December 9, 2024 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, in honor of the anniversary of the Attack on Pearl Harbor, the late great historian Stephen Ambrose tells the story of 1941—the year that would bring America into WWII.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show
and our favorite subject history. Stephen Ambrose was one of
America's leading biographers and historians, and at the core of
Ambrose's success was his simple belief that history is biography,
that history is about people. Ambrose passed in two thousand
(00:32):
and two, but his storytelling can now be heard here
in Our American Stories, thanks to those who run as Estate.
Here's Ambrose telling the story of the year nineteen forty one,
a year that would bring the United States into World
War Two in December after the Japanese sneak attack on
Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
As the year opened to the aggressors were on the
march around the world.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Mussolini had overrun.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Ethiopia and was about to log an attack out of
Albania that he had recently conquered down into Greece. The
Japanese had taken Manchuria had taken much of eastern China,
were at war with the Red Army in Mongolia in
(01:18):
nineteen thirty nine and in nineteen forty, and were laying
plans to move even further south after their conquest in
the fall of nineteen forty of French Indo China, moving
down towards Bury's Malaya and the Dutch East Indies. Greisan
(01:39):
was being rewarded, and especially so in Hitler's case, where
at the beginning of nineteen forty he stood astride the
continent like a colossus, more so even than Napoleon, more
than the Holy Roman Emperor, more than Julius Caesar. He
(02:03):
was the greatest conqueror the world has seen. At the
beginning of nineteen forty one, Hitler either had an alliance
with or was in military occupation of all of Europe
from the Black Sea through what used to be Poland
up to Lithuania.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Poland had disappeared from the map.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Germany had annexed the eastern two forces of excuse me,
the western two forests of Poland, and the Russians had
the eastern half, and so Poland was off the map
at the beginning of nineteen forty one, so two for Czechoslovakia,
which had been divided into protectorates under the Germans, Bohemia
and Moravia, but Zchoslovakia had disappeared. Hungary was an ally. Austria,
(02:49):
of course, had been incorporated. Italy was an ally. Hitler
was about to invade Yugoslavia, and in the course of
the spring of nineteen forty one would take Yugoslavia. Hitler
had taken Denmark and Norway, and Holland and Belgium, and
of course France down to the line that separated vs
from occupied France. And Spain of course was an ally,
(03:10):
and the Soviet Union was an ally, providing Hitler with
raw materials and food stuffs that were critical to his
war machine.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
As against this, Britain still.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Alone the only nation in the world that was continuing
the fight against Hitler. Meanwhile, in the United States, the
argument still was between isolationists and interventionists. That is, the
isolationists remained very strong, representing a significant portion of the population.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Whether it was.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Forty five or fifty or fifty five percent can't be
said with any accuracy, but that it was a significant
portion of the population is clear enough and was a
retarding factor. In America is trying to catch up after
years of neglectuy of armed forces with what had happened
(04:12):
around the world of the nineteen thirties, to try to
come up with some modern tanks, modern aircraft come up
with them and something approaching the numbers that America's potential
and real enemies had reached and were reaching. An arms production,
expanding the personnel.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Of the army, in the Navy and the Air Force,
and the coast Guard.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
All these things were beginning to happen at the beginning
of nineteen forty one in the United States, but at
a snail's pace. There was not a sense of urgency
in it, or the sense of teamwork to it that
were necessary to the kind of expansion that the times required.
(05:00):
Wasn't much of an influence on world affairs because we
didn't have much firepower. Still, it was the richest country
in the world with worldwide interest, and obviously it was
going to have and did have an impact on the
development of events, if not at all commiserate with its
size and wealth. The big event of the first part
(05:23):
of nineteen forty one was with the coming of the
longer nights in the North Atlantic the Battle of the Atlantic.
The German u boat fleet their submarine fleet went all
out to try to blockade Britain in a resumption of
what Ludendorf had started in January of nineteen seventeen and
(05:44):
what had brought the United States into the First World
War unrestricted submarine warfare around the British Isles.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
The British suffered previously in this War of attrition.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Britain could not build ships fast enough to replace those
that the submarines were sinking. Brief countermeasures against the submarine
were ineffectual or at least insufficient.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
They were just beginning to bring.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Sonar online, and we're beginning to improve their radar and
starting to get more destroyers.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Out there with the convoys.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
But nevertheless, for the most part, Admirald Durnets of the
Commander in chief of the German U boat Fleet was
winning the Battle of the Atlantic at the beginning of
the Longer Nights in nineteen forty one, and this was
obviously critical, just as it had been in nineteen seventeen,
and just as in nineteen seventeen when it had been
the threat of Britain being cut off from the rest
(06:37):
of the world that had brought the United States.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Into the war. We've played a major role in that decision.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
So too, in nineteen forty one we moved very much
closer to Britain and took much larger risk than Roosevelt
had previously done. Rather than see Britain get cut off
from the.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
World, and thus.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Our closeness to war came to depend very heavily on
the fate of Britain. All eggs short of war is
what Roosevelt promised through the first part of nineteen forty one.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
And you're listening to Steven Ambrose. The story of nineteen
forty one is told by the very best there is
on World War Two. Our American Stories continues with Stephen
Ambrose after these messages.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
Here are our American Stories.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
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Speaker 1 (07:52):
Give a little, give a lot, help us keep the
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And we continue with our American Stories, and with Stephen
Ambrose painting a picture of gloom. It was Britain alone,
(08:17):
great Britain alone, fighting this war machine.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Let's return to Steven Ambrose.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
And actually one very far short of war. In the
spring of nineteen forty one, he sent US troops to Greenland.
That meant that the British could pull their troops out
of Greenland and send them to North Africa, where they
had an active campaign going on. And then later in
July nineteen forty one, Roosevelt sent marines to Iceland. They
relieved the British battalion was there, which then went down
(08:44):
into the Middle East to fight in the Desert battles.
This was a full fledged alliance, except that the United
States was not a belligerent.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Partner in it.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
But we weren't far short of being a belligerent partner
in this alliance. The big event of nineteen forty one
that captures everyone's attention the invasion of the Soviet Union
by Nazi Germany and her allies. Italians and Romanians and
(09:20):
Hungarians were all a part of this invading force.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
This was an invasion of Eastern Europe by Central Europe.
