the western Pacific."
There were already USN submarines based in Manila, and the memo's ideas of reinforcements was not followed. USN submarine deployments to Manila from DANFS, according to my by hand counts. Note this only counts the submarines that were still in service in 1939, Manila was a submarine base from pre WWI.
11/24 (yes 24) onward S-36, S-37, S-38, S-39, S-40, S-41
7/1925 to 5/1932 S-30, S-31, S-32, S-33, S-34, S-35
So until the depression the USN had 12 submarines present.
12/39 onward Porpoise, Pike, Tarpon, Perch, Pickerel, Permit. So the 12 submarine force is restored.
1939 Searaven "two years before war" my bet it should be with the 5 following submarines to make another 6 strong squadron and arrived at the end of 1940.
1940 Seawolf (autumn)
10 or 11/40 Stingray, Seadragon, Sealion, 12/40 Shark
1941 month unknown Snapper (probably 11/41), Sailfish (after 3/41 at least since that was the month it started a refit in the US)
11/41 Salmon, Seal, Sturgeon, Sargo, Saury, Spearfish, Sculpin, Swordfish, Skipjack
Total 29, the force at the start of the war, I think 4 were refitting on 8 December.
By the looks of it submarine strengths were increased at Pearl Harbor as well as Panama during this time. USN submarines available went from 96 in 9/39 to 106 in 12/40 to 112 in 11/41. Note around 14 submarines that were in reserve were reactivated at the end of 1940 or early 1941, so in effect the USN went from around 82 active submarines in 9/39. The strengthening of the submarine forces in the Philippines was not unique and in fact largely happened well before 1940 or in the last month of peace.
"F. Keep the main strength of the U.S. fleet, now in the Pacific, in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands." Done before the memo was written, the memo is dated in October, the basing decision was on 1 May 1940.
"G. Insist that the Dutch refuse to grant Japanese demands for undue economic concessions, Particularly oil." Add the British as well, it made no sense for the US to embargo oil if the Dutch and British would replace the lost sales. The US did not need to do much to persuade the Dutch, the Japanese idea of terms of trade did much to persuade the Dutch extra trade was not worth it.
"H. Completely embargo all trade with Japan, in collaboration with a similar embargo imposed by the British Empire." Finally happened, however the memo forgets to add the Dutch to the embargo.
FDR had imposed trade embargoes on aviation fuel, lubricants and high grade scrap metal on 25 July 1940. On 26 September scrap iron was added to the list. In the first week in October, that is just before the memo was written the US ordered all Americans out of the far east, called up the naval reserve and authorised Anglo-American staff talks in Singapore. Additional supplies were sent to the Philippines as well.
The memo is supposed to be the blueprint, apparently able to influence decisions before it was written. The Japanese negotiations with the Dutch over oil finally ended in the first week in October, with no gains for the Japanese.
"10. If by these means Japan could be led to commit an overt act of war, so much the better. At all event we must be fully prepared to accept the treat of war." Yes, Japan preferred war to giving up the chance to colonise China.
My summary of the memo, 8 recommendations, the first 4 were not followed, the fifth was not followed at the time, though more submarines were sent and then even more in late 1941, the sixth and seventh had already happened before the memo was written, the eighth finally happened around 9 months later and only after further Japanese expansion.
If you really want to believe Stinnett is the authority check out his page 324 of his hardcover edition where he states "There is no reliable evidence, found by the author, that establishes how much of the 5 - Num [JN25] could be deciphered, translated and read by naval cryptographers in 1941". Now go back and read the book where it assumes, his opinion, his assumption, the USN could read the signals Stinnett wants them to have read, including the ones he tries to pretend were sent by radio instead of hand delivered. Stinnett has no idea what the USN could read, he simply gives his opinion.
Much abridged review
"Stinnett fails to mention that it was prohibited by the Navy's regulations for an officer to sent any memo forward without sending it first to his superiors, including copies to his superiors, including Adm. Kimmel. One of the central lynchpins of Stinnett's argument---that FDR was engaged in manipulation behind Kimmel's back- --thus collapses."
