On December 7, 1941 at 7:55 AM, Japanese bombers attacked the United States' naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, killing 2,403 people and destroying the majority of the U.S. naval fleet there (www.ezinearticles.com). The attack caught America and supposedly President Franklin Delano Roosevelt totally by surprise. But did FDR actually know it was coming, and in reality had provoked Japan to attack in order to convince isolationist America to enter World War II? This paper will argue that he did in fact let it happen on purpose, and had a good reason for doing it.
Most people have the assumption that the attack on Pearl Harbor came as a complete surprise. Who could have possibly known that the Japanese were going to attack early on that Sunday morning? When enemy planes started bombing the base, the American troops were in the middle of their normal routines. None of the anti-aircraft guns were manned at the time of the attack, and the base wasn't on alert either. No one fully realized what was going on until the bombs started exploding, and by then it was too late. It seemed everyone was surprised by this event. The truth is, some people in high authority, even the President of the United States, knew the attack was coming.
Before the Pearl Harbor bombing, most Americans were against the idea of the United States getting involved in World War II. After seeing the devastation caused and the lives lost in World War I, no one was willing to participate in another foreign war. But President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his top advisors saw it from a different viewpoint. Adolf Hitler and the German Army were ravaging across Europe, and Britain was the only country standing in the way. President Roosevelt, FDR for short, knew that if the United States didn't intervene in the war, Britain would be crushed and Germany could attack the United States to continue its quest for world power. But FDR realized that his country and Congress wouldn't support declaring war on Germany. He knew that Americans needed a call to action, and an overt act of war on the United States by a member of the Axis Powers would be sufficient (Stinnett XIII).
On October 7, 1940, Lieutenant Commander Arthur H. McCollum, head of the Far East desk of the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), wrote the memorandum called the "eight-action memo". In this memo McCollum presented eight actions, labeled Actions A through H, which he believed would lead to a Japanese attack on the United States. The memo was given to President Roosevelt the day after it was written, and FDR immediately started putting McCollum's proposals into effect. By December 7, 1941, all eight of these actions had been completed (www.apfn.org).
This memo consisted of two main parts: Actions A,B,D,E, and F were done to develop the United States' military preparedness, and actions C,G, and H were done to put a control on Japan's trade and economy. Actions A and B called for making arrangements with Britain and Holland for the use of their military facilities and supplies in Singapore and Indonesia by the United States. Doing this made it look to Japan like the United States was preparing for and threatening an attack, therefore creating tension between the two countries. President Roosevelt personally took on actions D and E, deploying divisions of American cruisers and submarines into and adjacent to the territorial waters of Japan. He called them "pop-up" cruises, and said "I just want them to keep popping up here and there and keep the Japs guessing" (Stinnett 9). Amazingly, the Japanese never fired on these cruises.
In Action F, McCollum advised keeping the main strength of the U.S. fleet in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands. This allowed the fleet to be quickly deployed into the South Pacific, if necessary, but also presented some problems, especially with Pearl Harbor. The base didn't have adequate training facilities, ammunition and fuel supplies, support craft such as tugs and repair ships, or overhaul facilities like dry-docking and machine shops. Also, the mountains on the islands didn't allow for a far-reaching view of the north sky. Admiral James O. Richardson, Commander in Chief of the fleet, was outraged when he was told by President Roosevelt of his plans on keeping the fleet in Hawaiian Waters. Richardson knew of the problems and vulnerability of Pearl Harbor, and was worried about the safety of his men and warships. In a luncheon with Roosevelt, Richardson confronted the President, and by doing so ended his military career. Four months later Richardson was removed as Commander in Chief, and replaced by Rear Admiral Husband Kimmel (Stinnett 11).
The other three actions of McCollum's eight-action memo consisted of putting a forceful control on Japan's trade and economy. Action G insisted that the Dutch refuse to grant Japanese demands for oil, and Action H declared a complete embargo of all trade with Japan by the United States. The British Empire was also imposing a similar embargo on Japan during this time. McCollum knew that if Japan controlled the Pacific, it would put a strain on America's resources for copper, rubber, tin, and other valuable goods. These imports from the Pacific were all essential to America's economy, so to protect these trading routes McCollum insisted in Action C for all possible aid to be given to the Chinese government of Chiang Kai-shek.