This was the Genghis Khan in reverse.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
This was the greatest military operation of all time in
terms of the size of the forces involved and the
casualties inflicted. It was a gigantic struggle.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
That was.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Critical to the outcome of the Second World War. So
obviously you feel almost folly saying it, but this is
where the Second World War was decided, on this Eastern Front,
where the Wehrmacht lost eight out of every ten soldier
was killed in the Second World War. In the United States,
(10:08):
Roosevelt typically was back and forth.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
He issued very.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Tough orders for the Navy in the North Atlantic so
that we got into what was an undeclared war, the
first of these presidential undeclared wars. Then the next ACCOM
was going to be Korean, then it was going to
be Vietnam. But the first was the naval war in
the North Atlantic in the summer and fall nineteen forty one.
(10:39):
Roosevelt had the US Navy cooperating with the British right
on up to Iceland, and even beyond working together, there
were some restrictions on what Americans could do. American destroyers
were not supposed to throw depth charges at German submarines,
and I don't know if that was ever violated or not.
(11:00):
What they were, however, allowed to do, and were sent
to do ordered to do, was to track German submarines
and inform the British.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Destroyers in the area where they were.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
And this was done, and in July a German submarine
turned on its American pursuer, a destroyer named the Reuben James,
and fired a couple of torpedoes at it and hit
it and sank it. Roosevelt was outraged. He spoke of
these rattlesnakes of the Atlantic. He said that the Reuben
(11:34):
James was on innocent passage carrying nothing but mail to Iceland.
All which was I mean, of course, they were carrying
mailed Iceland. They are carrying it to US Marine Division
Station Ouer of a battalion station on Iceland, and they
were radioing the German subsposition and saw it. But Roosevelt
(11:56):
was able to present this as an innocent American destroyer
out of the North Atlantic mining its own business, and
these bastardly Germans just shoot.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
It down, And so he declared naval war on Germany.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
He gave the United States Navy orders to shoot on
site against German war vessels in the North Atlantic. Now
let's turn to the Far East. And as it were,
see how Roosevelt managed to get America into the war
(12:33):
as a unified nation. Something that right up till the
first week of December of nineteen forty one, no one
thought possible. Well in the Pacific, the Japanese were the aggressors,
as the Italians and the Germans were in Europe. The
Japanese Army had taken control of Japanese politics in the
(12:54):
nineteen twenties and the beginning of the nineteen thirties, primarily
through political assassinations. Any politician who disagreed with them, they
just killed them, and pretty soon not very many politicians
would disagree with them. And their program was based on
racial ideas of Japanese superiority and the inferiority of all
the peoples around them, especially Koreans and Chinese, but to
(13:18):
including Russians.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
And in fact including everybody else too. Asia.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
For the Asians, they didn't add that. They meant Asians
for certain Asians Us. They did say that all Asians
are equal. They didn't add what they really meant, but
some of us are more equal than others. What I'm
getting to here is that the Japanese as conquerors proved
to be as peastual as the Nazis were. They raped
(13:54):
and pillaged and looted and shot and had mass executions
and carried out atrocity in the footsteps of their advancing
troops all through Asia. The worst country to be in
the Second World War was China. Not Russia, not Germany,
not even Yugoslavia, which was god awful, not even the Philippines,
(14:17):
which are terrible.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
It was China. The Japanese. In China.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
The story that that that the Japanese really had managed
pretty well to, if not suppress entirely, to get most
of the world to forget in response to these Japanese
advances in Asia and especially into China, where Americans felt
they had a special relationship based partly on people like
(14:42):
Henry LUs and the missionaries, partly on the so called
China lobby in the United States, primarily West Coast politicians
and businessmen who were eager to trade with China, primarily
a very deep admiration that many Americans had with things Chinese.
We had this special relationship with China, and from the
beginning of the Japanese invasion of China, the United States
(15:03):
have taken the position that we will not recognize these
areas that you have conquered as being under your control.
We insist on an open door in China, and from
the first the Americans had as a stated principle, before
anything else can happen in our diplomacy or in our relationship,
the Japanese have got to pull out of China, something
(15:27):
that the Japanese were absolutely never gonna do. So you
had two non negotiable positions being taken by the contending sides.
And almost to just that sence, I can say, and
so that's why we had a Second World War in
the Pacific. The Japanese will not pull out of China.
(15:49):
We would not recognize their conquest of China. If Japan
wanted to become a great power, she was gonna have
to conquer the Natural Resources Act on her home islands.
And if she did that, she was going to get
driven back by the Americans and the British. But she
was going to get driven back anyway she felt, and
(16:09):
better to go down fighting, better to have taken the chance,
better to have tried.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Than never to have tried at all.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Japan entered the war, a prince of the Imperial family
said later, with a tragic determination and desperate self abandonment. Well,
in the nineteen forty one there was no question for
the Japanese. They were going to extend their war. They
were going to push on with their conquest, but against
(16:34):
whom they were very tempted. In June of nineteen forty one,
when Heaver invaded the Soviet Union, Stalin had to strip
down his armies in Siberia the Great Russian Frontier Regions
to bring troops back for the defense of Moscow. So
that for the Japanese, who were the traditional enemies of
(16:56):
the Russians, the Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union opened
up some very tempting possibilities to strike north. And this
is very oil rig and mineral rick country up here
in Sibery, very tempting to the Japanese. On the other hand,
(17:16):
they were attempted to go south. The Japanese argued among
themselves over this. Roosevelt, by the way, listening to the argument,
because it was being carried out between diplomats, and the
United States had broken the Japanese diplomatic code. Eventually, the
Japanese decided to go south. That's where the more immediately
(17:38):
exploitable resources were.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
And you're listening to Steven Ambrose tell the story of
nineteen forty one, like nobody else can when we come
back more with Steven Ambrose, the story of nineteen forty
one here.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
On our American stories.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
And we continue with our American stories and Steven Ambrose
telling the story of a year, and in this case
a pretty important one.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Nineteen forty one.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
The Philippines wasn't pumping any oil. The Philippines didn't have
a lot in the way of minerals. Philippines' biggest cash
crop was mahogany, which wasn't all that important or valuable
to the Japanese to a japan at war, So why
attack the Philippines at all? Why bring the United States
(18:41):
into this war because they sit right.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
In the middle of our line of communications.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
And Roosevelt, in order to deter the Japanese that just
sent America's super weapon out too clark Field outside of Manila,
fifty B seventeen four engine bombers, as it were, to
tell the Japanese, Yes, if you do attack to the south,
I'm going to interdict your supply columns with these be seventeens.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
The thinking in the Japanese high command then beginning with
this idea that we're going to have to attack the Philippines,
led to the development of a plan to attack, of
all places out here in the middle of the Pacific,
(19:32):
at Honolulu. Now, why on Earth if they're going south,
are they're going to be sending forces out on a
flanking operation out into the middle of a vast ocean. Well,
because Roosevelt also has a detern to the Japanese had,
beginning in nineteen forty one, stationed the United States Pacific Fleet,
taking it out of San Diego and putting it an base.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
At Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
And Admiral Yamamato, the Japanese naval commander in chief, who
had studied in the United States and who knew Americans,
and who had quite a reputation as a poker player, said, listen,
(20:21):
if we're going to get America into this war by
attacking the Philippines on the first day, we're going to
have to take out the American fleet in Hawaii. That's
the only way that we can proceed with our conquest
of the Dutch East Indies and Malaya. Otherwise the Americans.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Will be too powerful.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
They'll be sailing out of Hawaii, coming across the Western
Pacific and hitting our lines of evance. So we've got
to hit Pearl Harbor. We got to hit the American
fleet at Pearl Harbor. We got to take it out,
and it can be done. He came up with a
brilliant plan using five aircraft carriers to sail to within
two hundred miles of Hawaii and then launch from these
(21:01):
five aircraft carriers dive bombers and fighter bombers and zero's
of the fighter airplane on the American base in Hawaii.
