Chapter 27: 27. Joint Congressional Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack November 15, 1945–May 31, 1946: Part 1

After almost four years of fighting on land, sea, and in the air, after the detonation of two atomic bombs on Japan—one on Hiroshima (August 6) and the other on Nagasaki (August 8)—the Japanese finally admitted defeat. On August 25 Emperor Hirohito broadcast to the Japanese people that the country’s forces were surrendering. August 25, 1945, was declared V-J Day. World War II had ended.

A couple of weeks later—on August 29—the new president, Harry S. Truman, who had taken office after the death of President Roosevelt on April 12, 1945, released the reports of the Army Pearl Harbor Board and Navy Court of Inquiry.^[1] A veritable firestorm erupted. The earlier Roberts Commission had found the two Hawaiian commanders, Admiral Kimmel and General Short, guilty of “derelictions of duty” and “errors of judgment” and they had been retired from service and demoted in rank. The Army and Navy reports released by Truman effectively absolved Kimmel and Short of blame and placed much of the responsibility on four top-level Washington officials—Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall, Chief of the Army’s war plans division General Leonard T. Gerow, and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Harold R. Stark. As the New York Times reported,

It was not a pretty story that President Truman released in making public War and Navy reports on the reasons why Army and Navy officials at Oahu were taken by surprise in the Japanese attack on Dec. 7, 1941.^[2]

In spite of the volume of material released by Truman, the public still was not satisfied. There were obvious omissions. Under orders of the secretary of war and the secretary of the navy, sections of both reports had been deleted. And Top Secret portions were still being withheld. In the words of Senate Majority Leader Alben Barkley, the reports were “confusing and conflicting when compared with one another, and to some extent contain contradictions and inconsistencies.”^[3] Moreover, both Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and Navy Secretary James Forrestal had, according to Senator Homer Ferguson, “issued critical opinions of the findings of their own boards.”^[4]

Joint Congressional Committee (JCC) Established

The Republicans in Congress, anxious to learn the truth, demanded a further investigation. Senator Ferguson urged the establishment of a committee to investigate the attack,^[5] and on September 6 Barkley introduced a concurrent resolution similar to Ferguson’s proposal.^[6]

The Senate debate was subdued and polite.^[7] It was agreed that the record so far was incomplete, confusing, and conflicting. Barkley proposed an inquiry

of such dignity and authenticity as to convince the Congress and the country and the world that no effort has been made to shield any person who may have been directly or indirectly responsible for this disaster, or to condemn unfairly or unjustly any person who was in authority, military, naval, or civilian, at the time or prior thereto.

Barkley’s Concurrent Resolution 27 set up a Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack (Joint Congressional Committee, or JCC) with broad authority to

make a full and complete investigation of the facts relating to the events and circumstances leading up to or following the attack made by Japanese armed forces upon Pearl Harbor in the Territory of Hawaii on December 7, 1941.

The committee was to complete its testimony in four months and report to the Senate and House “not later than January 3, 1946.” The resolution was passed unanimously by the Senate on September 6, 1945, and by the House on September 11.^[8]

Ten members of Congress, all lawyers, were appointed to the committee.^[9] On the Senate side, three Democrats: Barkley of Kentucky, chairman; Walter F. George of Georgia; and Scott W. Lucas of Illinois; and two Republicans: Owen Brewster of Maine and Ferguson of Michigan. On the House side, three Democrats: Jere Cooper of Tennessee, vice Chairman; J. Bayard Clark of North Carolina and John W. Murphy of Pennsylvania; and two Republicans: Bertrand W. Gearhart of California and Frank B. Keefe of Wisconsin.

William D. Mitchell, who had served as solicitor general for four years under Calvin Coolidge and attorney general for four years under Herbert Hoover, was selected to serve as general counsel.^[10] Gerhard A. Gesell was named Mitchell’s chief assistant counsel, with Jule M. Hannaford and John E. Masten as assistant counsels.^[11]

Barkley stated that the JCC should conduct its investigation “without partisanship or favoritism. . . . Such an investigation should look solely to the ascertainment of the cold, unvarnished, indisputable facts so far as they are obtainable.”^[12] Senator David I. Walsh of Massachusetts had praised Barkley for having “lifted this question above partisanship, and made an appeal for what the country wants—a high-minded, clean, judicial investigation of all the facts connected with the Pearl Harbor disaster.”^[13] Yet the congressional committee was soon embroiled in politics.

The makeup of the committee, with six Democrats and four Republicans, was stacked in favor of the administration. The Republicans maintained that their access to government records was being restricted and that the Democratic majority was trying to curb, by strict party-line vote, the scope of the inquiry. No provision was made for a staff to assist the Republican members. The Democrats claimed the Republicans were anxious to use the inquiry to smear Roosevelt, while the Republicans implied the Democrats were trying to shield the Roosevelt administration. House Majority Leader John W. McCormack accused the committee minority of “witchhunting.”^[14]

This account of the Congressional hearings is pretty much factual and non-partisan. The events are presented more or less in the order in which the witnesses to them appeared before the Committee. Some witnesses contradicted other witnesses, some even contradicted their own earlier testimony, and the recollections of others were often confused or hazy. Pressure may have been used to persuade some witnesses to change their stories. JCC Committee members often encountered difficulty in obtaining access to information. Also, friends of the administration sometimes tried to sidetrack the probing into sensitive issues by disrupting the proceedings. Thus a study of the hearings alone yields a rather disjointed picture. Only after trying to reconcile the various contradictions and confusions and arranging the events revealed chronologically, as has been done in the final chapter of this book, is it possible to recognize the roles played by the several principals involved in the Pearl Harbor disaster—their actions, inactions, their negligence and dilatoriness.

Questions That Must Be Asked

As the hearings progressed, much time and energy was devoted to trying to find answers to four major questions:

1. Had top Washington officials, including the president, committed this country to war in support of the British and Dutch without first obtaining congressional approval as required by the Constitution?

2. How much was known before the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor about Japan’s plans to go to war against the United States? Had Washington officials kept the field commanders adequately informed?

3. Was there pre-attack evidence to indicate a U.S. territory, possibly even Pearl Harbor, was a likely target of the Japanese? If so, were the Hawaiian commanders so advised? If not, why not?

4. Had the Pearl Harbor commanders made reasonably intelligent decisions, given the information and resources available to them?

Joint Congressional Committee Commences

The committee opened its hearings on November 15. It was generally admitted that more intelligence was available in Washington than in Hawaii. Thus any serious attempt to account for the tremendous losses at Pearl Harbor would have to start by exploring the information available in Washington before the attack and by determining how much of it had been sent to Hawaii. The JCC obtained at the start of its hearings the secret Japanese dispatches which U.S. cryptographers had intercepted, decoded, and translated before the attack. These messages, most of them transmitted on the “Purple” code machine, which U.S. cryptographers had replicated in August 1940, yielded valuable intelligence known as MAGIC. Exhibit 1 consisted of diplomatic messages sent and received by the Japanese government and its foreign establishments which had been intercepted, deciphered and translated by U.S. cryptographers between July 1 and December 8, 1941.^[15] Exhibit 2 contained intercepted messages concerning military matters such as military installations, ship movements, espionage reports, etc., sent and received by the Japanese government and its foreign establishments in “Purple” and other codes between December 2, 1940, and December 8, 1941.^[16] The MAGIC information derived from these intercepts had been the basis of much pre-attack U.S. intelligence concerning the movements and intentions of the Japanese government.