"It gets worse for Stinnett's argument. On pp. 45-47, Stinnett supposedly uncovers four radio dispatches---two by Nagano and two by Yamamoto---that were "intercepted" and decoded, and thus warned FDR (but not Kimmel) that the Japanese fleet was on the move. Virtually all of Stinnett's thesis hangs on these four intercepts indicating that the Japanese did not keep radio silence. It is the lynchpin of his "new" information, and the core of his book. No originals exist, but rather, Stinnett's source for this "new" information is "two US naval histories: Pearl Harbor by Vice Admiral Homer N. Wallin and The Campaigns of the Pacific War prepared by the . . . Strategic Bombing Survey." Wallin's source was the 1979 Pearl Harbor hearings, which referenced the Navy's History Section. Both of these came from a November 29, 1945 document produced by the History Section, based on October 1945 interviews with principal Japanese actors!
Let's reconstruct this: Stinnett cites Wallin, who cites the Hearings, which cite the History Section's "reconstructions" with Japanese four years after the incident. Even then, the Strategic Bombing survey, cited in the classic book by Gordon Prange, et. al., At Dawn We Slept, quotes the Strategic Bombing survey as saying that none of the four were transmitted by radio and that all four messages were hand-delivered. This is confirmed by virtually all of the Japanese participants, including Genda, in repeated interviews. Stinnett's key evidence then---which is hardly new, and has been in the open for years---is that there is no "new" evidence, and that the Hitokappu Bay message was hand delivered. Had Stinnett traced the citations back, to use his waffle terms, it's hard to believe that he would have relied on this as evidence of anything."
Stinnett's lack of historical training also produces a tunnel vision that sees one potential path of actions (among many thousands) as the only possible route that could have unfolded. The result is that at every critical point where Stinnett prepares the reader for a "gotcha" of FDR, he aborts his mission, employing a host of "mush" terms that reveal that in fact has does not have the incriminating evidence that his title purports to contain. I have counted at least 23 such term uses, but I am sure there are many more that I missed. Among them:
*(introduction, xiv) "The commanders in Hawaii . . . were deprived of intelligence that might have made them more alert to risks entailed in Roosevelt's policy . . . ." Would it made them more "alert" or not? How so?
*(5) Journalist Edward Murrow, commenting on what "he and Murrow were told by FDR" "hinted" at a "tantalizing" conclusion: "The President's surprise [at the attack] was not as great as that of other men around him. Nor was the attack unwelcome." Then Stinnett admits, "Any conclusion about the Murrow meeting must remain speculative." Oh? So why report it?
*(9) "The paper trail of the McCollum memo ends with the Knox endorsement. Although the proposal was addressed to Anderson, no specific record has been found by the author indicating whether he or Roosevelt actually saw it." Yet Stinnett builds much of his early case on the McCollum memo, ... Why bother, when there is no proof FDR "actually saw it?"
*(9) "Throughout 1941, it seems, providing Japan into an overt act of war was the principal policy that guided FDR's actions toward Japan." Was this the policy, or not? Can you prove it?
*(9) "Roosevelt's fingerprints' can be found on each of McCollum's proposals." Yet Stinnett has no proof FDR "actually saw it." So Roosevelt must have handled it without seeing it.
*(12) "There is no evidence that Admiral Kimmel knew of the action plans advanced by McCollum, because Admiral Richardson never told him of them." This raises an incredible possibility that Stinnett appears not to have considered: if Kimmel had known of the "action plans" (if, indeed, such things did exist, and which FDR saw---which Stinnett says he cannot prove), would Kimmel have enthusiastically gone along with them? In retrospect, Kimmel supporters portray him as "set up." In reality, did he feel "left out?"
*(14) "A link to some of McCollum's provocations surfaced earlier in 1940 but did not produce a written directive." Or, in plain speak, either no one saw McCollum's memo, or the people who did see it did not act on it.