And the Army looked at this idea and they say,
you're nuts. But Yamamato insisted that if we're going to
go to war, we've got to knock out the American
fleet first. Now, he was a complex guy, very intelligent man.
(21:22):
He went on to say at these staff meetings and
the Emperor on one occasion, we can't ever win a
war in the United States. I've been there, I've seen
the United States, and if we get these people riled up,
they'll fight to the finish. You may have this contempt
for them, but I've studied the American Civil War and
I know what kind of stock these Americans come from.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
And we'll never win a war in the United States.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
But if you're insisting on going to war in the
United States, for God's sakes, you've got to start up
with an attack on Hawaii and take out the American
fleet and a surprise attack, just as the Japanese had
taken out the Russian fleet at the beginning of the
war between Russia and Japan in nineteen oh.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Five with a surprise attack.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
And eventually he was able to convince his colleagues and
the general staff, and the attack on Pearl Harbor was
laid on, and the Japanese began to prepare for it
with some very extensive, very well executed, well thought out,
well done training operations.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Now we come to question that has a real life
to it.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
It's gone on for now fifty five years and bids
fair to go on for another one hundred or more.
The question is did Franklin Roosevelt know the Japanese were
during the attack as at Pearl Harbor? Did Roosevelt take
the back door to war? Did Roosevelt tricken maneuver his
country into war? Yes and no is the answer. I
(23:10):
think critics can rightly point to some of his actions
with regarded Japan, especially with freezing assets at a time
when he knew from their exchanges that they were feeling
desperate and were going to strike. No any specific charage
that he.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Knew an attack was coming on Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
I think on December Satura, nineteen forty one, Franklin Roosevelt
expected the Japanese to attack the Philippines.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Probably that day.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
I think he was astonished because everybody else in the
world was when they attacked Pearl Harbor. People say that
they Roosevelt had information that he didn't share with his
commanders in Hawaii.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
And this is just nonsense.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
The information that he kept from them, Well, this information
was coming up from serving Army and Navy offer and
those were their friends out there in the Philippines and
in Hawaii. And you think that they would have sat
on this kind of information if they'd had anything so clear.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Cut as that.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
What went wrong at the reason that Pearl Harbor excites
this as partly Frank Roosevelt was Frank Roosevelt. He was
a very hated man and a very much loved man.
He was one of the most polarizing of our presidents,
at least as much so as Richard Nixon, and the
people who hated Roosevelt tended to be. Obviously they were
(24:33):
far more republican than not in tended to be isolationist,
and they were therefore receptive to this argument that Roosevelt
had taken us through the back door to war, and
that Roosevelt that sob had.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Known Paul along that that attack was.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Coming, and he didn't tell those boys, and he didn't
give him the cans. And you'd hear that in bar
in country clubs all over the country. Yea, there just
doesn't anything to it. Roosevelt did not know an attack
was coming on Pearl Harbor anymore than anyone else did.
Roosevelt basque in the same cocoon that Short and Kimmel
(25:21):
did that, General Marshall did that. Everybody in the American
military and everybody in the country did.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Nobody thought that.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
I mean to put it bluntly, nobody thought that those
little yellow could do something like this.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
That's what it came down to.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Roosevelt or Marshall had described Pearl Harbor as the strongest
fortress in the world.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
He said the Japanese couldn't get it in seven hundred
and fifty miles of it.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Kimmel, in short, knew that the war was coming. Everybody
knew the war was coming because the negotiations had broken down.
We had told the Japanese were not gonna lift this
embargo or unfreeze your assets until you get out of
Indo China. And the Japanese had just spent a lot
of blood, treasure and emotion on taking Kinda and Indo China.
(26:09):
They were about to back out, and we knew that,
and they knew.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
We weren't going to back down.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
And so now it's Secretary of State Cardell Hall set
now it's up to the Army of the Navy, I
would draw I'm out of here. That was in the
middle of November, and they began sending out messages to
all the commanders in the Pacific and Panama and around
the world to look out, we're breaking off negotiations and
war is expected at any moment. On December one, Kimmel
(26:35):
and Shark got a message identical from General Marshall in
the War Department that began, this is a war warning.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
And you're listening to Steven Ambrose and he is telling
the story of nineteen forty one and dealing with the
mythology that Roosevelt somehow knew all along that Pearl Harbor
was going to be hit and just let it happen.
And I think he does this superb job of putting
that at bay. When we come back more of this
(27:05):
remarkable storytelling from one of the greats and certainly the
very best on the subject of World War Two, Stephen
Ambrose continues the story of nineteen forty one here on
our American stories, And we continue here with our American
(27:39):
stories and Steven Ambrose telling the story of nineteen forty one.
Let's pick up where Ambrose lasts left off.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Now, you ask Colin Earth, could kim Olystart be caught
by surprise in a situation like this? I did to
add to it, a situation in which the American intelligence
had lost the Japanese.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Fleet, the carrier fleet.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
One of the greatest intelligence bunders of all history. The
Pacific world was about to go to war, and American
intelligence lost track of the Japanese strongest striking force, didn't
know where they were, didn't know if.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
They had gone south north.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
West where. So how did Kimmel and Shark get caught
by surprise? Well, for one, it's really not difficult end
or sand.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Actually. For one thing, the Japanese did everything right.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
From the moment that the carriers left Tokyo the harbor,
they maintained radio silence, even very low volume talk between
ships themselves. Everything was done by semaphore. They could receive
messages from Japan, but they didn't send out anything at all.