U.S. Ambassador Joseph C. Grew Reports Pre-attack Situation in Tokyo

One of the first witnesses was Joseph C. Grew, U.S. ambassador to Japan since 1932. After the attack he had been held under house arrest until June 25, 1942, when he was repatriated by the Japanese government. Grew testified it was “obvious that by November 3 the [U.S.] trade embargoes had not served to restrain the Japanese Army from its expansion. They were going right ahead.”^[17] In his view, “the risk and danger of war was very great and increasing.”^[18] Japan’s totalitarian regime’s propaganda was fostering anti-Americanism. And in Washington, the U.S.-Japanese negotiations were clearly deteriorating. Although Grew never gave up hope, by early December it was apparent that war between Japan and the United States was expected.^[19]

ONI and WPD Jurisdictional Dispute Disrupts Customary Intelligence Dissemination

One goal of the committee in investigating “the events and circumstances leading up to and following the attack” was to determine what had been known by the top officials before the attack in Washington, where secret Japanese messages were regularly being intercepted, deciphered and translated, and how much intelligence derived from these intercepts had been relayed before December 7 to the Pearl Harbor commanders. The situation was compounded by confusion over a jurisdictional dispute between the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and the Navy’s War Plans Division (WPD). When Kimmel took over the command of the Pacific Fleet in February 1941, he had asked CNO Stark to make sure that the responsibility for keeping him “fully informed with pertinent reports on subjects that should be of interest to the Fleet” be clearly determined “so that there will be no misunderstanding.”^[20] Stark replied on March 22, that the chief of the Office of Naval Intelligence, Captain Alan G. Kirk, was “fully aware of [ONI’s] responsibility in keeping you adequately informed.”^[21]

But the policy was changed. Admiral Richard K. Turner, chief of the Navy’s War Plans Division, had fought and won a battle with ONI for the exclusive right to prepare and disseminate to the fleet commanders information about potential enemy plans and operations, including intelligence obtained by intercepting and decoding Japan’s most secret diplomatic messages. As Vice Admiral Theodore S. Wilkinson, who became ONI’s director on October 15, 1941, explained to the JCC, ONI had been reduced by then, for all practical purposes, to a fact-gathering agency. It was no longer an analytical organization. The responsibility for analysis had been taken over, theoretically, by the Navy’s War Plans Division.^[22] Stark told the JCC, ONI “had to give the material, all it had, to War Plans. . . . But the final estimate, which went into the war plan . . . rested with War Plans.”^[23] Wilkinson testified that the official regulations specified that ONI “Evaluate the information collected and disseminate asadvisable [italics added].” Thus, ONI’s “responsibility for dissemination was qualified by the words ‘as advisable’.”^[24] He and Turner “clashed very definitely on that issue.”^[25] This jurisdictional dispute left a crack in the traditional channel for disseminating information to the Navy commanders in the field.

Maintaining the Secrecy of the Japanese Intercepts

Wilkinson testified on his understanding concerning the importance of maintaining the secrecy of MAGIC, the intelligence derived from the Japanese intercepts. He told the JCC that

under orders from Admiral Stark, I was not authorized to send to the field information concerning secret diplomatic conversations . . . because of the general security attached to the code-breaking activities. . . . I was not to put anything in [my fortnightly summaries], anything derived from what was known as “ultra” or “magic.”^[26]

The situation was further complicated by the fact that several top military officials in Washington believed, or at least they so testified, that Hawaii was intercepting and decoding the Japanese messages themselves and thus had access to the information Washington officials were deriving from MAGIC. General Miles, Military Intelligence (G-2), told Clausen that he believed the Navy in Hawaii was decoding and translating Japanese diplomatic and consular messages, although he later told the JCC that General Short did not have decoding facilities.^[27] And Admiral Turner told the JCC that it was his “belief at that time, and it was Admiral Stark’s belief, that all of these major diplomatic messages, at least in the Pacific, were being decrypted by both Admiral Hart [Manila] and by Admiral Kimmel [Pearl Harbor].” Turner said he “did not know that Admiral Kimmel did not hold the code for those dispatches until I was so informed at the time of the Navy court of inquiry on Pearl Harbor.”^[28]

Although these top Washington officials testified that they believed Hawaii had access to the same information they had in Washington, their actions belied their words. They acted as if it was their responsibility to keep Hawaii advised. On November 27 both Army and Navy sent the Hawaiian commanders special dispatches based on MAGIC intelligence then available in Washington. The radiogram to Short read: “Negotiations with Japan appear to be terminated.”^[29] The dispatch to the Navy started out: “This dispatch is to be considered a war warning.”^[30] Army Chief of Staff Marshall said in his affidavit for Clausen that he understood Short was receiving some MAGIC information through Army facilities on Oahu.^[31] But in the very next paragraph he contradicted that understanding when he acknowledged that Short’s assistant intelligence officer (G-2), Colonel George W. Bicknell, relied on Washington for information.^[32] And Marshall’s urgent last-minute message on December 7, certainly indicated that he didn’t believe his field commanders would have seen the 14-part MAGIC Japanese reply to our November 26 “ultimatum” or Tokyo’s message instructing the Japanese ambassadors in Washington to make delivery of that reply at precisely 1:00 p.m., Washington time.

At the time of the attack, General Miles, head of G-2, the Army’s military intelligence division, acknowledged under questioning by the JCC that

There were no steps taken to distribute these [intercepted and translated] messages to [General Short in Hawaii]. . . . That followed from the general policy laid down by the Chief of Staff that these messages and the fact of the existence of these messages or our ability to decode them should be confined to the least possible number of persons; no distribution should be made outside of Washington.^[33]

Miles was generally supportive of the policy not to disseminate the MAGIC intercepts to Hawaii and other U.S. outposts. However, he admitted that “the success of that Japanese attack [had] depended, in very large measure, on their catching the forces unalerted and therefore unprepared to meet that attack.”^[34]

Miles said he had not mentioned MAGIC before the APHB in April 1944, when the war was still in progress, because “under no condition would I have . . . intimated in any way the existence of that secret without specific authority of the Secretary of War or the Chief of Staff.” He did not want to give the impression that he had been “gagged by the Chief of Staff” into trying to cover anything up; he was only acting to protect “this vital military secret that we were all guarding with the greatest of care.”^[35]But by the time he gave his affidavit to Clausen (August 16, 1945) and before he testified at the JCC hearings, the situation had changed radically; the war with Japan was over and the strictures against mentioning MAGIC did not apply.

Miles pointed out that much of the information available in Washington “did not directly apply to the overseas departments unless and until it became more than information and entered the realms of an estimate of the situation which called for military action on the part of those high commanders, and that was a function of the command, in other words, of the Chief of Staff himself.” Miles realized, however, that the availability of intelligence in Washington which was not accessible in the field placed “a higher degree of responsibility” on Washington to see that the field commanders were adequately prepared, alerted, and instructed.^[36]

Miles said the November 27 message sent over Marshall’s signature had been “designed to alert the Hawaiian Department. That was a command action.”^[37] Miles thought Short had not recognized the significance of Marshall’s signature.

[T]he mere fact that that message was signed by the Chief of Staff himself had a certain significance. . . . The messages commonly go out on the signature of the Adjutant General. . . . [B]y putting his name to that message, it carried to any military mind . . . a much greater significance than had it been signed . . . [by] anybody else.^[38]

In Miles’s opinion Short’s response to Marshall’s warning that he had alerted for sabotage “was a totally inadequate reply to the message it purported to reply to.”^[39] However, Miles thought further warnings to Short, though desirable, would have been “redundant. . . . You do not have to tell a commanding general but once that a danger faces him. You may, however, see fit to give him further information as to the situation he faces.”^[40]

Pearl Harbor Not Mentioned in Washington’s Pre-Attack Documents

Washington officialdom had known for some time that a break in U.S.-Japanese relations was inevitable. “We were thoroughly prepared,” Miles testified, “and had been for some days to receive an unfavorable reply to the message of November 26.” He said he had a “very strong” impression that he first knew that the first 13 parts of the Japanese reply to the U.S. so-called “ultimatum, were in and were translated “on the evening of December 6,” certainly before he left for home that Saturday. He had called the Army courier [Colonel Bratton], who had “satisfied me that the messages were being delivered or would be delivered early the next morning when the complete message was in.” But Miles saw no reason that evening for alerting or waking up Marshall or Hull.^[41]

JCC members Clark, Murphy, and Gearhart called Miles’s attention to the fact that the pre-attack evaluations issued by his own division had given no hint that an attack might be expected on Pearl Harbor.^[42] Miles responded:

We had known for many years that all three of those outposts [Philippines, Panama, and Hawaii] would probably be subject to an attack in a Japanese war. That is why we had our forces on them and why the Chief of Staff warned them when he considered the time had arrived that hostile Japanese action was possible at any moment.^[43]

Murphy was disturbed by “the inference” in Miles’s testimony that he was “probably the only person in Washington who expected the attack at Pearl Harbor.” Time after time Miles had said “how obvious it was, and how inherent it was in the situation.” Yet Murphy said he had read Miles’s reports

from cover to cover and . . . have not seen it [Pearl Harbor] mentioned once. Apparently people at Hawaii did not think it was so obvious because they were taken by surprise, and apparently the others in Washington did not think it was so obvious because they were taken by surprise.^[44]

