A Last Saturday of Peace

PEARL HARBOR -- Fleet intelligence chief Ed layton has only one  pleasant interlude today, his ride in a gig to visit Admiral Pye aboard the battleship California. He hands Pye  the morning dispatch which repeats that Japanese agression in southeast Asia could come at any moment.  A number of intercepted but still coded messages to and from the Japanese consulate in Honolulu are forwarded to Washington for decrypting, translation, and action -- most of which are accomplished sometime after the Honolulu sunrise tomorrow.

WASHINGTON -- Exhaustion has set in at every level of  naval communications and intelligence. Only civilian specialist  Dorothy  Edgers stayed through the early weekend afternoon to translate what has come to be called the "lights message." Somehow, it just seemed significant to her.   She left the translation  with her boss, Lieutenant Commander Alwin D. Kramer, who found the wording imperfect and the punctuation in need of titivating. It is still on his desk Monday morning, Dec. 8. The message details the light system (including bonfires) Japanese spies on Oahu will use to signal attacking aircraft of the status of ships at their moorings and anchorages in Pearl Harbor. 

At the White House, Roosevelt finally agrees to follow through on his scheme to send a personal message to Emperor Hirohito, a piece of prose blending conciliation and veiled threat. He figures Hirohito will  respond by Monday evening, whereupon, if necessary,  a pure threat can be sent to the Imperial Palace.

Across the capital after sundown, almost to a man the power elite disperses to balls and dinner parties, as Wellington danced  before Waterloo. Kramer, with a decoded intercept of the  14-part message from Premier Tojo to his Washington envoys is successful in tracking down  some of the nation's leaders. Some of them eventually join the President in a late-night council.  Or perhaps there was no White House meeting. Some say yes. Some say no. Nothing of the sort is recorded in the official White House records. In any case, no one picks up a  phone to call Hawaii, to tell Kimmel and Short that America has received something like a declaration of war.

KIDO BUTAI -- Admiral Nagumo, now steaming due south,  eases water rationing for his fleet of carriers and escorts. His sea and  sky fighters take the final showers they desire to enter battle in purity.  The word from the Honolulu embassy is good: The battleships are in Pearl, as expected. Aerial reconaissence confirms that nothing worth bombing is in the port of Lahaina. The ultimate   announcement is made to all ships via the flag signals representing Admiral Togo's message to his 1904 fleet before its victory over the Russians in the Tsushima Strait: "The fate of our nation depends on this battle -- all hands will exert themselves to their utmost." The maintenence crews joined the cheers, then began fueling the planes.

  

Liberty Call, Honolulu, Friday Dec. 5, 1941

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The American Navy at peace borrowed from the unions. A man must have his weekends. When not on an actual voyage it was the custom to get underway Monday morning, play war games in local waters  through Thursday, and return to port  in time for all hands to shine, shower and shave before the first liberty boats began running about 1600 Friday. The married went to their wives, the bachelors to the beaches, the slop chutes,  the delights of Hotel Street. It was about like that on Dec. 5.  War clouds were apparent, but they were thousand of miles to the southwest of Honolulu. Washington said so. 

CincPac Headquarters --  Rear Admiral John Newton sails on the cruiser Chicago to escort the carrier Lexington. The task force is to deliver Marine fighter planes  and pilots to Midway, then scout the northwest approaches to Hawaii. Kimmel knew aircraft should be making these recons.   Washington was telling him he could expect more PBYs one of these days. The situation: All carriers at sea, along with their usual cruiser and destroyer escorts. The big battle wagons and their escorts are  either in the harbor on on their way.

Washington: Navy code breakers were given small cards with the words "higashi no kazi ami.' typed. In English it is "east wind rain." They were to look for that phrase which, naval intelligence believed, was the signal to all Japan's official world interests that U.S. - Japan relations had ruptured beyond repair.  Of itself it was not a declaration of war; it was a declaration of the intent to declare  war or perhaps just start shooting. Junior men in naval communications claim to have received  the "winds" message and  quickly passed it up the line. The senior officers and their political masters deny it ever happened.

Manila: General Douglas MacArthur receives British Admiral Sir Tom Phillips, visiting for a council of war. MacArthur tells his guest he "had every confidence he could defend this place."

The Kido Butai sails with poor visibility under gray skies and encounters Uritsky, a Russian merchantman.  Nagumo is under orders and perfectly willing to  smash and sink any passing ship which could report the existence of his force.  He permits Uritsky to pass unmolested toward her Siberian  destination. The Russian ship makes no report.

Below, in the hanger decks, mechanics make final checks on the Zeros, torpedo planes,  and dive bombers. In the pilot and crews' quarters, lockers are opened. The Emperor's sky warriors check their clean loin cloths and thousand-stitch belts.  One wages war dressed as a gentleman.

  

 

Jabberwock. Dec. . 4, 1941

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BERLIN -- Japanese  envoys to the Nazis are having a hard time of it. Ribbentrop won't, on his own, promise a declaration of war  on the U.S. if Japan attacks first. Only Hitler can do that, and he's busy at his forward headquarters directing the attack on Moscow.

TOKYO --  The decision is reconfirmed. Despite the lack of a German promise to modify the Tripartite Pact,  the assault on the American fleet is still on. 

HONOLULU --  Radio intercept operators report a massive increase in Japanese naval communications traffic, leading Layton to report to Kimmel his speculation that the "entire Japanese Navy is being prepared for drastic action."  

WASHINGTON --  The cables go out to U.S. naval attaches in Guam, Tokyo, Peiping, Shanghai, and Tientsin to destroy codes and secret material and to report compliance in the clear with the  code word  "Jabberwock."  The fleet at Pearl Harbor is not told of all this.

In the north-central Pacific, the still radio-silent Kido Butai reaches Point C, near the dateline, and hauls right to a southeast course, putting Pearl Harbor dead ahead, 1,000 miles over the bow. 

  

Dangle it!

"WASHINGTON (AP) - Facing massive job losses, the White House and congressional Democrats are working to provide about $15 billion in loans to prevent Detroit's weakened auto industry from collapsing."

One  can only hope.