So that our breaking of the Japanese code that is
no good, because it doesn't any good to have broken
(28:59):
the cod when they're not as in the radio. Kimmelin
Sharp prepared for war by doing the sensible things, and
a commander on the way you ought to do. They
put their planes together in the middle of the runway,
wing tip to wing tip. That's much the best way
to protect your planes from saboteurs. There was a great
fear that Japanese saboteurs were on Pearl Harbor, that they
(29:24):
would strike when hostilities began.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Another factor in how the Japanese pulled this one off was.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
American I don't want to say complacency, because that's not
what I mean. The American It had become routine. There
had been so many false alarms. There had been so
many times in nineteen forty one when negotiations were breaking
down and people were worried that war might come at
any moment, that there had been too many full alerts,
(30:06):
which of course interfered would drill and training, so that
even when warned to be on full alert, they weren't.
They couldn't, they couldn't take it seriously enough. A lot
of little things went wrong in the morning of December
seventh for the US Navy. We did have radar. We
(30:27):
were just coming on to radar. It was not common issue.
It was still experimental, but radar was there, and we'd
gotten some tips from the British who had used radar
very successfully in the Battle of Britain. And there was
a radio station on a way It was beaming out
in the direction that the Japanese planes were coming from
in the pre dawn hours of the seventh day of
(30:48):
December of nineteen forty one. And these radar operators they
were out there for a stay of time. They were
stay of their post until seven am, and then they
were supposed to be relieved by another team. Well seven
am and the other team wasn't there. And they noted
some blips on the screen. They saw planes were approaching,
and they got on the phone and called back to base,
and the and the lieutenant back there, the duty officers. Oh,
(31:12):
they were expecting some B seventeens to be coming in
from San Francisco, and those must be them, so you
can go ahead and shut down your radar for the day.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
And so they shut it down, went back.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
The first shots fired at Pearl Harbor were fired by
an American destroyer that caught a Japanese midget submarine coming
through into Pearl Harbor and attacked it at about four thirty.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
In the morning.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Successfully, four of those midget submarines, by the way, came
into to the harbor that day and all four three
of the four were sunk. I guess one of them
did get away there. They didn't do much damage. And
then it, as all the world knows, at seven thirty
the Japanese cang out Tora Tora Torah came roaring in
(32:00):
and saw sight that they never thought in their wildest
dreams they would see the American battleships and cruisers tied
up side by side, stemed the stern all together in
one place. Can't miss it, and they just blew the
American Pacific Fleet out of the water. Six battleships sunk
(32:22):
in one hour. They hadn't sunk that many battleships in
the greatest naval battle ever fought at Jutland in a
whole day of fighting, and he's got six in an hour,
three cruisers and many destroyers damaged, thirty six hundred men killed.
(32:43):
The fighter air force on the island, the land based
US Army Air Force, and the marine contingent were just
destroyed on the ground. And it was a humiliating defeat
for the United States. And it was the best thing
that ever happened in the United States. And to Franklin Roosevelt,
(33:05):
it did. I I it was the one act, the
only act that could have brought this country together, and
it did. It helped enormously that the Japanese, who were
so efficient and indeed brilliant in the way they carried
out the attack, were politically so inept that they forgot
(33:25):
to hand in or did not manage to hand in
the declaration of war until one hour after the attack began.
And that became a newsreel that I think in my
lifetime I must have seen a thousand times.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
They showed it to us. It seems like every.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Newsreel during World War Two of the Japanese ambassadors arriving
to present the declaration of war to the Secretary of
State an hour after.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
Pearl Harbor had started. Uh, the national outrage was palpable.
You could that, you could smell it, you could touch it.
The sense of.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
We're all in this together. We've got to have revenge
feelings that Roosevelt would never had not been able to,
would never have been.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Able to produce without Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Pearl Harvard did the thing the young model, and most
feared that Young Motto knew as I say that Japan
can't win the Second War, he did think, if we
knock out their fleet, it'll take them two years to
build a new and meanwhile, I will build a defensive
perimeter in the Pacific that'll be so expensive for them
to attack that they'll give it up and agree to
(34:40):
a compromise piece that will allow us to keep China.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
And away on a. Motto's strategy was similar to Ho
Chi minh.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
If fight at democracy, you just outweigh them, just keep
inflicting casualties, and pretty soon they'll quit. Just won't be
important enough to them. Pearl Harvard made it important enough.
Pearl Harror meant that we were going to go.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
On to the end. Whatever.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Therefore, absolutely now added to the shame of Pearl Harbor
was what happened in the Philippines, where the Japanese caught
Douglas MacArthur's B seventeen's on the ground on Clarkfield, wind up,
wingtip to wingtip, protected by centuries from possible savageurs coming
(35:20):
in from the jungle, without an Ani aircraft guns looking
up because the nearest Japanese base was twenty miles beyond
their maximum the known maximum range of their zeros. But
the Japanese pilots, who knew how to maintain these rpns
so that they never varied one little millimeter from it
(35:41):
for hours on end, got that extra twenty miles out
of their zeros and got over Clarkfield and destroyed America's
Air Force, America's bomber Air Force fifty planes in the Pacific,
and this.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Added to the national humiliation.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Roosevelt spoke for all Americans the next day in a
joint section of Congress. Yesterday, December seventh, nineteen forty one,
a date which will live in infamy, the United States
was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces
of the Empire of Japan. He asked the Congress to
recognize that a state of war now existed between the
(36:23):
Empire of Japan and the United States, and Congress did
so with only one dissenting vote that came from a
congresswoman from Missoula, Montana, who had also voted against entering
into World War One. And so America was at war,
but only on one front. Roosevelt had not asked for
(36:45):
a declaration of war against Germany. He had no more
reason to ask for a declaration of war against Germany
on December eighth than he had had on December sixth.
Germany had an attacked the United States Japan him, but
all the plans called for fighting the war against Germany first,
and this put Roosevelt in something of a dilemma. And
(37:05):
we don't know what he would have done about it,
how he would have handled that problem. Hitler solved it
for him by inexplicably declaring war on the United States,
a decision that no one has ever understood. He was
not required to do it by his pact with Japan,
which was a defensive pact. It brought him no benefits.
It brought in Now the United States is his sworn enemy,
(37:32):
and so nineteen forty One came to an end, with
the United States now fully involved in but still woefully
unprepared for, the Second World One.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
And you've been listening to the great Steven Ambrose. And
thanks to his estate for letting us use so much
of this remarkable storytelling, this time about the year nineteen
forty one. Thanks to Greg Hangler for all the work
he does on these pieces. And if you want to
hear more from Steven Ambrose, go to our American Stories
dot com and just type in the word Ambrose on
(38:05):
the search bar. The story of nineteen forty one is
told by Steven Ambrose here on our American Stories
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show
and our favorite subject history. Stephen Ambrose was one of
America's leading biographers and historians, and at the core of
Ambrose's success was his simple belief that history is biography,
that history is about people. Ambrose passed in two thousand
(00:32):
and two, but his storytelling can now be heard here
in Our American Stories, thanks to those who run as Estate.