Gearhart pointed out to Miles,

[T]here is plenty in all of this literature, an abundance, which points out the possibility of attack in the Philippines, in the Kra Peninsula, in Thailand, in Indochina, everywhere except on these two very great fortresses at Singapore and Hawaii. . . . If you have anything to the contrary I would like to have you point it out. . . . Why, even on the 27th, after Mr. Hull had handed his final statement to the Japanese, a letter was written by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in which they point out all of these other places as possible objectives of Jap attack, and Hawaii is not mentioned even then.^[45]

Miles admitted that it was not until December 6 or December 7 that events finally centered his attention on “the probable Japanese attack somewhere coincident with the delivery of the Japanese reply at 1:00 that day.”^[46] The first 13 parts had told them only that the Japanese reply was unfavorable. The 14th part and the message instructing the Japanese ambassadors to deliver the reply at 1:00 p.m. were intercepted Sunday morning. “When we got the fourteenth part . . . [and] when we got the 1:00 p.m. message, we saw quite a different picture.”^[47] The “One p.m. Message,” he said, “meant trouble somewhere, against someone, but still not necessarily against the United States. However, we knew something at last, not where or against whom, but when.”^[48] However, “1:00, as we now know, meant about 7:00, I think, in Hawaii. . . . a likely time of attack on the islands. . . . a likely time; not the only time” for an attack.^[49]

General Gerow (Army War Plans) Offers to Relieve Marshall of Culpability for Any Failure to Act

The JCC had planned to interrogate persons with background information about the intercepts before questioning top-level witnesses, including Marshall. However, President Truman had just appointed Marshall ambassador to China and was anxious for him to leave promptly for his new post. But Lieutenant General Leonard T. Gerow was called ahead of Marshall as, according to committee counsel Mitchell, he knew certain things that “would be well to lay into the record.”^[50] Gerow was a much-decorated war hero and he looked the part. Pre-Pearl Harbor he had been the Army’s chief of war plans. During the War he became commander of Army Fifth Corps, which had taken part in the D-Day landings going ashore in France on Omaha Beach. He had fought well for his country. Although not previously implicated in the Pearl Harbor disaster, Gerow was one of the four top Washington officials who had been criticized by the APHB. He was charged with having failed to keep Short adequately informed, send a clear, concise directive on November 27, 1941, recognize Short’s sabotage alert as inadequate, and implement the existing Joint Army-Navy plans.^[51]

Gerow was asked about Short’s response to the Army dispatch of November 27 (#472). That dispatch had been prepared by Stimson, Stark, and Gerow when Marshall was out of town, but had been sent out over Marshall’s name, giving it the status of a “command action.”^[52] In view of the impending crisis, Gerow testified, it had been drafted primarily with the Philippines in mind, but essentially the same message was also sent to the other Pacific field commanders.^[53] It read in part:

Negotiations with Japan appear to be terminated. . . . Japanese future action unpredictable but hostile action possible at any moment. If hostilities cannot . . . be avoided the United States desires that Japan commit the first overt act. This policy should not be construed as restricting you to a course of action that might jeopardize your defense.

The radiogram went on to say that the commander should “undertake such reconnaissance and other measures as [he] deem[ed] necessary.” All field commander addressees were asked to “Report measures taken.” The version sent to Short had an added phrase, cautioning him “not to alarm civil population or disclose intent.”^[54]

In response, Short wired that he had ordered a “sabotage alert.”^[55] The details of his three possible alerts were a matter of record in Washington,^[56] so Short’s “sabotage alert” gave notice to the War Department that he had bunched his planes and placed his ammunition where it was relatively inaccessible. He received no response from Washington to indicate whether his “sabotage alert” was, or was not, satisfactory. Stimson, who was responsible for sending the November 27 message over Marshall’s signature, saw Short’s answer, initialed it, and did nothing.^[57] Gerow also saw Short’s reply, initialed it, and did nothing.^[58] As for Marshall, there was no clear evidence that he actually saw Short’s reply; the file copy did not bear Marshall’s initials; Short’s reply had been stapled and circulated underneath a message from MacArthur, which Marshall did initial.^[59]

Gerow admitted that a follow-up inquiry to clarify Short’s response

might have been desirable. . . . [I]t would probably have developed the fact that the commanding general in Hawaii was not at that time carrying out the directive in the message signed “Marshall”.^[60]

Gerow volunteered to relieve Marshall of culpability:

[I]f there was any responsibility to be attached to the War Department for any failure to send an inquiry to General Short, the responsibility must rest on War Plans Division, and I accept that responsibility as Chief of War Plans Division. . . . It was my responsibility to see that those messages were checked, and if an inquiry was necessary, the War Plans Division should have drafted such an inquiry and presented it to the Chief of Staff for approval.^[61]

He was then asked about the Japanese “Pilot Message,” which had been available in Washington on the afternoon of December 6. The “Pilot Message” had announced that Japan’s reply to the U.S. note of November 26 was en route. Gerow was also asked about the first 13 parts of the Japanese reply, which Bratton said he delivered to Gerow on December 6.^[62] Gerow said he had “no clear recollection of where I was on the afternoon of the 6th.”^[63] He thought he was at his office “until 6 or 7 or 8:00” and that he was “at home” in the evening “after the dinner hour.”^[64] In any event, if the War Plans office was closed, it should have been possible to reach him by telephone; Gerow’s number was on record in the War Department. Or he could have been reached through the “duty officer” who “remained at his telephone” and could inform him “of any important messages that might be intended for me. . . . [I]f they had an important message to deliver to me” such as the first 13 parts of the Japanese reply, Gerow believed “Colonel Bratton, who usually delivered those messages, would have telephoned me at home,” rather than going through the duty officer.

Mitchell pursued the matter. Gerow told the committee that “To the best of my knowledge and belief,” he had not received or learned of the 13-part message on the night of December 6. He did not recall having received the earlier “Pilot Message” either.^[65] And he was “positive” he had never seen “that 14-part message, or any part of it, or the 1:00 p.m. message,” until he reached Marshall’s office around 11:30 on the morning of the 7th.^[66]

General George C. Marshall Does Not Recall Important December 6–7 Events

Marshall was undoubtedly the most important witness the committee could summon. He had been deeply involved in all the pre-attack developments, with the possible exception of the diplomatic phase. He was the only surviving principal in the pre-Pearl Harbor drama still in good health and able to testify. Roosevelt and Knox were dead. Hull had retired right after FDR’s election for a third term and by the fall of 1944 was in poor health and too weak to face cross-examination by the Republican members of the committee.^[67] As for Stimson, “the accumulated strain of five years in Washington had begun to affect his heart.” He had resigned on his 78th birthday, September 21, 1945.^[68] But Marshall could not plead infirmities. There was no way he could avoid testifying. The members of the committee had many questions. They were anxious to learn what he could tell them. And they were anxious to learn what he would tell them.

In questioning Marshall, the committee followed its usual procedure. Its counsel led off, the Democratic members following one by one, then the Republican members.

Marshall came before the JCC on December 6. All that first day; he was examined in a friendly manner by Mitchell. Many of the general’s answers were evasive. There were things he could not recall, could not remember, could not recollect. When he had appeared before the NCI in September 1944, he had not been able to recall the intercept fixing November 25, 1941, as the deadline for the Japanese ambassadors to reach a favorable conclusion in their negotiations.^[69] However, when Mitchell asked Marshall if he remembered “seeing any of those [messages] in which the Japs instructed their Ambassadors here to get an affirmative agreement first by the 25th of November and later at least by the 29th” Marshall replied—his memory refreshed perhaps by Clarke’s inquiry which had been instigated by Marshall—“I remember that very well, sir.”^[70]

The next day Mitchell asked Marshall if he remembered his “movements on the evening of December 6.” Marshall said he could “only account for them by sort of circumstantial evidence.” He enumerated a number of places where he was not. After referring to Mrs. Marshall’s engagement book, he concluded, “the probability is . . . we were home.”^[71]

Mitchell asked: “You are sure you were not at the White House that evening?” Marshall replied, “No, sir; not at all.”^[72] What did that mean? That he wasn’t at the White House? Or that he wasn’t sure he was not at the White House?

The general was supposed to have had a duty officer at his office and an orderly at his home who knew where he was at all times. None of his duty officers or orderlies was called to testify.

Mitchell asked Marshall when he first knew about the 14-part Japanese message and the “One p.m. Message,” and “under what circumstances.” He did not answer directly.

