Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2001/05/14/lessons_on_readiness_at_peace.php
Monday, May 14, 2001
It's a nice touch that the new Big Movie 'Pearl Harbor' will open all across the country on May 28, Memorial Day. According to advance reports, it is a spectacular production on the scale of 'Titanic' and 'Saving Private Ryan,' and almost three hours long. It is said to be pretty accurate historically. Well, we shall see.
In retrospect, the period ending on December 7, 1941, possesses a strange quality. As I recall, most people thought we would get into the war, but everyone was stunned by the Japanese attack.
We did not then know that we were unofficially at war with Germany, and that our destroyers were pursuing U-Boats up to 1,500 miles out into the Atlantic, at which point the Royal Navy took over.
We had also embargoed petroleum sales to Japan, which would have immobilized their fleet in a few weeks. You might have expected Japan to attack the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) where they could get petroleum. That had to mean an attack on the Phillipines as well. They could hardly allow our bases at Subic Bay and Clark Field to sit astride their invasion route.
But there was a strange and in retrospect eerie calm during the last days of 'peace.' The U.S. Navy was aware that Yamamoto's strike force had left Yokohama—but still slept peacefully on Sunday morning.
Yamamoto struck at Pearl Harbor to protect the flank of the impending attack on the Phillipines and Indonesia. It was an enormously risky move, or would have been if our command at Pearl Harbor had been alert, had destroyer pickets out, had moved ships out of the harbor, had planes on sweeps over the Pacific, etc.
I have the impression that our military did not quite take Japan seriously. Germany was the major hostile power. And during the war, 85 percent of our military budget was devoted to Germany, 15 percent to Japan. On December 7, Joe DiMaggio and some friends were watching a professional football game in Yankee Stadium. When the announcement of the Japanese attack came over the PA system, Joe said, 'Those little guys must be crazy.'
It is clear that neither the public nor the military high command were psychologically prepared to be suddenly at war.
The historian Bruce Catton recounts an anecdote that reflects this peculiar inattention. He describes a dinner party in Washington, including Frank Knox, the Secretary of the Navy, Vice President Henry Wallace, and others of high rank. Knox spoke of our comprehensive readiness for action. Then Robert Horton, a spokesman for the defense program, arose. He irritated everyone. Bruce Catton quotes Horton:
'The thing that really bothers me is something that happened last week. I had occasion to take a little trip down the Chesapeake Bay on a little Coast Guard patrol boat. We were down around Norfolk, and late in the day the skipper of the boat—a chief petty officer—decided it might be interesting to cruise up to the Navy yard and see what we could see. So up we went. We not only cruised up to the yard, but we cruised all through it. Nobody challenged us, nobody stopped us, nobody did anything to find out if we were really a Coast Guard boat or just a cabin cruiser painted gray.'
The Secretary of the Navy whispered loudly, 'Who is this son of a bitch?'
Horton went on: 'As I understand it, one of the top military secrets right now is the fact that the British aircraft carrier Illustrious is in the yard at Norfolk for repairs. Well, we cruised right by her dock. There she was, standing up like a ten story building, with an enormous Union Jack flying over her. If we could cruise in like that and see her, I should think any German agent who wanted to do so could do the same.
'Anyhow, we left the yard after a while and went through Hampton Roads, and pretty soon it got dark and we wanted to tie up somewhere and make a phone call. So we headed up to the nearest place, which happened to be one of those big new Navy installations—I think it was a mine base. We came in, after dark, and tied up at a pier where there were three or four mine sweepers tied up. Nobody challenged us. Nobody tried to find out whether we were really in a Coast Guard boat, or whether we had any business in there. Nobody paid any attention to us at all...We came to a guard house or sentry box of some kind. We hammered on the door, and by and by a sailor stuck his head out, and we asked him where there was a public telephone. He pointed vaguely up the road and said it was about half a mile. So we walked up there.
'The guard didn't pay attention to us. He didn't know who we were, but he didn't ask for a pass and he didn't want to see any credentials. For all he knew, we might have been Hitler's grandsons.
'Sure, the CPO I was with had a uniform on. But there are at least thirty places in Norfolk where you can walk in and buy a CPO's uniform. All it takes is a little money. We could have been spies, saboteurs, anything—but the Navy let us wander all over the base, after dark, for upwards of half an hour, without once bothering to find out who we were or what our business was. We could have blown the whole place to pieces.
'Horton paused and looked coldly at Knox, who by now was painfully close to apology. 'Mister Secretary,' he said, 'I don't' think our Navy is ready.'
'This was the night of December 4, 1941.' (Bruce Catton, The War Lords of Washington)
A state of readiness is difficult to maintain, especially when the nation is officially at 'peace.' Who would imagine that an unidentified small motorboat could, with impunity, sail right up alongside our destroyer USS Cole in the harbor of Yemen?