Here's Ambrose telling the story of the year nineteen forty one,
a year that would bring the United States into World
War Two in December after the Japanese sneak attack on
Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
As the year opened to the aggressors were on the
march around the world.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Mussolini had overrun.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Ethiopia and was about to log an attack out of
Albania that he had recently conquered down into Greece. The
Japanese had taken Manchuria had taken much of eastern China,
were at war with the Red Army in Mongolia in
(01:18):
nineteen thirty nine and in nineteen forty, and were laying
plans to move even further south after their conquest in
the fall of nineteen forty of French Indo China, moving
down towards Bury's Malaya and the Dutch East Indies. Greisan
(01:39):
was being rewarded, and especially so in Hitler's case, where
at the beginning of nineteen forty he stood astride the
continent like a colossus, more so even than Napoleon, more
than the Holy Roman Emperor, more than Julius Caesar. He
(02:03):
was the greatest conqueror the world has seen. At the
beginning of nineteen forty one, Hitler either had an alliance
with or was in military occupation of all of Europe
from the Black Sea through what used to be Poland
up to Lithuania.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Poland had disappeared from the map.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Germany had annexed the eastern two forces of excuse me,
the western two forests of Poland, and the Russians had
the eastern half, and so Poland was off the map
at the beginning of nineteen forty one, so two for Czechoslovakia,
which had been divided into protectorates under the Germans, Bohemia
and Moravia, but Zchoslovakia had disappeared. Hungary was an ally. Austria,
(02:49):
of course, had been incorporated. Italy was an ally. Hitler
was about to invade Yugoslavia, and in the course of
the spring of nineteen forty one would take Yugoslavia. Hitler
had taken Denmark and Norway, and Holland and Belgium, and
of course France down to the line that separated vs
from occupied France. And Spain of course was an ally,
(03:10):
and the Soviet Union was an ally, providing Hitler with
raw materials and food stuffs that were critical to his
war machine.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
As against this, Britain still.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Alone the only nation in the world that was continuing
the fight against Hitler. Meanwhile, in the United States, the
argument still was between isolationists and interventionists. That is, the
isolationists remained very strong, representing a significant portion of the population.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Whether it was.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Forty five or fifty or fifty five percent can't be
said with any accuracy, but that it was a significant
portion of the population is clear enough and was a
retarding factor. In America is trying to catch up after
years of neglectuy of armed forces with what had happened
(04:12):
around the world of the nineteen thirties, to try to
come up with some modern tanks, modern aircraft come up
with them and something approaching the numbers that America's potential
and real enemies had reached and were reaching. An arms production,
expanding the personnel.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Of the army, in the Navy and the Air Force,
and the coast Guard.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
All these things were beginning to happen at the beginning
of nineteen forty one in the United States, but at
a snail's pace. There was not a sense of urgency
in it, or the sense of teamwork to it that
were necessary to the kind of expansion that the times required.
(05:00):
Wasn't much of an influence on world affairs because we
didn't have much firepower. Still, it was the richest country
in the world with worldwide interest, and obviously it was
going to have and did have an impact on the
development of events, if not at all commiserate with its
size and wealth. The big event of the first part
(05:23):
of nineteen forty one was with the coming of the
longer nights in the North Atlantic the Battle of the Atlantic.
The German u boat fleet their submarine fleet went all
out to try to blockade Britain in a resumption of
what Ludendorf had started in January of nineteen seventeen and
(05:44):
what had brought the United States into the First World
War unrestricted submarine warfare around the British Isles.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
The British suffered previously in this War of attrition.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Britain could not build ships fast enough to replace those
that the submarines were sinking. Brief countermeasures against the submarine
were ineffectual or at least insufficient.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
They were just beginning to bring.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Sonar online, and we're beginning to improve their radar and
starting to get more destroyers.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Out there with the convoys.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
But nevertheless, for the most part, Admirald Durnets of the
Commander in chief of the German U boat Fleet was
winning the Battle of the Atlantic at the beginning of
the Longer Nights in nineteen forty one, and this was
obviously critical, just as it had been in nineteen seventeen,
and just as in nineteen seventeen when it had been
the threat of Britain being cut off from the rest
(06:37):
of the world that had brought the United States.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Into the war. We've played a major role in that decision.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
So too, in nineteen forty one we moved very much
closer to Britain and took much larger risk than Roosevelt
had previously done. Rather than see Britain get cut off
from the.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
World, and thus.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Our closeness to war came to depend very heavily on
the fate of Britain. All eggs short of war is
what Roosevelt promised through the first part of nineteen forty one.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
And you're listening to Steven Ambrose. The story of nineteen
forty one is told by the very best there is
on World War Two. Our American Stories continues with Stephen
Ambrose after these messages.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
Here are our American Stories.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
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Speaker 1 (07:52):
Give a little, give a lot, help us keep the
great American stories coming. That's our American Stories dot Com.
And we continue with our American Stories, and with Stephen
Ambrose painting a picture of gloom. It was Britain alone,
(08:17):
great Britain alone, fighting this war machine.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Let's return to Steven Ambrose.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
And actually one very far short of war. In the
spring of nineteen forty one, he sent US troops to Greenland.
That meant that the British could pull their troops out
of Greenland and send them to North Africa, where they
had an active campaign going on. And then later in
July nineteen forty one, Roosevelt sent marines to Iceland. They
relieved the British battalion was there, which then went down
(08:44):
into the Middle East to fight in the Desert battles.
This was a full fledged alliance, except that the United
States was not a belligerent.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Partner in it.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
But we weren't far short of being a belligerent partner
in this alliance. The big event of nineteen forty one
that captures everyone's attention the invasion of the Soviet Union
by Nazi Germany and her allies. Italians and Romanians and
(09:20):
Hungarians were all a part of this invading force.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
This was an invasion of Eastern Europe by Central Europe.
This was the Genghis Khan in reverse.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
This was the greatest military operation of all time in
terms of the size of the forces involved and the
casualties inflicted. It was a gigantic struggle.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
That was.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Critical to the outcome of the Second World War. So
obviously you feel almost folly saying it, but this is
where the Second World War was decided, on this Eastern Front,
where the Wehrmacht lost eight out of every ten soldier
was killed in the Second World War. In the United States,
(10:08):
Roosevelt typically was back and forth.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
He issued very.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Tough orders for the Navy in the North Atlantic so
that we got into what was an undeclared war, the
first of these presidential undeclared wars. Then the next ACCOM
was going to be Korean, then it was going to
be Vietnam. But the first was the naval war in
the North Atlantic in the summer and fall nineteen forty one.
