December 1941 (89 page)

So it was with the attack by the Japanese on December 7, 1941. Sure, memos had been written and hypotheticals discussed, but when it got down to cases, no one—until it was too late—really ever thought the Japanese could sail thousands of miles undetected and attack Pearl Harbor.

No one in America imagined that the Japanese would have the cunning and tenacity to attempt such a feat, and yet they succeeded because of a failure of imagination on the part of those in power in Washington, both civilian and in the military. It had been speculated, war-gamed, theorized, but nobody really thought it could happen.

There is not one shred of evidence that President Roosevelt somehow manipulated events to get America into the war. At the most, the War Department believed, as of November 28, “Japanese future action unpredictable, but hostile action possible at any moment.”
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FDR had also been given several severe warnings about the Japanese in confidential memos, some of which specifically mentioned Hawaii, yet even still, the idea was so farfetched so as to be dismissed by nearly all. Everybody believed the next Japanese move would be an invasion of Thailand.

Carl Jung, the great Swiss philosopher fashioned the notion of “synchronicity,” which he called “a causal connection of two or more psycho-physic phenomena. . . .” Events, he said, were not only grouped by cause but by meaning as well. What might seem coincidental was, in fact, often part of a larger interconnectivity of unfolding events according to Jung.
²

Few things in American and world history illustrate synchronicity better than the attack on Pearl Harbor. Events conspired to help the Japanese, and hurt America and the world in the short run, but ironically hurt Japan and help America and the world in the long run.

“December 7, 1941 . . . will live as one of the most brilliant military performances of all time. Superbly planned and superbly executed. . . .” And that was the analysis of the American military. The question why was answered by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto with his directive of November 5, 1941. The Japanese desired to “drive Britain and America from Greater East Asia,” a long cherished goal.
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Consider that Franklin Roosevelt runs for an unprecedented third term and wins, breaking the “no third term” rule which had governed all previous second term presidents. This liberates him and begins a seemingly unrelated chain reaction of events that winds its way through history, from December 7, 1941, right up until today. He initiates both Lend-Lease and the Atlantic Charter, both revolutionary developments, and neither of which might have gone forward, either the year before, or if Wendell Willkie were elected president in 1940. Willkie made staying out of Europe the centerpiece of his campaign.

In the fall of 1941, Congress decided by one vote to preserve a standing army, by maintaining a draft. At the time, there were few enlistees and those who wanted to join up were by and large, poor physical specimens.

A beautiful American spy living in Europe, Amy Thorpe Pack, had been recruited by the British Security Coordination to make use of her red hair, flashing green eyes, and feminine wiles to steal the German decoding technology called “Enigma” which eventually ended up as the contraption nicknamed “Magic” by the American military men who operated it in 1941. The revolutionary machine decodes the secret messages between Tokyo and the Japanese Embassy in Washington. The technology was called “the greatest secret and most spectacular intelligence achievement of the war.”
⁴

The Americans thought themselves safe because of the discovery, assuming that they would know as soon as the Japanese diplomats knew of any military actions by the war-like Axis Power. War warnings were sent to Kimmel and Short, but with no amplifying details, and while the Philippines and other locations were mentioned, Hawaii was not.
⁵
The headline of the
Hilo Tribune Herald
on November 30, 1941, shouted, “JAPAN MAY STRIKE OVER WEEKEND.”
⁶
The premature warning cooled enthusiasm a tad for the stolen technology. Meanwhile, analysts were unduly and increasingly confident about their own ability to interpret the subtle and “enigmatic” oriental mind.

Just months earlier, FDR angered some navy admirals, including James Richardson, who happened to be the head of the Pacific Fleet at the time, by ordering the fleet to move from San Diego to Honolulu. This set off a chain of events with the Japanese, who saw the move as provocative and a challenge. Roosevelt, angered at Richardson, removed him and replaced him with Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, whose stewardship of the Fleet in Hawaii became an important part of this storyline.

