Staff Report: Did Roosevelt know?

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

I can think of only one reason to drag Nixon into this - the question could be, “What did the President know, and when did he know it?” However, the real question would be, “What did the President intend, and what did he do about it?”

The Staff Report starts to spin right away. The revisionist criticism of Roosevelt is labelled a “rumor” before we even have a chance to cover any of the issues.

“The American military had borken Japanese codes.”

“what they had broken were diplomatic codes.”

This is not strictly true. Many Japanese military codes were also broken on or before Dec 7. In fact, virtually all of them had been, but the main operational code JN-25 was revised shortly before Dec 7, and exactly when it was penetrated again is still a closely kept secret to this day. However, the Staff Report seems to admit that Roosevelt know from the Purple (diplomatic) intercepts that an attack was imminent.

Also, the spy reports from the Japanese Consulate in Hawaii were intercepted and decoded. These revealed a peculiar interest in the exact positions of each warship within the harbor. This information was of tactical, not strategic value, and indicated an interest in immediate Japanese operations within the harbor.

“So the American government knew an attack on Pearl Harbor was coming?”

“No. The Japanese government was not in the habit of informing its diplomats of planned military strikes in detail.”

By making an overstatement of the question and making and absurd response to it, the author of the Staff Report is spinning again. A more reasonable question would be, “Did they know an attack against Hawaii was likely?” After all, the actual attack was not against Pearl Harbor, but against many targets across Oahu.

Given the time at which the diplomats in Washington were assigned to deliver the 14 part message, it can be deduced that the initial attack would not be anywhere west of Hawaii. The military technology of the day did not allow for any kind of major operations in complete darkness. The Japanese expected their 14 part message would tell the US they were attacking (as it did when delivered to Roosevelt the night before, when he said, “This means war.”) So they would be attacking within minutes of this delivery.

Next, the Staff Reports indicates that the debate between the value of battleships or carriers was not yet settled before Dec 7 and that it was not settled until after Midway.

In fact, the program to build a new navy was already underway before Dec 7, and this program envisioned vastly more carrier power in our navy than battleships.

Also, look at the Battle of Midway itself. Nimitz had 7 battleships available at that time, and left them ALL on the West Coast. He already considered them worthless for fleet against fleet operations where the enemy would employ carriers.

No, this point was already settled before Dec 7.

Rather than drag Nixon and Vince Foster into this issue, why not present the facts. What facts are offered in this report are very shaky.

2

Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board, tellison.

When you start a new thread, it is helpful to others if you provide a link to the Staff Report that you are discussing. Helps keep us all on the same page, and it helps others to read the Staff Report so they’ll have a context for your comments. In this case, I assume, it’s Straight Dope Staff Report: Did Roosevelt know in advance about the attack on Pearl Harbor yet say nothing?

3

I think that question was answered. “Likely” is a fuzzy word, but one can reasonably equate the two phrasings of the question. The answer is there were a lot of targets in the Pacific, and the likely ones were much closer to Japan.

4

The exact positions of ships in a major port like Pearl can be of strategic importance. If a battleship is in drydock, for instance, it is not going to be used for quite a while. If it is moored in various ports of the harbor, this can indicate if it is going to be soon going into an overhaul period and thus be unavailable. By tracking ship positionings in a harbor, especially over the course of time, a pattern can be seen and an adversary can see if the Navy is gearing up for action, or sending more ships in for repair for some reason. Navy fleet maintenance schedules can be extremely indicative of national war footing.

Yes, Washington was aware of the possbility of an attack. But the perception was that it was going to be sabotage or something along those lines (like a terrorist attack today) rather than a six-carrier attack. Hence certain instructions to CinCPac, etc. who were rather culpable for Pearl (not as much as MacArthur just after, but that’s for another time…).

Roosevelt’s remark about “this means war” is akin to when your wife is a couple unexplained hours late returning from work and the phone rings. The thought goes through your mind “Uh oh, it’s the cops or a hospital calling.” Also, he had no idea that the meeting was going to coincide with an attack. At most, it was a case of “Japan isn’t going to request this meeting unless it’s big. And anything big at this time means that they are going to make a stance that makes war basically inevitable.” By no means could they say that given the requested time the attack couldn’t happen west of Pearl. Is this point of yours a joke?

Please give me the names and dispostions of the 7 BBs you mention on the West Coast at the time of Midway. I am unaware of this fact and I am keenly interested. And Nimitz having only carriers out there is indicative of his extreme brilliance, not that carrier supremacy had been settled. Just like Nelson’s actions established new thought in naval warfare, so did Nimitz’s, but only after their successes were their methods established.