*(35) Director Walter S. Anderson, the head of the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) "obviously believed in the McCollum strategy and went to Hawaii knowing of the risks inherent in increasing American pressure on a militant Japan." First, Stinnett does not know what Anderson "believed," and second, his comments virtually apologize for "increasing pressure" on "poow wittle Japan," whom he admits was "militant." But the kicker comes in the next sentence. Again, on p. 35, Stinnett writes, "Yet in an oral-history interview conducted by Columbia University in March 1962, he [Anderson] claimed to know nothing of the Richardson-Roosevelt discussion concerning keeping the fleet in Hawaiian waters." It appears as an interpreter of thoughts, Stinnett knows what Anderson "obviously believed," despite what the man himself "claimed."
*(37) "Had he been briefed, Kimmel could have requested that Purple decryptions be sent to him from either Washington or Corregidor." Or, he could not have. The man who did not put up long range reconnaissance, who did not coordinate well with General Short, who did not have the fleet on full alert despite numerous and abundantly clear warnings, who did not have torpedo nets up---that admiral would "have requested" decryptions if only he had been briefed.
*(44) Dutch naval attache Johan Ranneft, monitoring Japanese fleet movements for the Dutch, reported in a diary that he had plotted carrier groups, but had one unnamed port location. "Ranneft's unnamed port could only be Hitokappu Bay . . . ." Stinnett goes on to say "There was no way Ranneft could mistake the southern Japanese carrier movement for an eastern foray."
*(48) "Dropping Hitokappu Bay' from the typewritten summary may have been done deliberately to conceal American success in decoding Japanese naval communications." Or, it may not have been done deliberately.
*(134) "How much was disclosed to Admiral Kimmel and the White House [by the codebreakers] is obscured by continued US censorship." This tack gets old. The author is plenty eager to pat himself on the back for using FOIA to obtain some documents, but retreats to the "censorship" canard when the documents he does get don't make his case.
*(136) Commander Vincent R. Murphy was "the man who was responsible for evaluating Japanese intentions" as the assistant war plans officer for Kimmel. "Murphy attended major meetings with America's top naval brass [who? how top'?] while in Washington in late 1940, which suggests that he learned of FDR's policy of let Japan commit the first act of war.'" While working with the U.S. Air Force, I hung out with some of the "top brass" (generals, colonels, and Senior Executive Service-types) related to aerospace transport programs. How much do you think I learned from them about strategic bomber programs? Or about policies related to "no-fly" zones in Iraq?
*(136) Stinnett follows these two "shoulda/wouldas" with a third on the same page: "It is unreasonable to believe [Adm.] Richardson [Kimmel's superior] did not convey Roosevelt's policy to his top aide---Murphy." Now Stinnett has two degrees of separation from reality: he has no proof that Murphy knew and he has not proof that Richardson told him, and he cites both as evidence to the contrary!
*(145) "Neither Kimmel nor his family ever mentioned the mysterious sortie and the sudden recall from the North Pacific waters." But Stinnett thinks this sortie important enough to dwell on at length.
*(168) After stating that "the Kimmel-Bloch-Rochefort alert of November 25 is the only intelligence report generated by Station HYPO that can be linked to President Roosevelt," on the following page he backtracks, saying "Tracing the Navy's copy of the HYPO message to the White House during this time frame is difficult." He then spends the remainder of the paragraph explaining that he cannot prove that this alert "can be linked to President Roosevelt."
*(207) Edwin Layton, responding to a comment by Kimmel, "may not have been completely frank. . . . He then expanded the falsification." So is it a lack of frankness, or an outright falsification? The answer comes soon enough when we learn that Joseph Rochefort is in on the plot: "Rochefort . . . backed up Layton . . . ."
Other contradictions and flat-out errors abound. A central point in the Stinnett thesis is that Adm. Anderson was promoted shortly before December 1941 to act as FDR's "enforcement" mechanism. But Anderson's own oral history, and national biographical sources confirm, that he was promoted in July 1936, and he attributed his position as a demotion based on a falling out with Frank Knox. If Anderson was friendly with FDR, it doesn't come through in his oral history.
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