I first was aware of this message when I reached . . . the office on the morning of Sunday, December the 7th. On that particular morning, I presumably had my breakfast at about eight, and following the routine that I had carried out on previous Sundays, I went riding at some time thereafter.

However, he said that on further consideration and discussion with others, he had come to the conclusion, “purely by induction and not by definite memory,” that that morning he must have gone out riding later than 8:00, “just what time I do not know; but between 8:00 and the time I went to the War Department I ate my breakfast, I probably looked at the Sunday papers and I went for a ride.” Marshall then discussed the “average length” of his rides, about 50 minutes, “because I rode at a pretty lively gait, at a trot and a canter and at a full run down on the experimental farm where the Pentagon now is and returned to the house, so I would say that the high probability is that the ride was an hour or less, generally or certainly not longer.”^[73]

This entire testimony related to what Marshall “presumably,” “probably,” “generally” did on a Sunday morning, not what he actually did on that specific Sunday morning, December 7, 1941. Marshall continued in the same vein, saying nothing about the Japanese intercepts he had been asked about.

On this particular Sunday morning, Bratton had been trying to locate Marshall since 9 or 9:15 a.m. with the 14th part of Japan’s reply and the “One p.m. Message.” When he called Marshall’s home, an orderly told him Marshall was out riding. Bratton asked the orderly to locate Marshall and have him contact Bratton “as promptly as possible.” According to Bratton, Marshall called back “sometime after 10:00.”^[74]

Marshall’s recollection was that he was either in the shower, or getting in the shower, when he heard that Bratton was trying to reach him with something important. Marshall said Bratton wanted to come out to Fort Myer, but Marshall sent word that he was going into his office and Bratton should meet him there. Marshall then finished his shower, dressed, and left for the War Department. He said his “average time of taking a shower and dressing would be about 10 minutes, possibly less.” He had no recollection as to “what time I arrived at the War Department.” That would be “a matter of conjecture.”^[75]

“Anyway,” Marshall continued,

shortly thereafter, if not immediately then, I was at the War Department, because it was a very quick drive, and on Sunday there was no traffic. It was a matter of about 7 minutes from my house to the Munitions building.^[76]

Using his own estimate (allowing ten minutes for his shower and dressing and seven minutes for the drive), he should have been able to reach his office 20 or 30 minutes after he spoke with Bratton at 10 a.m. But according to Bratton, who had been waiting for Marshall in the secretary’s anteroom, Marshall didn’t arrive until 11:25 a.m.^[77]

When Marshall arrived, Bratton immediately walked in with his papers. Marshall started reading the 14-part Japanese reply, portions of which Marshall read through twice. He told the committee, “When I reached the end of the document the next sheet was the 1:00 message of December 7.” This was “indicative” to Marshall and to “all the others who came into the room, of some very definite action at 1:00, because that 1:00 was Sunday and was in Washington and involved the Secretary of State.” Taken together, all these factors were “rather unusual.”^[78]

Marshall’s account of his response to the messages was similar to those of Bratton and Gerow, both of whom had testified on the basis of memoranda prepared shortly after the attack.^[79] Marshall told of contacting Stark and of dispatching the last-minute warning to the field commanders in the Pacific, giving first priority to the Philippines and Panama. After Bratton had taken Marshall’s dispatch to the message center and returned, Marshall sent him back with Colonel Bundy, the officer in charge of the immediate details of all Pacific affairs, to ask when the messages would be delivered. They came back with estimates of the delivery times in various parts of the world.^[80]

The next information Marshall received was “the notification of the actual attack on Pearl Harbor.” He said he could not recall “whether I was at the War Department or at the house.” He said General Deane, acting secretary of the general staff at that time, had told him that he had returned to his home, but his orderly said he was at the War Department.^[81]

Most astonishing! The Army’s chief of staff, who was directly concerned with the defense of the country and the protection of the fleet when in harbor, who had just fired off an urgent message to the field commanders, who had been concerned about the likely time when the messages would be delivered, didn’t know where he was when he heard the news of the attack. And yet that Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor so shocked the rest of the country that almost everybody remembers vividly precisely where they were when they heard the news.

Marshall said information about the attack “then came in in fuller detail, and telephone communication was established.” He talked on the phone with Short’s chief of staff, Colonel Phillips. General Short “had gone to his command post and therefore was not able to talk to me directly.” Marshall volunteered: “You could hear the explosions at the time.”^[82]

JCC Counsel Asks Marshall about His Command Structure

Did you have your staff organized at that time so that if an especially significant or important intercept was made of a Jap message, was there anyone on duty who had authority, if they were unable to reach you, to send a warning message out?

Marshall said he didn’t “think there was a set-up for that special purpose.” The War Department “had an arrangement there whereby the officer on the receiving end . . . knew where the principal people were, where to reach them.” In his own case, Marshall said that during that period and for about a year thereafter, he

always maintained an orderly at the house at the telephone. If I left the house to go to a moving picture, which was about the only place I went, [the orderly] was there and knew where to reach me.^[83]

Mitchell then asked him,

If they had not been able to reach you on the morning of the 7th, or at any time when an important message came in, was there anybody but yourself that had authority to send a warning message to the outlying posts?

“Yes,” Marshall said. “The authority was vested, for instance, in the Deputy Chief of Staff [Major General William Bryden]. Or even the head of War Plans Division [Gerow].”^[84]

According to Army regulations No. 10-15, updated to December 7, 1941, however, this was not the precise situation. “The Deputy Chief of Staff” was the only officer who had the authority to act for the chief of staff in his absence. Orders could be sent to Short in Pearl Harbor by Roosevelt, Marshall, or Marshall’s deputy. Neither Stimson nor Gerow was in the line of command. That was why they had chosen to send the November 27 “war warning” over Marshall’s name.^[85]

Later in answer to a question from Senator Ferguson, Marshall said that Gerow did not “normally” have any right to issue orders to Short on a command basis; in peacetime it “would have required quite an assumption of authority on his part to do that without some confirmation from a senior officer.” However, Marshall said, “The president, the Secretary of War, and myself, and in my absence, the deputy” had authority to order into effect a war plan, Rainbow, or any other orders.^[86]

In any event, apparently no arrangement was in place for anyone to act in Marshall’s stead on that fateful morning of December 7, 1941, when he was unavailable. And the orderly, supposedly on duty at his home, failed to reach him promptly.

Marshall Interrogated about December 7 Events

Mitchell asked Marshall, “Did you have any talk on the morning of the 7th with Secretary Stimson before the news of the attack came in?” Marshall didn’t recall talking with Stimson that morning, couldn’t recall seeing him “before lunch,” although he knew Stimson “was at the State Department” that morning.^[87] A little later Mitchell asked:

Do you remember whether you had been told or telephoned or informed in any way on the evening of the 6th, late in the evening, that any arrangement had been made for a meeting between Secretary Stimson and Mr. Hull on the next morning?

Marshall had “no such recollection.”^[88]

Then how did Marshall know Stimson was at the State Department on the morning of December 7? The meeting of Stimson and Knox with Hull at the State Department had been arranged Saturday night after the three secretaries were informed of the first 13 parts of the Japanese reply.^[89] Yet Marshall denied that he had been “informed in any way on the evening of the 6th” of the plan for that meeting. And if he knew of that meeting, why did he not also know about the 13-part Japanese reply that had sparked it? Marshall testified consistently that he first saw those 13 parts, together with the 14th part, only after he arrived at his office in the War Department at about 11:30 on the morning of December 7.

JCC member Cooper asked Marshall if in the weeks before the attack he had been “kept fully advised as to diplomatic developments.” Marshall said, “[S]o far as Mr. Hull personally [was] concerned,” he had been. Marshall had “a very distinct recollection” of Hull’s saying “with considerable emphasis in those last days apropos of his discussions with the Japanese envoys, ‘These fellows mean to fight and you will have to watch out’.”^[90]

Marshall said he had expected that the first Japanese attack on the United States “would occur in the Philippines.” He thought they would go

directly south towards Singapore, that that would be the main campaign, and the Philippines, of course, would become involved in it. . . [and he] assumed that Guam . . . and . . . Wake would fall almost immediately.^[91]

[He] felt . . . that if the Japanese became engaged in hostilities directed toward the Malay Peninsula that our situation demanded that we take action to defend our position. That, however, was my opinion, and that would have to be determined by governmental action.^[92]

As the usual time for adjournment on Friday afternoon approached, the fifth of the six Democratic Committee members was just starting his questioning.

