Institute for Historical Review

rl Harbor: Fifty Years of Controversy

For the last time, Barnes outlined what he felt were the policies and events which had led to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Over the years, Barnes had revised a number of his own assumptions. One of these concerned Roosevelt's December 1, 1941 order to Admiral Hart at Manila, ordering the immediate dispatch of three "small vessels" armed with a machine gun and deck cannon, each commanded by a U.S. Naval officer, and flying the American flag. The three little ships were directed to sail into the path of Japanese Navy convoys that Washington knew were then steaming southward. Had the American ships been attacked by the Japanese, Barnes was now confident that this would have saved Pearl Harbor. "There can be little doubt that the Cockleship plan of December 1st was designed to get the indispensable attack by a method which would precede the Pearl Harbor attack, avert the latter, and save the Pacific Fleet and American lives," he wrote of this aspect of the mystery.

A part of the story that had hitherto been largely overlooked, even by many Revisionists, concerned the secret agreements Roosevelt had entered into with the British and Dutch and which led to America technically being at war with Japan four days before Pearl Harbor. As Barnes succinctly explained, in April 1941 the U.S., British, and Dutch agreed to take joint military action against Japan if the Japanese sent armed forces beyond the line 100 East and 10 North or 6 North and the Davao-Waigeo line, or threatened British or Dutch possessions in the southwest Pacific or independent countries in that region. The agreements were known as ABCD. Thereafter, Admiral Stark said that war with Japan was not a matter of if, but rather when and where. Roosevelt gave his approval to the attendant war plans in May and June. On December 3, 1941, the Dutch invoked the ABCD agree ment, after Japanese forces passed the line 100 East and 10 North, and were thought to be headed toward Dutch territory as well as the Kra Peninsula and Thailand. The U.S. military attache in Melbourne, Australia, Colonel Van S. Merle-Smith, was contacted by the Australians, British, and Dutch and informed that the Dutch were expecting the U.S. Navy to offer assistance. Merle-Smith relayed this information to his superiors by coded message. It should have reached Washington in the early evening of December 4.

Like a number of other students of the period, Barnes suspected that FDR had sought a "good war" to solve the serious economic problems that persisted throughout the New Deal. Whatever his motives, it was undeniable, he concluded, that:

The overwhelming responsibility for the war and the attack was, of course, Roosevelt's deliberate refusal to settle the relations between the United States and Japan in a peaceful manner by honest diplomatic negotiations, to achieve which Japan made unusually impressive gestures and offered very reasonable terms that protected all legitimate vital American interests in the Far East.

Pearl Harbor After a Quarter of a Century remains a note worthy contribution to the literature on the topic. It is as good an introduction to the issues involved as is currently in print.

Additional Pieces of the Puzzle

In the October 1962 issue of the United States Naval Institute Proceedings, Rear Admiral Kemp Tolley gave his account of having been the commander of one of the "little ships" hastily ordered out of Manila to monitor the Japanese Navy in early December of 1941. Although the bare essentials of the incident had been revealed during the Joint Congressional Hearings, Tolley's article sparked much comment. Additional research resulted in the publication of his book, The Cruise of the Lanikai: Incitement to War (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1973).

The Lanikai was a 67-ton two-masted auxiliary schooner engaged in inter-island traffic. Chartered for $1.00 by the U.S. Navy, it had a crew of five Filipino civilians, who could not speak English. Commander Harry Slocum informed a startled Lt. Tolley that "the President has personally ordered" him to set sail as soon as possible. The sailing ship was turned into a vessel of war by lashing to its deck an old 3-pounder gun left over from the Spanish-American War and two World-War I-vintage .30 caliber machine guns. The only radio available could receive messages but not transmit them. Nevertheless, he was ordered to sail for the coast of Indo-China and told to have someone work on the radio set while they were at sea.

In the event, neither the Lanikai, nor the other ships ordered out, the Isabel and the Molly Moore, were able to cross the paths of the Japanese. Only after the war did Tolley fully appreciate the role intended for the Lanikai -- that of "live bait."