ROOSEVELT APPEALS TO HIROHITO AFTER NEW THREAT IN INDO-CHINA; GERMANS TRAPPED AT TAGANROG (12/7/41)

Microfilm-New York Times archives, Monterey Public Library | 12/7/41 | Daniel T. Brigham, Otto D. Tolischus, Hanson W. Baldwin, Herman Wouk

[Fiji Hill]

On the news quiz, I missed five answers out of 31, so I earned a B.

[Cheburashka]

...the Oklahoma sinks but its later raised and scrapped.

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Minor correction: the Oklahoma was raised - and that in itself was a very difficult operation, to turn it rightside up and refloat it - and it was sold as scrap after the war, but it never made it to the breakers yard, as it sank en route to California.

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/pearlhbr/ph-ok9.htm

http://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/umrcourses/ge342/Salvage%20of%20USS%20Oklahoma.pdf

[Vermont Lt]

The King of the Belgians looks like he just got sentenced, rather than married.

[texanyankee]

"On the news quiz, I missed five answers out of 31, so I earned a B."

I thought it was 20 questions? I was stumbling....I probably got 5 right outta 20...

[Cheburashka]

Did the NYTimes publish a follow-up edition later that day?

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At that time there were morning and evening papers in each city, different papers publishing at different times of the day. You would buy one paper in the morning on the way to work and a totally different one on the way home. And remember that with the time zones it was already afternoon on the East Coast. So probably not.

[Fiji Hill]

I thought it was 20 questions?

Some of the questions required multiple answers, so I counted each one of those. If missing one answer makes you miss the entire question, then my grade is a C, since I would have missed five.

[beebuster2000]

guessing Knox will want a mulligan on his statement about the USN, by tomorrow.

also: the Hawaii “fortress” nonsense wont look too good tomorrow.

[GreenLanternCorps]

I don’t think anybody published a Sunday afternoon paper. Afternoon dailies that came out on Sunday usually published the Sunday paper in the morning. While the NY Times probably did not put out Extras, many other papers did.

Just found this book on the subject:

http://www.amazon.com/Pearl-Harbor-Extra-Newspaper-Account/dp/0785813411/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323279109&sr=1-1

[GreenLanternCorps]

Neither will this page from the Army-Navy Game program:

Note the name of the ship.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Neither will this page from the Army-Navy Game program:

The caption (picture apparently on next page, not shown):

"A bow on view of the U.S.S. Arizona as she plows into a huge swell. It is significant that despite the claims of air enthusiasts no battleship has yet been sunk by bombs."

Dear God.

[CougarGA7]

I absolutely KILLS me that I have to go defend a paper today and can't just stay home. Oh well, here my notes for today, obviously a little longer than usual. I usually take a little more time to put them in a better order but I'm in a rush today.

• "G-2 came in and motioned me to one side. I was floored when he asked me if we could encrypt a message in purple." - George Linn, a senior Navy code breaker

• "It is just unexplainable, much worse than anyone realizes...Knox feels something terrible...Stimson kept mumbling that all the planes were in one place...They have the whole fleet in one place...the whole fleet in this little Pearl Harbor base. They will never be able to explain it." - Henry Morganthau

• "Sunday, 7 December, dawned clear and cold at the front. Early morning Luftwaffe reconnaissance flights brought back reports of continuing heavy rail traffic toward Moscow and toward Tikhvin. At ground level, plumes of blowing snow restricted visibility and the roads drifted shut. During the night, the roads running east and southeast from Klin had filled with Third Panzer Group rear echelon trucks and wagons all heading west. How far west nobody knew. The front had already begun to pull back from the Moscow-Volga Canal. First Shock Army was following hesitantly behind the panzer group which because of the weather had already abandoned fifteen tanks, three heavy howitzers, a half-dozen anti-aircraft guns and dozens of trucks and passenger cars - more material than would ordinarily be lost in a week's heavy fighting. Troops could not tow the guns out of their emplacements. The motors of some vehicles would not start; the grease on the bearing and in transmissions in others froze while they were running. The 1st Panzer Division, which had been headed toward Krasnaya Polyana, had turned around during the night with orders to block the Soviet thrust toward Klin. In the morning it was extended over forty miles, bucking snowdrifts on jammed roads, with its tanks low on fuel" - 3rd Panzer Group Evening Message

• "The Japanese are presenting at 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, today, what amounts to an ultimatum. Also they are under orders to destroy their code machine immediately. Just what significance the hour set may have we do not know, but be on alert accordingly." Message from George C. Marshall to Pacific installations concerning the probability of hostilities with Japan. This message will not arrive in Hawaii until 11:45 a.m. Hawaii Time

• "Will the Ambassador please submit to the United States Government (if possible to the Secretary of State) our reply to the United States at 1:00 p.m. on the 7th, your time." - Message from Tokyo to Washington transmitted in Purple code. Translated December 7th.

• 181 Japanese fighters, dive-bombers, and torpedo planes come from the north over the hills of Kahuku Point to attack navy and army facilities on the island of Oahu.