Murphy: Had you any warning, General, or any reason to expect on the night of December 6 or on the early morning of December 7 that there was any special urgency requiring you to be at the War Department earlier than the hour you did arrive there on the morning of December 7.

Marshall: I had no such conception or information.^[93]

By this time Marshall had been on the witness stand for two full days, and the Republicans had not begun to question him. The committee regularly held Saturday hearings, so it recessed until 10 the next morning.

Marshall’s Interrogation Continued

When the hearing resumed on Saturday morning the Republicans began questioning Marshall. Determined to find out if he could explain some of the mysteries surrounding the Japanese attack, they refused to yield to Democratic pressure to curtail their interrogation.

Gearhart began. He told Marshall that Gerow had “accepted full responsibility for not having acted on the inadequacy, as he called it,” of Short’s November 27 report that he had alerted for sabotage. Marshall had not been in the room when Gerow testified but, he said, he “admires very much his attitude.” When Gearhart asked Marshall why he had not taken exception to Short’s reply, the general could only say “that was my opportunity to intervene and have a further check made and I did not take it. Just why, I do not know.”^[94] Short had been “issued a command,” Marshall said,

and directed to do something. . . . Once you issue an order, amendments or, you might say, codicils are very dangerous business when it is an operational order. . . . [I]f possible . . . you must avoid confusing the commander with a mass of data.^[95]

Gearhart read to Marshall the several so-called “Bomb Plot” messages concerning the location of ships in Pearl Harbor, which had been received, decoded, and translated in Washington prior to the attack. Wasn’t it

quite apparent from the reading of those messages that were received, decoded, and placed on your desk, read or not read, that many messages directing the attention of our military and naval authorities to Hawaii had been received?

Marshall had no recollection of having read any of those messages until preparing for the JCC hearings.^[96]

Marshall also defended himself against the APHB’s several charges:

1. In response to the charge that he had failed “To keep the Commanding General of the Hawaiian Department fully advised,” Marshall insisted he had given Short the information he needed, as a responsible commander, to be prepared for the possibility or probability of war. The mass of data that poured into Washington, he said, would “merely impose an additional burden.” It was “a matter of judgment” how much additional information should have gone to him. Marshall thought “only the December 7 message of 1:00 p.m. applied,” although he admitted “offhand that the messages you just read [the ships-in-harbor bomb plot messages] . . . would have been helpful to General Short, but particularly more so to Admiral Kimmel.”^[97]

2. In response to the charge that he should have gotten in touch with Short on the evening of December 6, when “the critical information indicating an almost immediate break with Japan” had come in, Marshall testified that he did not believe it had “any specific bearing one way or the other on General Short’s situation and responsibility.”^[98] Moreover, he reiterated that he “knew nothing of the [13-part] message whatsoever” until his arrival in the War Department on the morning of December 7. He presumed “it was not thought necessary to bring that to my immediate attention” because the first to the thirteenth part “did not include the critical statements.”^[99]

3. In response to the charge that he had failed to investigate and determine Short’s “state of readiness . . . between November 27 and December 7,” he denied that they had in Washington any “intimation that that [Hawaiian] command was not ready.” As a matter of fact, he “had no reason to believe that that command was anything other than highly efficient and alert.”^[100]

At midmorning Saturday, when Gearhart finished his questioning, Ferguson took over. As chief of the (privately paid) minority staff, I was at his elbow as usual with a collection of documents and a host of important questions to be asked.^[101] Ferguson persisted in his questioning until Marshall had to admit it was his responsibility, not Gerow’s, to see that Short was adequately alerted.

Ferguson’s pointed questioning lasted the rest of the day. Marshall finally had to admit that he was the only Army officer with authority over Short;^[102] that Gerow had no authority under Army regulations for sending an alert to Short;^[103] that no responsible Army officer was on duty Saturday evening, December 6, or Sunday morning, December 7, who could take action before Marshall’s belated arrival at his office that morning;^[104] that the shortage of manpower in deciphering Japanese codes was not due to lack of congressional appropriations;^[105] that we had been trying to keep secret the fact that Great Britain was informed of what we were reading in the Japanese codes before the attack;^[106] that he, Marshall, was not aware that the sending of diplomatic intelligence to Kimmel was discontinued sometime in August 1941;^[107] that Marshall denied knowing that the Japanese had learned we were reading their codes;^[108] that portions of the Roberts report were withdrawn before it was made public;^[109] that the United States initiated the Anglo-Dutch-American Agreement;^[110] that he, Stimson, and Knox had approved the agreement;^[111] that it went into general effect before the attack “because it involved the policy of the main fight in the Atlantic and the defensive principle in the Pacific”;^[112] and that prior to December 1941 officers of the United States were furnished to China for combat duty against Japan.^[113]

Marshall also admitted that he thought

the Japanese were engaged in a campaign southward from the China Sea. . . . We had in mind the possibility of an effort on the Panama Canal. We had in mind the possibility of an effort to strike a blow at our air plants in Seattle, at our air plants in San Diego, and we had in mind the possibility of a blow in the Central Pacific, in the Hawaiian district. We thought the latter was the most improbable. . . . We thought it [Hawaii] was impregnable against a Japanese landing expedition.^[114]

Although he had known from Admiral Richardson that the fleet would have to be built up and properly supplied before going out to sea, he didn’t think anyone had ever told him, prior to December 7, that “the United States Fleet in the Pacific Ocean, was not able to take care of itself in the event of an attack.”^[115]

Ferguson continued to question Marshall when the committee reassembled on Monday; he questioned him all that day and Tuesday morning also. He asked Marshall about the “Pilot Message,” which had been received in Washington on December 6, and how he accounted for its not being delivered to him that day. Marshall didn’t answer directly. He digressed about the first 13 parts and admitted he had been in Washington that entire day. He said “there was someone on duty in the office of the Chief of Staff, there was someone on duty in the office of the War Plans Division, there was someone on duty in the office of G-2,” who presumably could have received this particular message and acted. Finally, however, as Ferguson pressed him, he stated: “The point is I did not receive the [Pilot] message” that day.^[116]

When the afternoon session opened, the chairman announced that Marshall had been called to the White House for a conference with President Truman about his mission to China. Marshall left the hearing room at 3:00.

Hearings Interrupted— A Stranger at the Committee Table?

General Miles returned briefly to the witness stand, and Senator Ferguson, a Republican, continued the questioning. Senator Lucas, a Democrat, interrupted:

A moment ago, when I merely suggested to Senator Ferguson that he let General Miles answer the question, the gentleman on Senator Ferguson’s right got a hearty chuckle out of it. I would like to know just who the gentleman is and what right he has to sit alongside of the committee table and chuckle at a member of the United States Senate. . . . I do not propose to sit around this table and permit some individual that I do not know anything about, who is constantly in this case and constantly reminding Senators of the type and kind of questions they should ask, to give a hearty chuckle to something I might suggest in connection with this hearing.^[117]

Ferguson spoke up. “His name is Percy Greaves. He is with Senator Brewster and has charge of Senator Brewster’s files in this case.” Senator Brewster was out of town on this particular day attending his father’s funeral. Ferguson had shifted into Brewster’s seat and I had moved with my papers and documents from my usual place behind the committee table to a seat next to Ferguson at the committee table.

Senator Lucas had known Marshall well when he had been Judge Advocate of the Illinois National Guard in the 1930s and Marshall had been Special Instructor of the National Guard. The Democrat committee members had been disturbed for some time by the sharp and persistent interrogation of administration witnesses and Lucas was especially upset by the pointed questioning of Marshall.

Senator Lucas: Wasn’t he [Greaves] “the Republican National Committee research man in the campaign of 1944”?

Mr. Greaves: I was with the Republican National Committee up until the end of last year [1944].

Senator Lucas: This is a nonpartisan hearing.

Chairman Barkley: In view of that information, would it be out of place to inquire who has compensated Mr. Greaves for the services he has rendered to Senator Brewster or Senator Ferguson?

Ferguson: He is not rendering any services for me.

Lucas: Not much!

Barkley: He has been sitting by the Senator from Michigan [Ferguson] during these whole hearings and apparently prompting the Senator in the interrogatories he has addressed to the witnesses. Maybe that is not a service to the Senator from Michigan and the Senator will have to be the judge of that, but it has been a matter of common observation that that has transpired ever since we began the hearing.