Plans went forward in Tokyo to destroy the fleet and secure the Western and Central Pacific, the main target being the American carriers. The whole idea of the bombing came from the astonishing successful aerial strike by the British on the Italian navy at Taranto.

To Jung's point, all wars of the time seemed to begin on a Sunday. The Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot on a Sunday, and his assassination kicked off World War I. Germany invaded Belgium and France on a Sunday, some weeks later. Great Britain and France both declared war on Germany on a Sunday in September of 1939 after the German invasion of Poland. Greece was invaded by Italy on a Sunday in World War II and Germany invaded Russia on a Sunday in June of 1941. How surprising was it that Japan attacked America on a Sunday?

The attack was not as successful as the Japanese had hoped. The American carriers were not present at Pearl, and the Japanese failed to destroy the fuel dumps and the dry docks, which allowed the Americans to rebuild quickly.

The attack triggered the Germany declaration of war on America and thereby pushed the reluctant country into the European conflict, signaling the eventual demise of the Nazis and the rise of the Soviet state. Had America not entered, it is possible that an armistice might have been signed by Great Britain and Nazi Germany with London allowing Chancellor Hitler to keep his new territories. Had the Japanese not attacked Pearl Harbor, the Americans would have most likely never entered the Pacific War or the European conflict.

If Germany started her invasion of Russia in April or maybe even as late as May, the invasion of Russia would have become another spectacular success for Hitler and, with a new Eastern Border, he could have devoted more men and materiel to North Africa, defeating the British there and thus devoted more men and material to an invasion of Great Britain. To the end, Hitler had blamed “international Jewry” for the war and managed to exterminate over 6 million Jews, giving rise just a few years later to the creation of the modern nation-state of Israel.

The world was changed in great earth-shattering ways and small painful ways, too. The attack was a pebble dropped in a pool and the concentric circles moved outward, forever.

Ellsworth Westbook Shirley had to quit his thriving life insurance business because it included delivering checks to the parents of boys who had died in the war, just as his oldest son, “Barney” had. When the parents to whom he brought the checks began crying, he did, too, and finally could not take it anymore. He sold the business and went into another line of work. His wife, Georgia's hair went white in a matter of weeks after hearing about the death of her eldest son. Ellsworth's mother, Cora Shirley, was never the same again, nor were Barney's aunts, Lola and Maude, nor were Barney's two brothers, Eddie and Ronnie.

The departed was our uncle Ellsworth Abbott “Barney” Shirley, who was killed by Japanese troops in French Indo-China in January of 1945. He'd dropped out of high school in 1943 and enlisted in the navy at the age of eighteen with his parents' permission. He became a radio operator on a TBF-1 Avenger plane on board the
Essex
.

On his twentieth birthday on January 10, 1945, Airman Second Class Shirley volunteered for a mission to bomb Japanese docks in Indo China. He needed the air hours to be promoted to Airman 1C. He must have had an omen that day though because, before taking off, he gave away all his priceless possessions in his footlocker while telling his bunkmates he didn't think he was coming back. The plane took off the morning of December 10, 1945.

After acquiring their target and dropping their bomb, the pilot, Donald Henry of Drummond, Idaho, radioed the squadron leader that he still had one bomb left and circled back to make a second pass at the docks.

Instead, the plane was shot down by Japanese anti-aircraft fire and crashed in a park in Saigon. Japanese troops discovered the badly wounded Airman Shirley in the wreckage of the plane and killed him. Henry survived the crash and was secreted away by the French Underground, but was later discovered by the Japanese and killed too.

He was called Barney because when he was born, a grandfather exclaimed, “Why he's got great big eyes, just like Barney Google!” Google was a character in the popular comic strip, “Barney Google and Snuffy Smith.”

Like millions of others, the lives of the Shirley family were forever altered by the events of December 7, 1941.

