Final Days Before War
While the United States Navy, by direction of the President, maintained a shoot on sight policy in the North Atlantic, it followed a different approach regarding the Pacific. In late November 1941 Secretary of War Henry Stimson informed commanders in the Pacific that negotiations with Japan appeared to be finished, at least as far as promising any real progress, and that they should expect to be attacked. On November 27 Stimson informed commanders in the Pacific that what the Japanese may do next was impossible to predict, but, “…the United States desires that Japan commit the first overt act.”
Documents which detail messages between Washington and the Pacific are frequently cited as evidence that not only was FDR and his leading advisors aware of the impending attack on Pearl Harbor, they deliberately withheld information from their officers in the Pacific. Another frequently cited bit of “evidence” was the absence of the American aircraft carriers at Pearl Harbor at the time of the attack. This is simply false. Nearly everyone in the chain of command knew that an attack was coming, the problem was that they didn’t know where it would take place.
US doctrine for years placed the Philippines as the most likely location for the brunt of the Japanese thrust, and the American troops there, despite the urgency and frequency of warnings to be prepared at all levels, was as surprised as had been the fleet and air power at Pearl Harbor, even though the Philippines were struck a full eight hours after Hawaii. The US command structure was simply moribund after years of peacetime, and unprepared for the flood of modern weapons and firepower with which the Japanese struck.
The Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor was a hit and run raid which destroyed the American battle line, but it is a myth that all of the American battleships were lost. The day after Pearl Harbor the United States still had the battleships New Mexico, Idaho, New York, Colorado, Mississippi, Texas, and Arkansas. What it did not have was a modernized battle fleet capable of engaging the Japanese fleet protected by air cover. Even if the Japanese had not attacked Pearl Harbor it is unlikely that the battle line stationed there could have relieved the Philippines once the Japanese established air superiority. Many American commanders were aware of this, it was the politicians and isolationists who were not.
The reason for waiting for the Japanese to strike the first blow was to accomplish exactly what was accomplished, the instant unification of the public towards the prosecution of the war against Japan. All of the necessary warnings were sent to the bases in the Pacific, yet few were prepared when they were struck on December 7 and 8 1941. There is no doubt that the US government wanted to stop the monstrous Nazi regime in Europe and the equally savage Japanese empire from enslaving and exterminating whole races of humans. But in the Pacific it tried to avoid combat as much as it could. It was the intransigence of the Japanese which led to the Pacific War. To them, conquest and enslavement was their divine right.
Where do we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
“Roosevelt Announces Destroyers for Bases Agreement”, by Daryl Worthington. The New Historian
“Great Britain and the Coming of the Pacific War”, by Peter Lowe
“US Destroyers: An Illustrated Design History”, Naval Institute Press
“Notable U.S. Navy Ships Lost Since World War II”, US Naval Institute