Barkley said he did not object personally; he didn’t care “how many assistants any member of this committee may have, or desire, or need.” But he thought it was

not out of place that the committee know who it is who is compensating anybody who is assisting any Senator. . . [and that] the public would be interested in knowing whether there is any partisan compensation being paid to anybody who is employed by a member of this committee.

Ferguson said that Barkley would have to talk with Brewster about that.^[118]

At the close of the session, reporters crowded around. The Washington Times-Herald’sstory, headlined “‘Spy’ Identified at Pearl Harbor Probe,” had a four-column photo of me seated at the committee table next to Ferguson with Senators Lucas and George in the background. New York’s PM referred to me as “The mysterious ‘sixth Senator’,” whose

Incognito is Punctured When He Chuckles Out of Turn. . . . There were some lifted eyebrows at his presence at the Committee table, but his general busy-ness and the impressive aspect of the documents he lugged to and from the sessions gave him status as some sort of functionary.

The next day PM described a dispute between Ferguson and Barkley: “It Seems Idea Was To Get GOP’s Greaves Out of the Headlines.”

When Brewster returned to Capitol Hill a few days later, he told the committee that my position was “not a matter about which there need be any mystery;” he had announced my appointment at a press conference in his office some weeks ago. My duties consisted of reading and analyzing the voluminous documents, files, and exhibits presented to the committee, and searching the record for leads to persons who might be called as witnesses. Each evening I studied the background of scheduled witnesses and the materials pertinent to the next day’s hearings. Then each morning before the hearings started, I briefed the minority members, suggesting possible lines of inquiry.

Brewster said he was “sorry that the committee hadn’t found it practicable to allow the minority some assistance,” so he had “secured Mr. Greaves.” I was Brewster’s assistant and was being paid by him. Brewster wanted to make it clear that I had “not had for many months any connection whatsoever with the Republican National Committee.” He considered me “a very competent man. . . . [He] is my assistant. . . . I hope he may continue.” Neither he nor I wanted “to do anything which would in any way impair the proper conduct of this very important investigation.”^[119]

In a memorandum to Brewster, I apologized to the committee members. I stated that I had “great respect for Members of both Houses of Congress” and had not intended “to insult or reflect on any Members of the United States Senate by thought, word or action.” I thought Lucas had “misconstrued an unconscious and . . . silent smile that went unnoticed by anyone else.” I also said I was “a registered Republican” but received

no compensation from Republican Party sources, and had not for many months before entering Brewster’s service. I assured Brewster that my activities for him had not been of a partisan or a political nature.^[120]

The incident, a one-day media sensation, disrupted the hearings only slightly. It was soon forgotten and I resumed my seat behind, not at, the committee table. The investigation continued.

Barkley Releases TOP SECRET APHB Report

On the morning of December 12 Washington was greeted by a story in the Washington Times-Herald based on the TOP SECRET Army Pearl Harbor Board Report. Barkley had released it to reporters the evening before, and they had pounced on its revelations. The Times-Herald story read:

Heretofore “top secret”army documents on the Pearl Harbor disaster revealed . . . that army and navy witnesses testified that Japanese war plans were known four days before the Hawaiian attack, but that the witnesses later changed their testimony.

A cartoon by C.D. Batchelor published in the same issue portrayed Japanese Prime Minister Tojo in the garb of a town-crier marching through the streets of Washington with a sandwich board reading, “We are going to attack early in December. Please don’t tell Kimmel and Short,” signed “TOJO.” Below the cartoon the words: “They didn’t.”

The TOP SECRET documents that Barkley gave the press introduced to the public still more evidence of warnings received in Washington in advance of the Japanese attack—the deadlines the Japanese had fixed for serious negotiations with the United States to end, a December 3 intercept reporting that the Japanese were destroying their codes and code machines, and the U.S. Navy’s interception on December 4 of the Japanese “Winds Execute” indicating “War with England, war with America, peace with Russia.”^[121]

Marshall is Asked about “Winds Code” Mentioned in APHB Report

Marshall returned to the hearings after meeting with Truman. His questioning continued with Representative Keefe, a tall man with broad shoulders, a lawyer with a deep voice when he wanted to use it. He interrogated Marshall vigorously, introducing into the record a great deal of information previously missed. He did not let the general evade responsibility for the failure to respond to Short’s inadequate sabotage alert, or for his unexplained unavailability during the evening of December 6 and the early morning hours of December 7.^[122]

When Marshall took the witness seat on Thursday, December 13, Senator Lucas asked about the “Winds Code,” which had been mentioned in the APHB documents just released. Had Marshall ever seen “any message . . . implementing this winds code message?” Marshall replied: “Not to my knowledge.”^[123]

Finally, at noon, after each member had another chance to question him, the committee finished its interrogation of Marshall, released him, and he was free to fly to Chungking.^[124]

General Miles Recalls the “Pilot Message;” General Marshall Does Not

After Marshall had completed his testimony, Miles took the stand once more. Ferguson again asked him about the “Pilot Message,” Japan’s announcement that her response to the U.S. “ultimatum” was en route. This time Miles replied that “to the best of my knowledge and belief it was in the Saturday afternoon locked pouch among several other messages, which you will find were translated on that day, and that it did go to General Marshall. He does not remember seeing it.”^[125] That was as far as Miles would go toward contradicting Marshall.

Pearl Harbor Hearings, Scheduled to Last Four Weeks, to be Extended with New Counsel and Staff

The Congressional Committee had begun its hearings November 15. General Counsel Mitchell and his chief assistant, Gesell, had expected to do most of the selection and questioning of witnesses, with the committee members observing and asking only occasional questions. However, public interest in the investigation was intense, and the members discovered many points to probe. The Republican members especially, Mitchell said, had engaged in “extensive examination . . . far beyond what the legal staff anticipated.”^[126]

Mitchell reminded the committee on December 14 that it

has been sitting regularly for a month, including all Saturdays but one. During that period only 8 witnesses have been completely examined . . . there remain at least 60 witnesses to be examined. Many of these witnesses are quite as crucial as those who have testified. At the rate of progress during the past month, it seems certain that several more months of hearings will be required. . . .

The joint resolution of the Congress under which the committee is acting requires a final report of the committee to be made not later than January 3, 1946. . . . Since the start of the hearing it has become increasingly apparent that some members of the committee have a different view than that entertained by counsel, either as to the scope of the inquiry or as to what is pertinent evidence.

As a result, the hearings had been prolonged. Therefore, it was “necessary” for Mitchell “to ask the committee to arrange for other counsel to carry on.”^[127]

Congress granted the committee an extension. While the committee searched for replacements for Mitchell and his staff, the hearings continued with testimony from several more top military officials.

General Gerow (Army War Plans) Discusses Short’s Sabotage Alert and December 6–7 Events

General Gerow maintained his November 27 dispatch had given Short sufficient warning and that Short’s reply—“Report department alerted to prevent sabotage. Liaison with Navy”— could have been taken “to mean that he was alerted to prevent sabotage and . . . also prepared to conduct reconnaissance and other defensive missions.”^[128] It could even have been “interpreted as meaning that the Commanding General, Hawaiian Department, had prepared for an attack of the kind that was actually made.”^[129] Hence no follow-up had been considered.

Senator Ferguson, a relentless examiner, quoted from the Staff Officers’ Field Manual:

The responsibilities of the commander and his staff do not end with the issue of the necessary orders. They must insure receipt of the orders by the proper commanders, make certain they are understood, and enforce their effective execution.^[130]

He asked Gerow if Short, after having reported the measures taken and “[n]ot having heard anything for the number of days between the 28th and the 7th,” wouldn’t have had “a right to rely upon that fact, that [he] had understood his order, and that he had properly interpreted the order of the 27th?” Gerow replied: “I think that is correct.”^[131]

Gerow volunteered a description of his responsibility as chief of War Plans. It had been

to prepare [action, not information] messages and submit them to the Chief of Staff and the Secretary of War for their approval. In any emergency, if the Chief of Staff was not there, I would assume the responsibility for sending them and accept the consequences if I made a mistake.^[132]

Ferguson also questioned Gerow about crucial December 1941 messages. Gerow reaffirmed his statements to Lieutenant Colonel Clausen—he recalled neither Bratton’s recommendation that additional warnings be sent the overseas commanders because Japanese diplomats had been told to destroy their codes and code machines,^[133] nor Sadtler’s telling him on December 5 that a “Winds Code Execute had been received.”^[134] And he denied receiving the “Pilot Message” and the first 13 parts of Japan’s reply on December 6; he didn’t see them until December 7 “at 11:30 in the Chief of Staff’s office.”^[135]

Admiral Turner (Navy War Plans): U.S. Defense Encompasses Defense of U.K. Against Japan and Germany

Admiral Turner, the 1941 chief of the Navy’s war plans section, first came before the JCC on December 19. He was flamboyant, something of a braggadocio, with a reputation for liking more liquor than was good for him. He had boasted before the Navy Court of Inquiry that he “had expressed the opinion previously” that the July 1941 freezing of Japanese assets in the United States “would very definitely bring on war with Japan.”^[136] He had “expected they [the Japanese] would make some sort of an attack on Hawaii.”^[137] He told the JCC he had considered a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor not simply a “possibility” but “probable.”^[138] The attack, he said, had come as no surprise to him.

