From: Jim Choate <ravage@einstein.ssz.com>
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 1996 22:09:56 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: WWII & Japan (fwd)
Message-ID: <199611010610.AAA03470@einstein>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text



Forwarded message:

> Dear Sir,
> 
> >Japanese Ambassador Kichisaburo Nomura and Special Ambassador Saburo Kurusu
> >were to present Secretary of State Cordell Hull a Declaration of War at 1pm
> >Washington time on Dec. 7th. To achieve technical compliance with
> >international rules it was intended to be delivered approx. 30 minutes prior
> >to the actual attack. There were decoding difficulties however and it was
> >delivered after the attack. Neither of the Ambassadors is thought to have
> >had any knowledge of the actual attack and therefore did not understand the
> >criticality of delivery. Japan intended to go to war with the United States,
> >Great Britian, and Holland over their policies concerning the Japanese
> >presence in China and Manchuria.
> 
> This is totally true, except that the American forces actually knew that an
> attack was coming, and the Japanese ambassadors definitely had an inkling of
> what was going to happen. Communicades to the Japanese ambassadors were
> being made sparse as the attack came, and details of actions to come were
> broken up into a 14 part message.

Roosevelt and close advisors were aware that Japan was on the brink of war,
as was Britian, and many civilians predicted it. They had no idea of exactly
where. The US Navy issued the last war warning on Nov. 27, 1941 based on
MAGIC intercepts. These intercepts hinted at action in Borneo, The Kra
Peninsula, or the Phillipines. At no place in any of the MAGIC intercepts was
Hawaii mentioned. In war knowing that something is going to happen without
knowing where is less than worthless because it causes you to spread your
forces too thin and reduces force reaction time. I have studied WWII
specificaly for over 30 years both historicaly and through various wargames.
What those people were asked to do they did as best they could with what
they had.

I would be interested in your source for the claim the two Ambassadors were
aware of the impending declaration. Both official Japanese documents as well
as personal memoranda refute this. Had they known a priori of what was going
to happen they would have made much greater strides to conform to the 30
minute international standard for declarations of war. The Japanese take
'face' with great gravity. They had no intention of going down as the
instigator of the day that will live in infamy. Their intention was to
declare war and impliment its first actions in a time frame that was most
favorable for them, it was not to blind side the US.

> On the USA side, the even knew that the
> attack was coming on a Sunday. They had broken the Japanese codes, and had
> been distributing the information from the communicades to pertinent
> authorities.

Only the MAGIC codes were broken. The Japanese Navy used JN-25 which the US
could decrypt only about 10% of the time. On Dec. 1, 1941 the Japanese
switched to JN-25b which brought their decoding efforts to a complete stop.
The "Climb Mount Niitaka" code phrase authorizing the strike on Pearl Harbor
occured on Dec. 2, 1941. It was sent using JN-25b and did not appear in any
MAGIC intercepts. It is therefore unreasonable to claim they knew before
hand what day it would occur on when the exact date had not even been
picked until such time that there was no way they could determine it.

> However, a copy of a communicade was found in a rubbish bin in
> the hallway of a military building, and so distribution was reduced to fewer
> people.

This is a WWII myth.

>From the beginning of November the US Navy suspected the Japanese Navy was
up to something. This was based on submarine tracking reports, radio traffic
analysis, as well as the fact that the aircraft carriers locations were
completely lost. Again they knew something was up, just not where. The best
course of action in such a situation is to do as little as possible. Not
only does this husband your force but it provides as small a signature to
the enemy as possible that you are even aware that something is up.

The Japanese Samurai have a saying about war, "He who makes the first move
is the loser".

> But nobody wanted to take any notice.

During November Lt. Gen. W.C. Short, commanding the army units in Hawaii,
and CINCPAC Adm. Husband Kimmel began to take steps to counter sabotage as
well as a direct attack. Their major problems were lack of training and
sufficient resources. One of the reasons the planes were lined up was
because this was SOP for anti-sabotage security. Based on MAGIC and the
other hints they got (eg radio intercept from Tokyo to Berlin hinting at
action in early Dec. against the US and allies) Hawaii was not considered a
primary target. It was felt that 3rd-column action was much more likely than
direct attack. Another good example were the B-17's which were destroyed
during Pearl Harbor as well as the seaplane tender base. Both of these were
intended to strengthen the ability of the Pacific forces to withstand attack
and go on the offensive. They just went into action too little and too late.
The biggest tactical mistake was the Japanese in not ordering a 3rd wave to
take out the fuel stores, Army facilities, and finish the airstrips.

Let's look at this realisticly. The first real inkling all hell was going to
break loose occured in early Nov. and the attack actualy took place in early
Dec. This means we are expecting the forces to respond from normal peace
time footing to full war time footing in 30 days. Not what I would call
feasible considering the level of stores available at the time. The US could
not meet such a time table today during Desert Storm, why should we accept
the premise they could have done it then as valid?

> This begs the question of the
> illegal lend-lease agreements between the Americans and the British which
> could have had Roosevelt impeached if the details had come to light in congress.