(10:39):
Roosevelt had the US Navy cooperating with the British right
on up to Iceland, and even beyond working together, there
were some restrictions on what Americans could do. American destroyers
were not supposed to throw depth charges at German submarines,
and I don't know if that was ever violated or not.
(11:00):
What they were, however, allowed to do, and were sent
to do ordered to do, was to track German submarines
and inform the British.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Destroyers in the area where they were.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
And this was done, and in July a German submarine
turned on its American pursuer, a destroyer named the Reuben James,
and fired a couple of torpedoes at it and hit
it and sank it. Roosevelt was outraged. He spoke of
these rattlesnakes of the Atlantic. He said that the Reuben
(11:34):
James was on innocent passage carrying nothing but mail to Iceland.
All which was I mean, of course, they were carrying
mailed Iceland. They are carrying it to US Marine Division
Station Ouer of a battalion station on Iceland, and they
were radioing the German subsposition and saw it. But Roosevelt
(11:56):
was able to present this as an innocent American destroyer
out of the North Atlantic mining its own business, and
these bastardly Germans just shoot.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
It down, And so he declared naval war on Germany.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
He gave the United States Navy orders to shoot on
site against German war vessels in the North Atlantic. Now
let's turn to the Far East. And as it were,
see how Roosevelt managed to get America into the war
(12:33):
as a unified nation. Something that right up till the
first week of December of nineteen forty one, no one
thought possible. Well in the Pacific, the Japanese were the aggressors,
as the Italians and the Germans were in Europe. The
Japanese Army had taken control of Japanese politics in the
(12:54):
nineteen twenties and the beginning of the nineteen thirties, primarily
through political assassinations. Any politician who disagreed with them, they
just killed them, and pretty soon not very many politicians
would disagree with them. And their program was based on
racial ideas of Japanese superiority and the inferiority of all
the peoples around them, especially Koreans and Chinese, but to
(13:18):
including Russians.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
And in fact including everybody else too. Asia.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
For the Asians, they didn't add that. They meant Asians
for certain Asians Us. They did say that all Asians
are equal. They didn't add what they really meant, but
some of us are more equal than others. What I'm
getting to here is that the Japanese as conquerors proved
to be as peastual as the Nazis were. They raped
(13:54):
and pillaged and looted and shot and had mass executions
and carried out atrocity in the footsteps of their advancing
troops all through Asia. The worst country to be in
the Second World War was China. Not Russia, not Germany,
not even Yugoslavia, which was god awful, not even the Philippines,
(14:17):
which are terrible.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
It was China. The Japanese. In China.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
The story that that that the Japanese really had managed
pretty well to, if not suppress entirely, to get most
of the world to forget in response to these Japanese
advances in Asia and especially into China, where Americans felt
they had a special relationship based partly on people like
(14:42):
Henry LUs and the missionaries, partly on the so called
China lobby in the United States, primarily West Coast politicians
and businessmen who were eager to trade with China, primarily
a very deep admiration that many Americans had with things Chinese.
We had this special relationship with China, and from the
beginning of the Japanese invasion of China, the United States
(15:03):
have taken the position that we will not recognize these
areas that you have conquered as being under your control.
We insist on an open door in China, and from
the first the Americans had as a stated principle, before
anything else can happen in our diplomacy or in our relationship,
the Japanese have got to pull out of China, something
(15:27):
that the Japanese were absolutely never gonna do. So you
had two non negotiable positions being taken by the contending sides.
And almost to just that sence, I can say, and
so that's why we had a Second World War in
the Pacific. The Japanese will not pull out of China.
(15:49):
We would not recognize their conquest of China. If Japan
wanted to become a great power, she was gonna have
to conquer the Natural Resources Act on her home islands.
And if she did that, she was going to get
driven back by the Americans and the British. But she
was going to get driven back anyway she felt, and
(16:09):
better to go down fighting, better to have taken the chance,
better to have tried.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Than never to have tried at all.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Japan entered the war, a prince of the Imperial family
said later, with a tragic determination and desperate self abandonment. Well,
in the nineteen forty one there was no question for
the Japanese. They were going to extend their war. They
were going to push on with their conquest, but against
(16:34):
whom they were very tempted. In June of nineteen forty one,
when Heaver invaded the Soviet Union, Stalin had to strip
down his armies in Siberia the Great Russian Frontier Regions
to bring troops back for the defense of Moscow. So
that for the Japanese, who were the traditional enemies of
(16:56):
the Russians, the Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union opened
up some very tempting possibilities to strike north. And this
is very oil rig and mineral rick country up here
in Sibery, very tempting to the Japanese. On the other hand,
(17:16):
they were attempted to go south. The Japanese argued among
themselves over this. Roosevelt, by the way, listening to the argument,
because it was being carried out between diplomats, and the
United States had broken the Japanese diplomatic code. Eventually, the
Japanese decided to go south. That's where the more immediately
(17:38):
exploitable resources were.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
And you're listening to Steven Ambrose tell the story of
nineteen forty one, like nobody else can when we come
back more with Steven Ambrose, the story of nineteen forty
one here.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
On our American stories.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
And we continue with our American stories and Steven Ambrose
telling the story of a year, and in this case
a pretty important one.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Nineteen forty one.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
The Philippines wasn't pumping any oil. The Philippines didn't have
a lot in the way of minerals. Philippines' biggest cash
crop was mahogany, which wasn't all that important or valuable
to the Japanese to a japan at war, So why
attack the Philippines at all? Why bring the United States
(18:41):
into this war because they sit right.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
In the middle of our line of communications.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
And Roosevelt, in order to deter the Japanese that just
sent America's super weapon out too clark Field outside of Manila,
fifty B seventeen four engine bombers, as it were, to
tell the Japanese, Yes, if you do attack to the south,
I'm going to interdict your supply columns with these be seventeens.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
The thinking in the Japanese high command then beginning with
this idea that we're going to have to attack the Philippines,
led to the development of a plan to attack, of
all places out here in the middle of the Pacific,
(19:32):
at Honolulu. Now, why on Earth if they're going south,
are they're going to be sending forces out on a
flanking operation out into the middle of a vast ocean. Well,
because Roosevelt also has a detern to the Japanese had,
beginning in nineteen forty one, stationed the United States Pacific Fleet,
taking it out of San Diego and putting it an base.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
At Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
And Admiral Yamamato, the Japanese naval commander in chief, who
had studied in the United States and who knew Americans,
and who had quite a reputation as a poker player, said, listen,
(20:21):
if we're going to get America into this war by
attacking the Philippines on the first day, we're going to
have to take out the American fleet in Hawaii. That's
the only way that we can proceed with our conquest
of the Dutch East Indies and Malaya. Otherwise the Americans.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Will be too powerful.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
They'll be sailing out of Hawaii, coming across the Western
Pacific and hitting our lines of evance. So we've got
to hit Pearl Harbor. We got to hit the American
fleet at Pearl Harbor. We got to take it out,
and it can be done. He came up with a
brilliant plan using five aircraft carriers to sail to within
two hundred miles of Hawaii and then launch from these
(21:01):
five aircraft carriers dive bombers and fighter bombers and zero's
of the fighter airplane on the American base in Hawaii.