5

A few minutes work at this site:

http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/01idx.htm

will allow you to review the history of each individual battleship.

Nimitz’s decision to leave the battleships out of fleet action is similar to Kimmel’s decision to send the two carriers with reinforcements to Wake and Midway without the battleships. Kimmel also understood they were too slow to keep up if the carriers and their escorts had to run.

You did not respond to the preponderance of carriers in the construction already underway on Dec. 7. This proves the battleship/carrier debate had already been settled.

6

Just how long do you propose it takes to sortie a battleship from drydock? A battleship not in drydock will take some hours just to raise steam, perhaps about 4 hours. A battleship in drydock can be raising steam while the drydock is being flooded. I do not think getting the drydock flooded, opened, and having a tug pull the battleship out of drydock is going to take any longer than raising steam, so being in drydock is no indicator that the ship is unavailable.

Of course, the reason for drydocking is important. If the engines are down for overhaul, the ship won’t be moving soon. But most of the drydocking would be to scrape and paint the bottom, which can be suspended on short notice.

None of the material I’ve read about the Pearl Harbor Raid has indicated any other opinion than that the spy reports on ships positions within the harbor were for tactical use, indicating an intent to attack.

7

Next, overhauls and modernization of combat ships were predominantly done on the West Coast, not at Hawaii. The labor and materials were much more available there. The major shipyards where ships could be built were all there.

8

Nice link, but very little info for an individual BB unless something happened to it around that time. I see no “Pacific Order of Battle” or anything close to that.

Debate settled? Hmmm, you’re the first person I’ve ever read that said that the BB vs. CV debate had already been settled before (early-US) WWII. Sure there were supporters for both sides, but settled? Not hardly.

I’m not going to debate the Roosevelt issue, nor the settling of the BB/CV debate, at this point. If you want to debate it, open a thread in GD (after searching, etc.). Since you are accusing FDR, the burden of proof is on you. Nothing you have presented thus far is anything close to proof that FDR knew about the attack beforehand.
As far as commented on a Staff Report, which is what you’re supposed to do here, fine. You’ve commented on it, and I agree with your comments on the usual SD remarks. The usual smarmy little things that are thrown into a SD answer are indeed annoying.

9

About the drydock issue: I’m no sailor, so I can’t say just how long it would take to flood drydock and otherwise prepare the ship for departure. But that’s irrelevant. If a ship’s in drydock, isn’t it generally for some very good reason? Major overhauls/repairs, or the like? And most of those sorts of things, you can’t stop on four hours notice. So unless they had just finished whatever work they were doing, and were about to get the ship back in action anyway, it would have taken far longer than a few hours. Probably more like days.

10

Using the link I gave, choose one of the “Post Dreadnought Battleships” and scroll to the bottom of the page that come up. Click on DANFS History for a chronology.

For New Mexico you can read:

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, she returned to the west coast, and sailed 1 August 1942 from San Francisco to prepare i n Hawaii for action.

My conclusion about the BB/CV debate is based on what ships congress was ordering. The navy was already being shaped into what it would become.

No new battleship had been completed since CO and WV in 1921. In the period 1922-1941, 6 CVs were completed (Yorktown, Lexington, Ranger, Enterprise, Hornet, Wasp). By the end of 1941, 10 new BBs were building against 6 Essex class and 3 Independence class carriers.

However, no other BBs were authorized, nor was any other BB ever completed.

To simplify the explanation, the Act of 19 July 1940 authorized 4 new battleships and 14 new Essex class CVs.

http://www.ww2pacific.com/authoriz.html

The debate, as far as the predominance of the carrier in the future US Navy had been settled. These CVs cost about 80-90 million to build, compared with 100 million for an Iowa class BB, but that doesn’t include the cost of the aircraft. Far more money was authorized for carriers than for battleships by a factor of more than 4 to 1.

The fact that these new battleships had the same speed as carriers evidences the fact that the battleships were built to escort the carriers, not to be the core of a new battlefleet.

All of this was already decided by 1940.

11

Overhauls and major repairs were done on the west coast.

A warship in drydock at Pearl was likely being scraped and painted, work that could be suspended instantly.

I expect the Japanese were fully aware of this. The shipyards for major work were not in Hawaii.

12

Here is an interesting read…

http://www.aim.org/publications/aim_report/2003/11.html