When stationed in Japan in 1939, Turner testified, he knew the Japanese naval attaché. Both men had come to Washington at about the same time. After Japanese Ambassador Nomura arrived in Washington in February 1941, the naval attaché arranged for Turner to meet Nomura about March first. Turner wrote a memorandum to CNO Stark about that meeting, saying he thought he should continue the talks.^[139] They met several more times.

On July 21, 1941, Turner “told the Ambassador [Nomura] that I believed that Congress would declare war if they [the Japanese] attacked either the Dutch or the British in Malaya.”^[140] According to Turner’s memorandum of that meeting, Turner had pointed out to Nomura that

it is decidedly against the military interests of the United States to permit the United Kingdom to be overcome by Germany. For this reason any action which the United States could take against Germany is necessarily one of self defense and would never be considered as aggression. Furthermore, anything that affects the future security of the United Kingdom in any part of the world, also is of interest to the United States from the defensive viewpoint.^[141]

Turner was unequivocal: Any U.S. action against Germany would be “self defense” and would never be considered “aggression”! “[T]he future security” of the United States and that of the United Kingdom were inextricably allied “from the defensive viewpoint”! Roosevelt, Hull, and Stark were all sent copies of Turner’s memorandum of that meeting. Turner told the JCC he received no indication from any of them that they disagreed or disapproved of what he had written.^[142]

When asked about the December 6 Japanese intercepts, Turner recalled seeing the “Pilot Message” and the first 13 parts of the Japanese reply “some time just preceding the 7th, some night, and I now believe it to have been the night of December 6, about 11:30 p.m.” He said an officer came to his house; he had been in bed but “went down and read a long dispatch in several parts” which he believed was “the dispatch in question.” When asked to whom the officer had shown these papers, the officer replied, “Admiral Wilkinson, Admiral Ingersoll, and Secretary Knox.” Thus assured that the responsible Navy officials had been advised, Turner “did nothing more about it.” He did not recall seeing the 14th part “until after the attack.”^[143]

At about 10:30 on Sunday morning, December 7, Stark phoned Turner at his home, asking him to come to the office. Once there, Stark asked him to draft a reply to Hart’s inquiry concerning Creighton’s report that the United States had promised armed support to the British and Dutch in the far east.^[144] Turner had been working on that when Stark summoned him, at about 12 or 12:15, and showed him the “One p.m. Message.” Stark told Turner that Marshall had notified the army field commanders of that message, telling them to inform the naval authorities.^[145]

Admiral Stark on Joint U.S.-British War Plan and Morning of December 7

Admiral Harold R. Stark, chief of naval operations at the time of the attack, was second in line of command to the president in protecting the United States and its Navy. Stark had become CNO on August 1, 1939, just one month before Hitler’s forces marched into Poland, launching what became World War II. Stark was known to his associates as “Betty,” his nickname from Annapolis days.^[146] He was genial, polite, soft-spoken, not blunt or brusque like Admiral Richardson, who had stood up boldly to FDR. But Stark was no milquetoast either. On occasion he would tell FDR frankly what he thought, as he had, for instance, when opposing the destroyer deal.

Stark appeared before the JCC on December 31, 1945. He opened his testimony by reading a statement containing substantial quotations from reports and letters to his field commanders during his term of office.^[147] When he assumed office, Stark realized U.S. naval forces were weak, so he had immediately set about trying to obtain more ships, planes, weapons, and men. Navy budget requests were first made to the Bureau of the Budget, which makes recommendations from which the president’s budget is prepared and submitted to Congress.^[148] Stark had appeared before congressional committees to request authorization and funds, pointing out the increasing demands for men and materiel for the Atlantic theater.^[149] He had found Congress cooperative: “[O]ver the fiscal years 1934 to 1941, inclusive, those figures show that the Congress exceeded the Presidential Budget estimate . . . in the matter of appropriations.”^[150] Stark also told of his struggle with the president in seeking approval for expanding the naval force. He had pleaded with FDR on behalf of the Pacific Fleet; it “should at least at first remain strong until we see what Japan is going to do.”^[151]

Stark testified that as CNO he had developed war plans—Rainbow No. 3 “for governing naval operations in case of war with Japan, Germany, and Italy,”^[152] and then Rainbow No. 5, which he had helped to develop with the Army. Rainbow No. 5 was a joint basic war plan based on understandings with the British and Canadians in ABC-1—January 29–March 27, 1941.^[153]

Stark said his duties included “keep[ing] the fleet commanders in Atlantic, Pacific, and Asiatic waters informed of significant developments in political and military matters of concern to them.”^[154] On April 3, 1941, Stark wrote Kimmel about the joint U.S.-British war plan that had been drawn up and on which Basic War Plan Rainbow No. 5 had been based. Both he and Marshall had approved this war plan. Stark had discussed it at length with Roosevelt, had read to him his April 3 letter to Kimmel setting forth the plan’s provisions, and had “received his [FDR’s] general assent,” and “at an appropriate time, [the plan] is expected to receive the [official] approval of the president.”^[155] According to Rainbow No. 5, WPL-46, the U.S. Pacific Fleet was to

support the forces of the Associated Powers in the Far East by diverting enemy strength away from the Malay Barrier through the denial and capture of positions in the Marshalls, and through raids on enemy sea communications and positions.^[156]

On April 4 Stark reaffirmed to Kimmel FDR’s approval of the U.S.-Great Britain agreement for joint military action.^[157]

Stark’s prepared statement to the committee read in part: “Based on the understandings arrived at in ABC-1, the Army and Navy developed a Joint Basic War Plan, known as Rainbow No. 5, which was approved by the Secretaries of War and the Navy.” Stark continued: “You will note that I have crossed out the words ‘and by the president.’ That is the only change made in this statement.”^[158]

When Senator Ferguson asked why he had deleted those four words, Stark explained that he

had no documentary proof of it. I do know the president, except officially, approved of it,^[159] although it shows he was not willing to do it officially until we got into the war. Nevertheless I sent that plan out on April 3. . . . I told Kimmel and told Tommy—Admiral Hart—that I had read to the president my official letter of April 3 and that the president had approved it and knew I was sending it out. Therefore, I think it is safe to say that the president certainly approved of it.^[160]

In other words, FDR had approved an agreement, well before the war started, to help the British and Dutch militarily in southeast Asia in the event of Japanese aggression, even if the Japanese had not actually attacked the United States itself.

Quoting Kimmel’s June 30, 1941, report, Stark said he realized the defense forces at Pearl Harbor were “[i]nadequate . . . to provide for the safety of the Fleet in harbor.”^[161] They had been further weakened in mid-1941, as had been contemplated in the Navy Basic War Plan, WPL-46, when some of the fleet’s ships were transferred to the Atlantic to be used in taking the Azores. Although that plan was never carried out, the ships remained in the Atlantic and were not returned to Hawaii.^[162] Then just before the attack, the strength of the fleet was again reduced when 50 pursuit planes were transferred, 25 each, to Wake and Midway.^[163] On November 27, the day after Hull presented the United States’s note to the Japanese ambassadors, the Navy had sent the three fleet commanders—Hart, Kimmel, and King—a “war warning.” Japan was “expected within the next few days” to launch “an amphibious expedition against either the Philippines, Thai or Kra peninsula or possibly Borneo.”^[164] Stark testified that he “had worked for hours” on this message, “particularly the war warning, which was all out.” He “thought it would convey what I intended it should convey. I thought it was very plain and it flew all the danger signals.”^[165] Stark had cleared the message personally with the secretary of the Navy and he had “either told the president beforehand or immediately after.” Stark did “know that within 24 hours, if not before . . . it had his full approval and that he gave us an O.K.”^[166]

Also on November 27 the Army sent warnings to MacArthur in the Philippines and Short.^[167] According to Stark, “[T]he outstanding things in the Army message . . . was that war might come at any moment.” The message “directed Short to make a reconnaissance and I had directed Kimmel to make a defensive deployment.” Stark felt “The two [warnings] hooked up together.”^[168]

While questioning Stark, Representative Keefe said he had heard him say “repeatedly” that he

did not expect an attack at Pearl Harbor; you were surprised, the president was surprised, General Marshall was surprised, you were all surprised . . . and yet you expected Kimmel with less information than you had of the situation, even conceding this order which was given on the war warning . . . to be prepared against an attack which none of you thought would take place.