The world was also changed for American blacks because of December 7. In that battle, a new hero emerged. Doris “Dorrie” Miller, mess attendant, was picking up laundry onboard the
West Virginia
when the attack began. He was initially ordered to help move wounded men and then told to man a 50 caliber anti-aircraft gun. Miller stayed at his post, firing repeatedly at Japanese planes, as torpedoes hit his ship, bullets whizzed by, and men died around him. Miller never flinched and only left his duty station when ordered after the situation had become hopeless.

For his bravery Miller was awarded the Navy Cross in early 1942 by another Texan, Admiral Chester Nimitz. In presenting the award to Cook Third Class Miller, Nimitz said, “This marks the first time in this conflict that such high tribute had been made in the Pacific Fleet to a member of his race and I'm sure that the future will see others similarly honored for brave acts.”
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Two years later, Miller was killed with 646 other seamen aboard the escort carrier
Liscome Bay
. Miller received the Purple Heart, the American Defense Service Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, a Fleet Clasp and the Victory Medal. In 1973, the ship
USS Miller
, a frigate, was commissioned.

Dorie Miller's body was never recovered.

Douglas MacArthur, who could have been another scapegoat except for his war-zone command, his savvy skills, his rapport with the American people, and his close relationship with Roosevelt, went to Australia, became the Supreme Commander of the Southwest Pacific forces, and with little resources and men, mounted one of the most brilliant counter offensives in military history. As his troops were closing in on invading Japan, atomic bombs detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing tens of thousands of civilians as per the order of the new president, Harry Truman. Roosevelt died before seeing the successful victory in the world war which he, more than any other man on the face of the earth, was responsible for winning.

MacArthur's brilliant occupation of the defeated country should have earned him the Nobel Peace prize. Several years later, duty called the old general once again and he went to Korea where he once again mounted a dazzling counter offensive. After America was lied to by the new Red Chinese government and watched them invade Korea, the general tried to take control of the mess. In so doing he ran afoul of President Truman and was fired from his post.

MacArthur came home to a hero's welcome, revered and beloved by the American people. Truman, who sought another term in 1952, was badly embarrassed in the New Hampshire primary, saw his approval rating fall to the mid-20s, and finally withdrew from the race. His departure opened the door for yet another general, Dwight D. Eisenhower, to serve two underappreciated presidential terms, while the country enjoyed peace and prosperity and saw unprecedented growth and development in civil rights, technology, education, transportation, and medicine. Truman went home to Independence, Missouri, and though he lived to be eighty-eight, he never saw the resurrection of his reputation and presidency. By the mid-1970s, historians had finally come to appreciate the accomplishments and wisdom that characterized the seven years the failed haberdasher was in the White House. Truman would have never been president if Roosevelt had not run again in 1940.

America emerged from the Second World War as the only unchallenged superpower, but that status didn't last long. Another Evil Empire rose up to replace the Third Reich and enslaved the very same Eastern European countries the Germans had ground under their boots. This new empire proved even more vicious and immoral than the Third Reich, if that were possible.

In one of the great historical ironies, Japan and Germany emerged as American allies against Moscow, rebuilt as prosperous democracies by the United States. An organization to settle international disputes—once rejected by the United States—was created with American leadership. English emerged as the international language of all pilots, as the only planes flying after World War II were American and British.

A Cold War took hold. Moscow and Washington, the unchallenged superpowers, eyed each other carefully, and their competition led to an unprecedented arms race only outpaced by a science race with an American eventually walking on the moon, a direct result of America's entry into World War II.

In 1961, another man ascended to the presidency. Had he not been a hero in the Pacific and skillfully used that heroism in his congressional and presidential campaigns, John Kennedy would have likely been dismissed as a rich, philandering playboy, and history would have been drastically altered yet again. It was he who committed the United States to landing a man on the Moon before the end of 1970. He was soon assassinated by a loyal follower of Soviet communism. Before his assassination, he committed U.S. troops in a ground war on the Asian continent and years later, and after the loss of more than 57,000 American troops, America lost her first war and with it, for a time, her sense of national purpose, and of national destiny.