And the Army looked at this idea and they say,
you're nuts. But Yamamato insisted that if we're going to
go to war, we've got to knock out the American
fleet first. Now, he was a complex guy, very intelligent man.
(21:22):
He went on to say at these staff meetings and
the Emperor on one occasion, we can't ever win a
war in the United States. I've been there, I've seen
the United States, and if we get these people riled up,
they'll fight to the finish. You may have this contempt
for them, but I've studied the American Civil War and
I know what kind of stock these Americans come from.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
And we'll never win a war in the United States.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
But if you're insisting on going to war in the
United States, for God's sakes, you've got to start up
with an attack on Hawaii and take out the American
fleet and a surprise attack, just as the Japanese had
taken out the Russian fleet at the beginning of the
war between Russia and Japan in nineteen oh.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Five with a surprise attack.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
And eventually he was able to convince his colleagues and
the general staff, and the attack on Pearl Harbor was
laid on, and the Japanese began to prepare for it
with some very extensive, very well executed, well thought out,
well done training operations.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Now we come to question that has a real life
to it.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
It's gone on for now fifty five years and bids
fair to go on for another one hundred or more.
The question is did Franklin Roosevelt know the Japanese were
during the attack as at Pearl Harbor? Did Roosevelt take
the back door to war? Did Roosevelt tricken maneuver his
country into war? Yes and no is the answer. I
(23:10):
think critics can rightly point to some of his actions
with regarded Japan, especially with freezing assets at a time
when he knew from their exchanges that they were feeling
desperate and were going to strike. No any specific charage
that he.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Knew an attack was coming on Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
I think on December Satura, nineteen forty one, Franklin Roosevelt
expected the Japanese to attack the Philippines.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Probably that day.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
I think he was astonished because everybody else in the
world was when they attacked Pearl Harbor. People say that
they Roosevelt had information that he didn't share with his
commanders in Hawaii.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
And this is just nonsense.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
The information that he kept from them, Well, this information
was coming up from serving Army and Navy offer and
those were their friends out there in the Philippines and
in Hawaii. And you think that they would have sat
on this kind of information if they'd had anything so clear.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Cut as that.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
What went wrong at the reason that Pearl Harbor excites
this as partly Frank Roosevelt was Frank Roosevelt. He was
a very hated man and a very much loved man.
He was one of the most polarizing of our presidents,
at least as much so as Richard Nixon, and the
people who hated Roosevelt tended to be. Obviously they were
(24:33):
far more republican than not in tended to be isolationist,
and they were therefore receptive to this argument that Roosevelt
had taken us through the back door to war, and
that Roosevelt that sob had.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Known Paul along that that attack was.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Coming, and he didn't tell those boys, and he didn't
give him the cans. And you'd hear that in bar
in country clubs all over the country. Yea, there just
doesn't anything to it. Roosevelt did not know an attack
was coming on Pearl Harbor anymore than anyone else did.
Roosevelt basque in the same cocoon that Short and Kimmel
(25:21):
did that, General Marshall did that. Everybody in the American
military and everybody in the country did.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Nobody thought that.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
I mean to put it bluntly, nobody thought that those
little yellow could do something like this.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
That's what it came down to.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Roosevelt or Marshall had described Pearl Harbor as the strongest
fortress in the world.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
He said the Japanese couldn't get it in seven hundred
and fifty miles of it.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Kimmel, in short, knew that the war was coming. Everybody
knew the war was coming because the negotiations had broken down.
We had told the Japanese were not gonna lift this
embargo or unfreeze your assets until you get out of
Indo China. And the Japanese had just spent a lot
of blood, treasure and emotion on taking Kinda and Indo China.
(26:09):
They were about to back out, and we knew that,
and they knew.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
We weren't going to back down.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
And so now it's Secretary of State Cardell Hall set
now it's up to the Army of the Navy, I
would draw I'm out of here. That was in the
middle of November, and they began sending out messages to
all the commanders in the Pacific and Panama and around
the world to look out, we're breaking off negotiations and
war is expected at any moment. On December one, Kimmel
(26:35):
and Shark got a message identical from General Marshall in
the War Department that began, this is a war warning.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
And you're listening to Steven Ambrose and he is telling
the story of nineteen forty one and dealing with the
mythology that Roosevelt somehow knew all along that Pearl Harbor
was going to be hit and just let it happen.
And I think he does this superb job of putting
that at bay. When we come back more of this
(27:05):
remarkable storytelling from one of the greats and certainly the
very best on the subject of World War Two, Stephen
Ambrose continues the story of nineteen forty one here on
our American stories, And we continue here with our American
(27:39):
stories and Steven Ambrose telling the story of nineteen forty one.
Let's pick up where Ambrose lasts left off.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Now, you ask Colin Earth, could kim Olystart be caught
by surprise in a situation like this? I did to
add to it, a situation in which the American intelligence
had lost the Japanese.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Fleet, the carrier fleet.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
One of the greatest intelligence bunders of all history. The
Pacific world was about to go to war, and American
intelligence lost track of the Japanese strongest striking force, didn't
know where they were, didn't know if.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
They had gone south north.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
West where. So how did Kimmel and Shark get caught
by surprise? Well, for one, it's really not difficult end
or sand.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Actually. For one thing, the Japanese did everything right.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
From the moment that the carriers left Tokyo the harbor,
they maintained radio silence, even very low volume talk between
ships themselves. Everything was done by semaphore. They could receive
messages from Japan, but they didn't send out anything at all.
