PEARL HARBOUR MUDDLE

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 December 1945, Page 6

PEARL HARBOUR MUDDLE

GEN. MARSHALL’S EVIDENCE DECIPHERING JAP. CODES WASHINGTON, December 8. Giving evidence at the Pearl Harbour inquiry, the United States Chief of Staff (General Marshall) said that on December 7, 1941, Admiral Stark, then Chief of the Naval Operations, at first opposed sending a warning to the Pacific commanders, on the ground that he thought a warning would only confuse them, although it was clear that trouble was brewing for the United States. That day, warnings were dispatched only after the witness had insisted. General Marshall said he thought that the Hawaiian forces were on the alert and were equipped to handle an attack before the Japanese struck, but. the most careful plans could go wrong. “We spent two and a half years planning the Normandy invasion, and when it came off, we had not enough landing craft and tanks,” he said. “I presume that if the exploit had failed there would have been an investigation.” In spite of General Marshall’s protests, the committee decided to release the text, of a letter General Marshall had sent to Governor Dewey during the presidential election campaign. The letter, which was marked, “For Dewey’s eyes only.” and which was written without the knowledge of any other person, said: “Our cryptograph people analysed the character of the machine which the Japanese were using for coding their diplomatic messages. A corresponding machine was built by us which deciphers their messages. Therefore, we possessed a wealth of information regarding their moves in the Pacific, which unfortunately made no reference whatever to their intentions towards Hawaii until the . last message before December 7, which did not reach us until the following day (December 8). .“We’ve gone ahead with the business of deciphering their codes until we possess other codes, German as well as Japanese. The Coral Sea battle was based on deciphered messages, and therefore our few ships were in the right place at the right time. Further, we were able to concentrate our limited forces to meet the Japanese advances on Midway, when, otherwise, we almost certainly would have been 3000 miles out of place. Operations in the Pacific are largely guided by the information we obtain of Japanese deployments. We check their fleet movements and the movements of their convoys. The heavy losses reported from time to time which they sustain by reason oi our submarine action, largely result from the fact that, we know the sailing dates and routes of their convoys and can notify our submarines to lie in wait at the proper point. EMBASSY SEARCH. “You will understand from the foregoing the litter tragic . consequences if the present political debates regarding Pearl Harbour disclose to the enemy, German or Japanese, any suspicion of the vital sources of information winch we possess;. As a further example of the delicacy of the situation, a secret search of the Japanese Embassy offices in Portugal was instituted without our being told, resulting in the entire military attache Japanese code all over the world being changed. We were unable to break the new code, and thus lost this invaluable source of information, particularly regarding the European situation. “A recent Congress speech by Representative Harness would clearly suggest to the Japanese that we had been reading their codes, though Representative Harness and American public opinion would probably not draw such a conclusion. I am presenting this matter for your secret information in the hope that you will see a way clear to avoid the tragic results of which we are threatened in the present political campaign.” General Marshall said that Governor Dewey not only acceded to his request, but after the campaign offered to use his influence to quieten the Congress agitation for a war-time investigation of the attack. General Marshall said that he and other high officers, early in December, 1941, assumed that the Japanese would take Guam and probably Wake, and would possibly try to strike at the Panama Canal and aeroplane plants in Seattle and San Diego, but thought that a most improbable form of assault would be a blow at Hawaii. He said that the British had supplied the United States Navy at Pearl Harbour with information obtained, from the enemy, but they were unwilling to reveal how the information had been obtained until the United States was well into the war, because it was feared that leaks might ruin their sources. General Marshall said it was discovered that German agents listened in to trans-Atlantic conversations between President Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill, hence the telephone was not. used to warn the Hawaii commanders that Japan would apparently move at dawn. General Marshall explained that the use of the telephone was hazardous, because the Japanese might have deduced that their code had been broken: also the Japanese might have seized on a war warning as an overt act by the United States. They would have grasped any straw to convince a section of the American people that they were being forced into’war. DISCLOSURE REGRETTED. (Rec. 11.0 a.m.) NEW YORK, December 9. Highly authoritative sources said: “We'have been very badly hurt,” by the disclosure to the Pearl Harbour Investigating Committee that, the United States constructed the machine which broke the Japanese code, says the “New York Times’s” Washington correspondent. They pointed out that incalculable harm was done because nations all over the world were already recasting codes and will continue to change them from time to time. It was added that code-breaking continued despite the end of the war. All the important Powers were engaged in the practice because of the obvioUs diplomatic advantage it affords. i SEA POWER DECISIVE. ADMIRAL KING’S ESTIMATE. WASHINGTON, December 8. Admiral King in. his final report on the U.S. Navy’s role in World "War 11, attributes Japan’s defeat directly to overwhelming United States sea power. The surrender of the German land, sea and air forces was the direct result of the application of air power over land power,. and the power of the Allied grotihd forces.

“In the Pacific war,” he says,, “the power of our ground and strategic air forces, as with sea power in the Atlantic, was the essential factor. By contrast with Germany, Japan’s armies were intact and undefeated and her air force was weakened only when it surrendered. But her navy had been destroyed, and her merchant fleet fatally crippled. Japan lost the war because she Jost command of the sea and of the island bases from which her factories and cities could be destroyed by air. Never before in the history of war had there been a more convincing example of the effectiveness of sea power than when a well-armed highly efficient, undefeated army of upwards of 1,000,000 surrendered their homelancl to an invader without even a token resistance. The bomb devastation was terrible. The demonstration of power of the first atomic bomb augured total extinction for Japan. Yet, without the United States seapower there would have been no possession of Saipan, Iwo Jima and Okinawa from which to launch these-bombings. The Japanese homeland might have been taken Joy assault by one final amphibious operation of tremendous magnitude. Yet. without sea power, such an assault could not have been attempted. “The strength of the Navy lies in the complete integration of the submarine, surface and air elements.” He contended that to attempt unity command in Washington was illadvised in concept and impractical in realisation. He attributes victory to application of the Nelsonian doctrine that a naval victory should be followed up until the enemy fleet is annihilated. The result of this strategy was that of 12 Japanese battleships, 11 were sunk; of 26 carriers, 2'o were sunk; of 43 cruisers, 38 were destroyed; and so on through various types of ships which, collectively, were a considerably larger fleet than ours before the war. In striking contrast is the United States record. Two old battleships were lost at Pearl Harbour, but eight new ones joined -the fleet. Against five aircraft-carriers and six escort carriers lost, we completed 27 aircraftcarriers and 110 escort carriers. We lost 10 cruisers, but 48 were commissioned. We lost 52 submarines, but built 203. The capacity of the United States to build all classes of ships, while supporting our forces and our allies all over the world, exceeded former records, and surpassed the most sanguine hopes.