Keefe found it “difficult . . . to reconcile those two positions.”^[169]

Stark admitted he had not expected an attack on Pearl Harbor, although “we all recognized it to be a possibility.”^[170] He “had sent to Kimmel for action a war warning signal containing a directive and containing what information we had.” It had directed Kimmel to make “a defensive deployment.” Stark had thought that with such a warning the fleet would be put “on a war footing out there so far as any surprise was concerned.”^[171]

Stark’s responsibility included keeping the fleet commanders informed and assuring the safety of the Navy. Yet under questioning Stark admitted to having no recollection of having seen the Japanese Pearl Harbor bomb plot or “ships-in-harbor” messages.^[172] And he denied having heard that a “Winds Execute” was received before the attack.^[173] Moreover, he said he had not known until the morning of December 7 about the “Pilot Message,” which had been received in Washington the afternoon of December 6. And Stark said he had not learned until the morning of December 7 of the first 13 parts of the 14-part Japanese reply, which had been intercepted and decoded the previous afternoon and evening.^[174] He did not remember when he had received the complete 14-part reply. He maintained only that he first saw it “after I got in the office” on the morning of December 7, just what time he could not recall.^[175]

Stark said he believed he was at home the evening of the 6th; if he was out, a servant, if not a duty officer, was on hand to take messages. He did not think anyone had called him.^[176] He also maintained that he had gone as usual to his office that Sunday morning:

I usually got down to the office Sunday mornings about 10:30 and I just assumed that I had gotten there somewhere around 10:30 or 11:00. I was lazy on Sunday mornings unless there was some special reason for getting up early. I usually took a walk about the grounds and greenhouses at the Chief of Naval Operations’ quarters and didn’t hurry about getting down and my usual time, as I recall, was about 10:30 or 11. What time it was on this particular Sunday morning I couldn’t go beyond that.^[177]

This testimony contradicted other witnesses, and Stark knew it. Wilkinson was one who testified that Stark was in his office considerably earlier than 10:30—about 9:15, he said—when he arrived with part 14 of the Japanese reply. After delivering that message, Wilkinson said, he left, only to return at 10:30 or 10:40 with the “One p.m. Message.”^[178]

Stark did not remember the delivery of the “One p.m. Message” and had “no recollection” as to when he received it.

My remembrance, as I said, was 10:40. When you say “at least 10:30,” I think you will find testimony to that effect by a witness, and if he states that, and I think he probably has good supporting data, I accept it, that it was delivered to my office and then after that was given, by whomever he gave it, to me.^[179]

Captain Arthur H. McCollum also said Stark must have arrived in his office considerably earlier than usual that Sunday morning. McCollum said he and Wilkinson had gone together to Stark’s office when they learned that he “had arrived in the Navy Department,” probably about 9 or 9:15. Stark was alone when McCollum and Wilkinson entered but, according to McCollum, various other officers soon arrived—Ingersoll, Brainard, Noyes, Turner, and possibly Schuirmann. McCollum said, “There was considerable going in and out at that time.”^[180] JCC Chief Assistant Counsel Gesell commented that one witness had said “there were 15 officers in there.”^[181] Stark’s office was apparently a busy place that Sunday morning.

Stark’s acknowledged recollection of that Sunday morning began only with his talk at 11:30 a.m. with Marshall about the “One p.m. Message” and the decision to send a last-minute message to the field commanders. However, Stark was “certain nobody mentioned Honolulu with reference to a daylight attack.” He was “positive of that.”^[182] He was questioned about the “One p.m. Message” by JCC Counsel Mitchell.

Mitchell: Well, this was what we lawyers call a last clear chance. These people were not ready at Pearl Harbor; the Jap Fleet was piling in; here was a chance to get a message to them that might have saved them; it reached your hands, we will say, at 10:40; the chance wasn’t taken. Does that sum up the situation as you see it? . . .

Stark: I gather from your question you are now pointing that dispatch directly at Pearl Harbor. It didn’t mention Pearl Harbor. It gave no inference with regard to Pearl Harbor any more than it did the Philippines or the Netherlands East Indies. . . . In the light of hindsight, if we had read into that message that it meant an attack at that hour, and had sent it out, of course, it would have been helpful. I wish such an inference could have been drawn.

Mitchell: The fixing of an exact hour to deliver the diplomatic message and rout out the Secretary of State on a Sunday at 1:00 p.m., wasn’t it obvious that there was some special significance, having in mind the history of the Japs striking first and declaring war afterwards?

Stark: If so, Mr. Mitchell, I would like to say that so far as I know the Secretary of War didn’t read that inference into it, the Secretary of State didn’t read that inference into it, the Secretary of the Navy didn’t read that inference into it. General Marshall and his staff didn’t read that inference into it, and nobody mentioned it to me.

Mitchell: Is it fair to say that if Marshall hadn’t spotted that message and started to send word out to Pearl Harbor that you probably wouldn’t have sent anything?

Stark: I don’t know that I would. I think that might be a fair deduction.^[183]

First Post-Attack Investigation (December 1941)

Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox had flown to Pearl Harbor almost immediately after the Japanese attack in order to investigate the extent of the damage. He had written a report. No copies of that report had been released and it had received practically no publicity at the time. However, during the JCC hearings I, as chief of the committee’s minority staff, located a copy. On January 4, 1946, toward the end of Stark’s testimony, Ferguson asked him to read Knox’s report into the record.^[184] Knox had made three significant points:

1. Neither Short nor Kimmel, at the time of the attack, had any knowledge of the plain intimations of some surprise move, made clear in Washington, through the interception of Japanese instructions to Nomura . . . by the insistence upon the precise time of Nomura’s reply to Hull, at one o’clock on Sunday.^[185]

2. Three waves of enemy air force swept over Pearl Harbor during the assault. Because of the element of surprise, the first wave, which lasted from 7:55 to 8:30 a.m., was “substantially unopposed” and wreaked considerable havoc. Yet, Navy anti-aircraft guns began firing in only about four minutes after the attack started. The second wave over the harbor [9:–9:30 a.m.] was resisted with far greater fire power and a number of enemy planes were shot down. The third attack over the harbor [from about 11:30 to 1:00 p.m.] was met by so intensive a barrage from the ships that it was driven off without getting the attack home, no effective hits being made in the harbor by this last assault.^[186]

3. The Army’s lack of “the best means of defense against air attack . . . fighter planes . . . [was] due to the diversion of this type [of aircraft] before the outbreak of the war, to the British, the Chinese, the Dutch and the Russians.”^[187]

Stark said he hadn’t seen the Knox report before, but expressed no particular surprise at its revelations.^[188] He said “there is very little in that report that he [Knox] didn’t tell a considerable number of us in his office.”^[189] It may be, as Stark said, that the Knox report was no revelation to him. But he made no mention of two of the three aspects that most impressed the committee members: the fact that Kimmel and Short had received little intelligence from Washington, and that one major reason for the shortage of reconnaissance planes in Hawaii was the specified diversion of fighter planes to the British, the Chinese, the Dutch and the Russians.

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Stark was the last witness to testify before Mitchell and his legal staff left the committee. A week’s recess was called so the new staff—Seth W. Richardson, general counsel; Samuel H. Kaufman, associate general counsel; John E. Masten, Edward P. Morgan, and Logan J. Lane—could become familiar with the record. The hearings resumed January 15, 1946.^[190] Several important witnesses still remained to be heard—notably Short and Kimmel, Safford, and the Army and Navy couriers Kramer and Bratton, respectively.