So that our breaking of the Japanese code that is
no good, because it doesn't any good to have broken
(28:59):
the cod when they're not as in the radio. Kimmelin
Sharp prepared for war by doing the sensible things, and
a commander on the way you ought to do. They
put their planes together in the middle of the runway,
wing tip to wing tip. That's much the best way
to protect your planes from saboteurs. There was a great
fear that Japanese saboteurs were on Pearl Harbor, that they
(29:24):
would strike when hostilities began.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Another factor in how the Japanese pulled this one off was.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
American I don't want to say complacency, because that's not
what I mean. The American It had become routine. There
had been so many false alarms. There had been so
many times in nineteen forty one when negotiations were breaking
down and people were worried that war might come at
any moment, that there had been too many full alerts,
(30:06):
which of course interfered would drill and training, so that
even when warned to be on full alert, they weren't.
They couldn't, they couldn't take it seriously enough. A lot
of little things went wrong in the morning of December
seventh for the US Navy. We did have radar. We
(30:27):
were just coming on to radar. It was not common issue.
It was still experimental, but radar was there, and we'd
gotten some tips from the British who had used radar
very successfully in the Battle of Britain. And there was
a radio station on a way It was beaming out
in the direction that the Japanese planes were coming from
in the pre dawn hours of the seventh day of
(30:48):
December of nineteen forty one. And these radar operators they
were out there for a stay of time. They were
stay of their post until seven am, and then they
were supposed to be relieved by another team. Well seven
am and the other team wasn't there. And they noted
some blips on the screen. They saw planes were approaching,
and they got on the phone and called back to base,
and the and the lieutenant back there, the duty officers. Oh,
(31:12):
they were expecting some B seventeens to be coming in
from San Francisco, and those must be them, so you
can go ahead and shut down your radar for the day.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
And so they shut it down, went back.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
The first shots fired at Pearl Harbor were fired by
an American destroyer that caught a Japanese midget submarine coming
through into Pearl Harbor and attacked it at about four thirty.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
In the morning.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Successfully, four of those midget submarines, by the way, came
into to the harbor that day and all four three
of the four were sunk. I guess one of them
did get away there. They didn't do much damage. And
then it, as all the world knows, at seven thirty
the Japanese cang out Tora Tora Torah came roaring in
(32:00):
and saw sight that they never thought in their wildest
dreams they would see the American battleships and cruisers tied
up side by side, stemed the stern all together in
one place. Can't miss it, and they just blew the
American Pacific Fleet out of the water. Six battleships sunk
(32:22):
in one hour. They hadn't sunk that many battleships in
the greatest naval battle ever fought at Jutland in a
whole day of fighting, and he's got six in an hour,
three cruisers and many destroyers damaged, thirty six hundred men killed.
(32:43):
The fighter air force on the island, the land based
US Army Air Force, and the marine contingent were just
destroyed on the ground. And it was a humiliating defeat
for the United States. And it was the best thing
that ever happened in the United States. And to Franklin Roosevelt,
(33:05):
it did. I I it was the one act, the
only act that could have brought this country together, and
it did. It helped enormously that the Japanese, who were
so efficient and indeed brilliant in the way they carried
out the attack, were politically so inept that they forgot
(33:25):
to hand in or did not manage to hand in
the declaration of war until one hour after the attack began.
And that became a newsreel that I think in my
lifetime I must have seen a thousand times.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
They showed it to us. It seems like every.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Newsreel during World War Two of the Japanese ambassadors arriving
to present the declaration of war to the Secretary of
State an hour after.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
Pearl Harbor had started. Uh, the national outrage was palpable.
You could that, you could smell it, you could touch it.
The sense of.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
We're all in this together. We've got to have revenge
feelings that Roosevelt would never had not been able to,
would never have been.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Able to produce without Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Pearl Harvard did the thing the young model, and most
feared that Young Motto knew as I say that Japan
can't win the Second War, he did think, if we
knock out their fleet, it'll take them two years to
build a new and meanwhile, I will build a defensive
perimeter in the Pacific that'll be so expensive for them
to attack that they'll give it up and agree to
(34:40):
a compromise piece that will allow us to keep China.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
And away on a. Motto's strategy was similar to Ho
Chi minh.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
If fight at democracy, you just outweigh them, just keep
inflicting casualties, and pretty soon they'll quit. Just won't be
important enough to them. Pearl Harvard made it important enough.
Pearl Harror meant that we were going to go.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
On to the end. Whatever.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Therefore, absolutely now added to the shame of Pearl Harbor
was what happened in the Philippines, where the Japanese caught
Douglas MacArthur's B seventeen's on the ground on Clarkfield, wind up,
wingtip to wingtip, protected by centuries from possible savageurs coming
(35:20):
in from the jungle, without an Ani aircraft guns looking
up because the nearest Japanese base was twenty miles beyond
their maximum the known maximum range of their zeros. But
the Japanese pilots, who knew how to maintain these rpns
so that they never varied one little millimeter from it
(35:41):
for hours on end, got that extra twenty miles out
of their zeros and got over Clarkfield and destroyed America's
Air Force, America's bomber Air Force fifty planes in the Pacific,
and this.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Added to the national humiliation.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Roosevelt spoke for all Americans the next day in a
joint section of Congress. Yesterday, December seventh, nineteen forty one,
a date which will live in infamy, the United States
was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces
of the Empire of Japan. He asked the Congress to
recognize that a state of war now existed between the
(36:23):
Empire of Japan and the United States, and Congress did
so with only one dissenting vote that came from a
congresswoman from Missoula, Montana, who had also voted against entering
into World War One. And so America was at war,
but only on one front. Roosevelt had not asked for
(36:45):
a declaration of war against Germany. He had no more
reason to ask for a declaration of war against Germany
on December eighth than he had had on December sixth.
Germany had an attacked the United States Japan him, but
all the plans called for fighting the war against Germany first,
and this put Roosevelt in something of a dilemma. And
(37:05):
we don't know what he would have done about it,
how he would have handled that problem. Hitler solved it
for him by inexplicably declaring war on the United States,
a decision that no one has ever understood. He was
not required to do it by his pact with Japan,
which was a defensive pact. It brought him no benefits.
It brought in Now the United States is his sworn enemy,
(37:32):
and so nineteen forty One came to an end, with
the United States now fully involved in but still woefully
unprepared for, the Second World One.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
And you've been listening to the great Steven Ambrose. And
thanks to his estate for letting us use so much
of this remarkable storytelling, this time about the year nineteen
forty one. Thanks to Greg Hangler for all the work
he does on these pieces. And if you want to
hear more from Steven Ambrose, go to our American Stories
dot com and just type in the word Ambrose on
(38:05):
the search bar. The story of nineteen forty one is
told by Steven Ambrose here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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