December 7, 1941: PEACEFUL HAWAII IS BOMBED, HEAVY LOSSES:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, DECEMBER 7, 1941:

TOKYO, Dec. 7. - (U.P.) - The Japanese

Government today formally declared a state
of war with the United States and Great Britain
HONOLULU, Dec 7. - U.P. -- Parachute
troops were sighted off Harbor Point today.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 7, U.P. The White
House fears a heavy loss of life in Hawaii.

 

(Some west coast newspapers did publish reports of the attack, on Sunday December 7, 1941, but most were reporting the diplomatic approach by F.D.R. on the very date of the attack. (See below for excerpts of a report on the reason the surprise attack was successful.)

 

Request Asks

Hirohito Act
to Avoid War

Personal Note Ignores Tokyo Cabinet;

Washington Hears Two Big Convoys
on Way Toward Gulf of Siam

WASHINGTON —(U.P)— President Roosevelt Saturday night addressed a. personal message to Emperor Hirohito of Japan for maintenance of peace in the Pacific, which, the United States maintains is now threatened by reported Japanese military movements in Indo-China and the Gulf of Siam.

The state department announced that the message was being sent to Hirohito but would not disclose its contents.
Authoritative quarters, however, described it as an appeal to the emperor, over the heads of the Tokyo cabinet, to prevent a general Far Eastern explosion.
Simultaneously, the department said it had received reports of the presence of 125,000 Japanese troops in Indo-China, contrary to Tokyo's insistence that the number of troops there was "exaggerated."
The department said it also had reports indicating that two large and heavily escorted convoys had been seen Saturday morning, steaming westward past Point de Cameau in Indo-China toward the Gulf of Siam. Point de Cameau is the southern point of Indo-China.
Act Nearly Unprecedented
The President's action in addressing Hirohito personally was virtually unprecedented and indicated the gravity with which this government views the Far Eastern crisis. Once before, in protesting Japan's sinking of the U. S. gunboat Panay in 1937, the President had asked that the matter be called to the emperor's personal attention.

 

Honolulu Busy

as Key City in
Island Defense
Peaceful' Hawaii

Gone as Big Harbor
Guns Roar Daily

HONOLULU — (U.P) — Peaceful Hawaii—with big guns booming, warplanes droning overhead and defense works springing up like magic—is taking on the combined attributes of a war capital and a boom defense town, but the situation is neither as acute nor as dangerous as some reports recently circulated on the mainland would indicate.

Honolulu, crossroads of the Pacific and site of the base of the United States Pacific fleet, is ideally located as a rendezvous point for transpacific convoys.

The big guns of Hawaii's coast artillery and the batteries of the fleet often are heard in practice firing, which rattles the windows and dishes of Honolulu homes. War planes are so common in the Hawaiian skies that only the visitor of a few days bothers to look up as they roar past .

Practice Blackouts

Several nights a week searchlight beams stab the sky as antiaircraft defenses are put through practice paces. Pearl Harbor, the giant fleet base; Schofield barracks, the huge army post, and other army and navy centers often stage practice blackouts while the whole territory blacked-out under simulated air raid conditions one night last summer. It is not unusual to see steel-helmeted and a r m e d soldiers standing guard at bridges and vital installations 'at various points in the islands, as the army had been on a more or less continual "alert" for more than a year. Residents of Hawaii take all this and the discomforts caused by overcrowding as a result of the influx of huge numbers of defense workers as part of the situation necessary to the present critical world situation. Local residents are not much worried about what Japanese- Americans in the islands will do and on the basis of oft-repeated statements by high army and navy officials here, the military services are convinced of the loyalty to the United States of a majority of the Hawaiian Japanese-Americans. Censorship of a type is a recognized fact in Hawaii. It recently was announced that steamer mail schedules no longer will be published, while the navy recently requested press associations, newspapers and radio stations in the territory to refrain from making public the movements of commercial surface vessels to and from Hawaiian waters, with the exception of tourist ships traveling between Hawaii and the west coast of the mainland. Some Hawaiians have voiced displeasure at a bill recently sponsored in congress by the war department, which would give the president power to declare martial law in Hawaii and Puerto Rico whenever a state of emergency exists or Invasion threatens. These people point out that the territory recently passed an M-day bill giving the governor power to set up an organization to cope with an emergency situation and giving the governor almost dictatorial powers. They also point out that the governor, as an agent of the president and appointed by 'him, already has power to declare martial law.

 

(Below, E.T. presents an excerpt from “The Two Ocean War” by Samuel Elliot Morison. (1963))

(pages 52-53)

   “Admiral Stark and Rear Admiral Turner, the Navy War Plans chief, were in Stark’s office at 0915 Sunday, 7 December when Captain Wilkinson chief of Naval Intelligence and Commander McCollum head of his Far East Section brought in the translation of Tokyo’s Part 14, the “snapper” which broke off diplomatic relations. But even Part 14 did not declare war or threaten immediate attack.  About an hour later, Commander  McCollum brought in the “time of delivery” message, an order from Tokyo to it’s ambassadors to destroy all coding machines after presenting the fourteen-part note to Secretary Hull at 01300.  Sunday was an odd day and one P.M. a strange hour, for presenting a diplomatic note. What could it mean?

McCollum and his assistant, Lieutenant Commander A. D. Kramer, and Colonel Rufus S. Bratton of Army Intelligence, guessed the answer by consulting a time chart on the wall. One P.M. in Washington was 0730 at Pearl Harbor. That might be only a coincidence, but it might also mean an attack there --- for one P.M. in Washington is nighttime at Manila and Guam. Wilkinson suggested that Admiral Stark at once call Admiral Kimmel on the telephone. Stark demurred, feeling that since the Army was responsible for the defense of Hawaii, General Marshall should do it. Marshall, contacted on returning from his Sunday morning horseback ride came into Stark’s office at about 1115. In tense silence he read all fourteen parts, agreed that they meant immediate war, and that Pearl Harbor and Manila should be alerted at once. Marshall’s communicator said he would get the word to Pearl in twenty minutes. Rear Admiral Leigh Noyes, Director of Naval Communications, offered to send it through Navy channels. Stark declined (again Navy-Army punctilio), and the message---Just WHAT SIGNICANCE THE HOUR SET MAY HAVE WE DO NOT KNOW, BUT BE ON THE ALERT ACCORDINGLY ---- WAS FILED AT NOON 0630 in Hawaii. General Marshall called Army communication center thrice to make sure that the message had been filed and sent, and was assured that it had --- but by Western Union! There was a foul up that morning and the officer in charge intrusted the message to commercial channels. A boy on a bicycle delivered it to General Short some hours after the attack was over.”

On November 26, 1941,(U. S. date November 27) a Japanese task force (the Striking Force) of six aircraft carriers (Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū, Hiryū, Shōkaku, and Zuikaku) departed northern Japan en route to a position northwest of Hawaii, intending to launch its aircraft to attack Pearl Harbor. In all, 408 aircraft were intended to be used: 360 for the two attack waves, 48 on defensive combat air patrol (CAP), including nine fighters from the first wave. (The air portion of the attack on Pearl Harbor began at 7:48 a.m. December 7, Hawaiian Time ; 3:18 a.m. December 8 Japanese Standard Time,

(E. T. plans to present the above excerpt on January 25 to  indicate intelligence failures and missinterpetations that allowed a task force of this size to enact destruction agains U. S. possesions.)