This is opinion not fact. Roosevelt introduced the bill to Congress in
January of 1941. Congress made the act law on March 11, 1941 with an initial
authorization for $7 Billion to any nation. The motivation behind it was the
fact that the US had removed from S. Africa 42 Million Pounds which was
Englands last negotiable asset. The fact is that they were broke and the
US was determined not to let that fact get in the way. It was clearly in our
self interest not to let England or any other country simply founder before
the Axis for a few bucks.

Consider, England was broke and Germany/Italy were doing quite well. The US
was at war with Japan. Japan had limited resources (eg 3-4 months crude oil
reserves at the time of Pearl Harbor, hardly sufficient for a full blown
war). The US was in absolutely no danger of going broke or running out of
resources or means to impliment their strategy. Because of this it was
agreed that Europe should be the theatre of primary concern, not the
Pacific. Had I been tasked with such a decision I suspect I would have made
the same one. I would have left the initial forces there to fend for
themselves as best they could and focus my forces on the target with the
greatest payoff in the short term.

> However, as to the reason why the Japanese wanted to go to war, your
> explanation is a little basic. It is true that the Japanese wanted to go to
> war over the aforementioned countries policies concerning the Japanese
> invasion and occupation of Manchuria, or Manchukuo as they called it.
> However, this was not simply the reason. The aforementioned countries
> policies barred export of vital natural resources to the Japanese, who live
> in a naturally mineral poor country. Their original invasion was actually
> staged (see "The Manchukuo Incident") in the hope that they could gain more
> natural resources from Manchukuo. 

Japans reasons for going to war were quite varied and entirely unsuitable
for further discussion on this list. However, if you would like further
information based on Japanese documents there is a book called 'The Setting
Sun' which covers the Japanese POV quite well. I unfortunately can't find my
copy and don't remember its author (John Toland?). It is currently available.

> Another reason why the Japanese wanted war is a rather complicated one, and
> it dates back to the end of World War I. At the end of the war most
> countries in a position to have colonies in the pacific/orient area were
> under severe financial stress. The French had borrowed so much money from
> the USA that they had doubts of ever being able to count so high, and
> Clemenceau, the "French Tiger", was determined to extract as much
> reparations under the War Guilt Clause of the Versailles Treaty as possible.
> The British had also borrowed phenomenal amounts of money. However, these
> two, after taking all territorial possessions of the ex-German Empire, and
> the ex-Austrian Empire, had in fact huge amounts of possessions. The British
> Empire spanned roughly a third of the world in both population and size, and
> the French were roughly two thirds as big as the British. But how to pay for
> this massive Empire? Maintance of ships, particularly the newer Dreadnought
> class Battleships, was incredibly expensive, and enough were not in
> possession at the end of the war to defend pre-war borders, let alone the
> newly expanded ones. Thus the British Empire, and the USA decided that it
> was best to maintain the status quo. They had "run the race" and won. They
> had their colonies (the USA had the Phillipines, and a few other pacific
> islands, although the USA has always had a policy against Colonialism), and
> they decided to end the possibility of another arms race via an agreement.
> Thus it was that the Washington Naval Conference was formed. This conference
> limited certain countries to certain ratio's of certain classes of ships, to
> help maintain the status quo, and all measurements were done against the
> British Navy. It was this conference and the forged agreement that came out
> of it that greatly crippled Japan, in desperate need of Colonies and the
> natural resources that could be exploited from them, for Japan was limited
> to a navy roughly half the size of the British Navy, but consisting of
> mainly smaller ships overall, for their quote of battleships was less than
> half. Holland and France were also participating countries in this pact.
> However, whilst it limited ships in the pacific regions, it did not limit
> ships in other regions. This crippled Japan, but left _all other players_
> with other waters in which to build ships (hence the large buildup of
> Atlantic sea forces by the USA that facilitated the lend-lease agreements
> later on). This in itself a heavy blow to the Japanese, but added to this
> was the failure of the British to renew their alliance. Not only was the
> most powerful empire in the world now not an ally of the Japanese, but the
> Japanese could not even compete to provide what they needed. And the other
> countries, naturally, liked this just fine.

There are several points here that as presented are not sufficiently well
described to explain what was going on with the various force limiting
treaties being put in place. "Blood, Tears, and Folly" by Len Deighton has a
quite good explanation of the dynamics of these events. The book also has a
continous description of various aspects of crypto and WWII.

> Therefore, whilst your comments are true, they are only true in part. The
> Japanese ambassadors certainly had a general idea as to what was following
> due to the 14 part message, and the Japanese had more motive to attack than
> a simple "policy of other countries" explanation warrants.

The first comment is true of all things and provides no method for further
exploration of historical events. It in fact is an a priori assumption in any
research. 

The Ambassadors had no clear inkling until after they had gotten the
dispatch decoded in toto (which they didn't do themselves but left to a
consular staff member).


                                                         Jim Choate


ps I am subscribed to the cpunks list, there is absolutely no reason to
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