Japan had some control over China due to a military operation which took over part of the country. Thanks to the control, Japan took and used many raw goods from China which were not in abundance in their own homeland. The government of Chiang Kai-shek was completely against Japan, and with economic support from the United States, they were able to deny certain possessions from Japan.
The full economic embargo, Action H, was very significant in bringing about the attack on Pearl Harbor, because it left Japan with no other recourse but war. The interesting thing was that, previous to this embargo, the U.S. had slipped just enough oil to Japan to keep its warships going. America was deliberately putting Japan in a weak position with just enough fuel to fight, but not enough to win (Stinnett 121).
Now that FDR had completed his steps to provoke a Japanese attack, he started watching for signs of it. In early November of 1941, U.S. intelligence started watching a buildup of Japanese forces forming in Hitokappu, Japan. Husband Kimmel, the commander of the American Pacific Fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor, was aware of this Japanese force, and was worried that they might be on their way to attack. So on November 23, he sent the Pacific fleet north out of Pearl Harbor to search for the Japanese aircraft carrier force. When the White House learned of his actions, they commanded him to immediately recall his forces back to Pearl Harbor. The government didn't want Kimmel to take any provocative measures toward the Japanese attack force. For the American public to become outraged and want war, Japan would have to commit the first overt act of war on the Pacific Fleet, not the other way around. If Kimmel had found and attacked the Japanese carrier force, the whole plan and McCollum's eight-action memo would have been for naught.
As it turned out, the Japanese carrier force bound for Hawaii didn't actually leave Hitokappu until November 25. The day before they left, Admiral Yamamoto sent this message to Admiral Nagumo, commander of the carrier force: "The task force, keeping its movement strictly secret and maintaining close guard against submarines and aircraft, shall advance into Hawaiian waters, and upon the very opening of hostilities shall attack the main force of the United States fleet in Hawaii and deal it a mortal blow" (www.whatreallyhappened.com). This message was intercepted by an American radio intercept station in Hawaii called "Station H". The message was immediately forwarded straight to Washington D.C., and read by FDR. Admiral Kimmel in Pearl Harbor never received the message. Over the next twelve days, despite an order by Yamamoto for complete radio silence, the carrier force sent out radio transmissions that allowed American radio intercept stations to follow their journey toward Hawaii.
During the night of December 6, the Japanese sent a four-part message to the Japanese ambassador in Washington D.C., Kichisaburo Nomura, which directed him to present a memorandum that severed all Japanese relations with the United States government, and set a presentation deadline of 1:00 PM EST on Sunday, December 7. Before the messages even reached the ambassador, U.S. Army and Navy cryptographers intercepted, decoded, and translated them. The messages were given to FDR, and he realized that the 1:00 PM deadline corresponded to 7:30 AM in Hawaii, and that some hostile action by Japan could occur then or shortly thereafter (Stinnett 228). For unknown reasons, delivery of the messages to Pearl Harbor was delayed by fifteen hours. No one will ever know why, but it could have been delayed deliberately to forestall American military interference with Japan's attack.
The Japanese finally attacked Pearl Harbor at 7:55 AM. Harry Hopkins, one of FDR's top advisors, was the only person with the President when he received the news of the attack. He wrote later that Roosevelt was unsurprised and expressed "great relief" (www.whatreallyhappened.com). FDR's plan had finally paid off. Congress declared that a state of war existed with Japan, then three days later with Germany and Italy. Young men all over the U.S. lined up outside Army and Navy recruiting stations, eager to fight for their country. Factories started converting into war industries, and America went from a peacetime economy to full war production virtually overnight. Soon the United States was actively participating in the war, and by late-1945 the Axis Powers had been defeated.
All this evidence clearly shows that FDR did indeed take action to provoke the Japanese to attack the United States at Pearl Harbor, and also was very aware of approximately when the attack would come. Through the attack, the American public was successfully stimulated to want to participate in World War II. If he hadn't instigated the attack, it's very possible that America wouldn't have entered World War II, Germany would have won, and the world today would be a much different place.
