“HOW THE WAR CAME”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 July 1942, Page 3

“HOW THE WAR CAME”

REVELATIONS IN UNITED STATES AMAZING SLACKNESS BEFORE PEARL HARBOUR. GENERALS SLOW TO WAKE UP. (Bv Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) NEW YORK, July 20. Further remarkable evidence is available of the Americans’lack of alertness on December 7, including a hitherto unpublished story about an intercepted radio message to the approaching Japanese carrier fleet, which was boldly informed that there were no harbour nets and no barrage balloons, and Pearl Harbour was wide open.

This message was actually sent to Washington before the attack on Pearl Harbour, but officials did not decode it till it was too late. This, together with other dramatic disclosures, is told in the concluding instalment of “How the War Came, by the historians, Messrs Davis and Lindley, in the “Ladies’ Home Journal” from official documents. The authors endeavour to show that whoever was at fault for the unalertness, it was not the Secretary of State, Mr Cordell Hull, who correctly sensed the belligerent intentions of the Japanese and warned all concerned several times. The article reveals how the hitherto inscrutable Stalin laid all his cards on the table for Mr Harry Hopkins. “M. Stalin unlocked the inner chamber of Soviet defence secrets and paraded them before Mr' Hopkins, who was astonished at the sight of the endless tables, charts and reports of Russian armed and industrial might,” it says. “M. Stalin revealed where his forces were disposed—information for which battalions of S.S. men would gladly have died. M. Stalin told Mr Hopkins: ‘All this you may see. You may go anywhere, to any front, any factory, and verify the truth for yourself.’ “Mr Hopkins brought from Moscow the Impression that M. Stalin was tough, single-minded, granite and straightforward. Both Messrs Roosevelt and Churchill were delighted at the Hopkins report, but the generals at first were very sceptical but later came round and accepted M. Stalin’s view that the Germans could not take Moscow in 1941.” The article reveals that certain reinforcements to the Philippines were just a few days too late, and therefore they diverted to Australia; also that 60 per cent of the aeroplanes in the Philippines were destroyed on the ground in the first Japanese raids, and therefore the Battle of the Philippines was lost in the first few days. The Japanese picked off the American planes “like sitting pigeons.”

“In the last week before Pearl Harbour, all eyes in Washington were fixed on Siam,” the article says. “The Japanese moves toward Siam were genuine enough, yet they served the purposes of a great ruse that diverted the gaze of Americans, including responsible officers 'in both services, from the danger to Hawaii and the Philippines. “Thus the first bombers over Pearl Harbour caught more than the naval and military off their guard; they caught the whole of the United States asleep.” The authors ask, “Why were the Japanese able to surprise America,” and they express the opinion, “At the risk of seeming smug, Pearl Harbour was a moral victory, furnishing a sound basis for an eventual victory.” They point out that the United States, “because of its civilisation standards, was incapable of striking at a potential enemy by stealth without a declaration of war, raining unannounced death on women and children without warning. The standards of our civilisation do not allow that kind of behaviour.”