• Across Oahu the Japanese destroyed 180 aircraft and damaged another 128.

• At 6:53 am the USS Ward reports attacking a submarine off the entrance to Pearl Harbor.

• Early in the day, Churchill learns that Roosevelt intends to announce on the 10th that any attack on the British or Dutch possession in the Far East will be considered an attack on the United States.

• Ensign J.K. Taussig got the USS Nevada underway in just 45 minutes. The ship was commanded by reservist Lieutenant Commander Francis J. Thomas with its anti-aircraft guns direct by Ensign Taussig.

• On the early morning of the 7th, the Navy did not have a translator on stations. The Navy handled Magic decrypts on odd numbered days and Captain Alvin D. Karmer was the designated translator for them. No one called him in when the message designating the time to deliver the 14 part message was intercepted at around 3:05 a.m.

• Only a few Catalina Flying boats were in the air on routine anti-submarine patrol to the west of Oahu as the Japanese approached and none of the army's anti-aircraft guns had been issued live ammunition. Additionally, the radar station at Opana, near Kahuku Point, was only operational from 4:00 to 7:00 am. Though they were operating late and spotted the Japanese formation at 7:02, they were mistaken for a flight of B-17 scheduled to come in from the West Coast.

[henkster]

Battleships in port have been sunk by torpedoes; just ask the Italians about that.

At this time, no battleship underway on the high seas with the crew at battle stations has been sunk by aerial attack alone.

We’ll have to wait a few more days for that to happen.

[henkster]

“Early in the day, Churchill learns that Roosevelt intends to announce on the 10th that any attack on the British or Dutch possession in the Far East will be considered an attack on the United States.”

I had not seen that before. Where did you get that tidbit?

This would end the debate whether Japan could have attempted a more limited “Southern Operation” aimed at only at Malaya and the NEI without bringing the United States into war.

[CougarGA7]

I got that little nugget from “Winston’s War” by Max Hastings. I’m in class getting ready to defend my paper so I don’t have the book with me to check the citation on it, but I find Hasting is pretty reliable.

[BroJoeK]

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December 7, 1941:

• "Carrier-based Japanese aircraft attack American naval bases in the Pacific, with heavy assaults against Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, as well as Clark Field in the Philippines; See December 8, 1941.

• "The Nazis begin gas-van extermination operations at the Chelmno, Poland, death camp."

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[GeronL]

I have every faith that Japan won’t attack the US, lol.

[CougarGA7]

Just following up with you on this. Hastings gets this reference from a memoir written by then U.S. Ambassador to Britain from the U.S., John G. Winant. The title of the memoir is “A Letter from Grosvenor Square.”

Just to put it all in better context I will put the passage from Hastings down. The notes I post can be a little rough since they are just a transcription of notes I take when I read that I put into a program I wrote that makes them searchable. They are a bit raw since they are really designed to direct me to a page in a book for when I’m doing research (I got tired of saying, “Which book did I read that in?”)

From Hastings:

On Sunday, December 7, Churchill learned that Roosevelt proposed to announce in three days’ time that he would regard an attack on British or Dutch possessions in the Far East as an attack on America. That day at lunch, U.S. ambassador “Gil” Winant was among the guests at Chequers. Churchill asserted vigorously that if the Japanese attacked the United States, Britain would declare war on Japan. Winant said he understood that, for the prime minister had declared it publicly. Then Churchill demanded: “If they declare war on us, will you declare war on them?” Winant responded: “I can’t anser that, Prime Minister. Only the Congress has the right to declare war under the United States constitution.” - Winston’s War, p. 180.

[henkster]

Hastings’ recount of the conversation between Winant and Churchill doesn’t exactly support his contention that FDR would make the pledge. I do recognize that Hastings is usually pretty reliable (I have his book “Armageddon”).

I don’t doubt that FDR wanted to make this declaration, and he may have felt that he had or would have the support from Congress to make it. I think the “three days’ time” comment, coupled with Winant’s acknowledgment that only Congress could declare war was Winant’s way of saying FDR intended to drum up support for the declaration and make sure Congress would support it.

This seems to be a very important piece of the complex international situation and despite the fact that I’ve studied WW2 for about 40 years, I don’t recall having seen it before. Maybe I just glossed over it since Pearl Harbor and the invasion of Malaya made it a moot point.

Even though much of what FDR did economically was not supported by the Constitution, he did recognize Constitutional protocols, unlike our current president.

[CougarGA7]

Well, all it says is that he considered an attack on the DEI or British as an attack on America. That doesn’t equate to a declaration of war for certain. FDR can make that pledge and still not commit to a war declaration since he knows he can’t. But he could escalate his already undeclared war by extending his policy in the Atlantic to the Pacific.

I’d bet he was pretty confident though that if the Japanese extended their fight in the Pacific to include the British that he might be able to get Congress to sign off on a declaration of war though.

[dfwgator]

Bump