Part Two: War Comes
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Chapter 1: Prewar Situation in the Pacific
Summary of Negotiations1
In the late years of the 19th Century and the early decades of the 20th, Japan set out to gain more territory. Consistently following a policy of encroachment in Asia and the Pacific, and retreating only when confronted with the threat of superior force, the Japanese Empire steadily grew in size and strength. Warning signals of an impending clash between Japan and the Western nations with extensive interests in the Orient became increasingly evident. In the 1930s when these nations were gripped by economic depression and their military expenditures were cut to the bone, Japan struck brazenly.
In 1931 Japanese troops invaded Manchuria and no concerted international military effort was made to halt the seizure. An ineffectual censure by the League of Nations, far from discouraging Japan, emboldened her to further action. Angrily, the Japanese delegates stalked out at Geneva and gave formal notice on intention to withdraw from the League. The country thickened its curtain of secrecy which shrouded the League-mandated islands awarded Japan as its share of the spoils of German possessions lost in World War I. In 1934 the Japanese served notice that they would no longer abide by the limitations of the Washington Naval Disarmament Treaty of 1922. Finally, 1937, Japan attacked China and horrified the world with the excesses committed by her soldiers in the infamous Rape of Nanking. But still there was no effective military action to curb this rampant aggression.
In this period Japan was not without supporters. Germany and Italy, bent on similar programs of territorial aggrandizement in Europe and Africa, made common cause with the Japanese. These “Axis” powers signed a mutual assistance pact in 1937, ostensibly aimed at the Communist Cominform, but in essence as a show of strength to forestall interference with their plans of conquest. In August 1940, after the outbreak of war in Europe and the fall of France, Germany forced the Vichy Government to consent to Japanese occupation of northern Indo-China. The three predatory nations combined again in less than a month, this time in the Tripartite Treaty of 27 September which promised concerted action by the Axis in case of war with the United States.
The United States, traditionally a friend of China and a supporter of an “Open Door” policy in Asia, strongly opposed Japanese moves to establish hegemony over the strife-torn Chinese Republic.
While the political sentiment of the majority of Americans in the late 1930s would condone no direct military intervention, the government and the nation were openly sympathetic to the Chinese cause. Both moral and legal embargoes against munitions shipments to Japan were put into effect and increasing amounts of material aid given to China. American pilots, including members of the armed forces, were permitted to volunteer to fly for the Chinese Air Forces against the Japanese.2
By early 1941 Japan was hurt in pride, purse, and potency as a result of American political and economic measures taken to halt its expansion. In March a new Ambassador, Admiral Nomura, was sent to Washington to negotiate a settlement of Japanese-American differences. He was confronted with a statement of four principles which represented the basic American position in negotiations. These were:–
1. Respect for the territorial integrity and the sovereignty of each and all nations;
2. Support of the principle of noninterference in the internal affairs of other countries;
3. Support of the principle of equality, including equality of commercial opportunity;
4. Non-disturbance of the status quo in the Pacific except as the status quo may be altered by peaceful means.3
In retrospect, it seems obvious that there was little likelihood of Japan accepting any of these principles as a basis for negotiations. At the time, however, considerable and protracted effort was made to resolve differences. Postwar evidence indicates that the Japanese Premier, Prince Konoye, as well as Ambassador Nomura were sincere in their efforts to achieve a peaceful solution of the threatening situation in the Pacific. It was not Konoye, however, who called the turn in Imperial policy, but the Japanese Army. And the Army adamantly refused to consider any concession that might cause it to lose face.
After Germany attacked Russia in June 1941, the longtime threat of Soviet intervention in Japan’s plans for expansion was virtually eliminated. The Japanese Army moved swiftly to grab more territory and to add to its strength. Southern Indo-China was occupied and conscripts and reservists were called up. In the face of this fresh evidence of Japanese intransigence, President Roosevelt froze all Japanese assets in the United States, effectively severing the last commercial contact between the two nations.
In October the Army forced the Konoye Cabinet to resign and replaced it with a government entirely sympathetic to its position.4 The new premier, General Tojo, sent a special representative, Saburu Kurusu, to Washington to assist Nomura and revitalize negotiations. The Japanese diplomats were in an untenable position. They were instructed, in effect, to get the United States to accept Japanese territorial seizures on Japanese terms. Their mission was hopeless, but behind its facade of seeming interest in true negotiations, Tojo’s government speeded up its preparations for war. As far as the Japanese leaders were concerned, war with the United States was a now or never proposition, since American-inspired economic sanctions would soon rob them of the necessary raw materials, particularly
oil, which they had to have to supply their military machine.
The only event that might have halted Japanese war preparations would have been a complete abnegation by the United States of its principles of negotiation. On 22 November Ambassador Kurusu received the third and last of a series of communiques from Japan setting deadlines for successful negotiations. He was informed that after 29 November things were “automatically going to happen.”5
As far as the Japanese were concerned negotiations were at an end and the time for direct action had come. The two Japanese envoys were carefully instructed, however, not to give the impression that talks had been broken off. The stage had been set for “the day that will live in infamy.”
After an extremely thorough investigation of the negotiations during this period prior to the outbreak of the war, a Joint Congressional Committee summed up the duplicity of Japanese negotiations in this succinct statement:–
In considering the negotiations in their entirety the conclusion is inescapable that Japan had no concessions to make and that her program of aggression was immutable.6
Japanese War Plan7
Both the United States and Japan had developed plans for war in the Pacific long before December 1941. Each nation considered the other to be its most probable enemy. There was however, a fundamental moral difference between the respective war plans. The Americans planned for defense and retaliation in case of attack; the Japanese intended to strike the first blow. (See Map 1, Map Section)
Japan’s prime objective was economic self-sufficiency, and the prize she sought was control of the rich natural resources of Southeast Asia and the islands of the East Indies, her “Southern Resources Area.” The Japanese were well aware that invasion in this area would bring them into conflict with a coalition of powers. The lands they aspired to conquer were the possessions or protectorates of Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and the United States. By means of surprise attacks, launched simultaneously on a half dozen different fronts, the Japanese expected to catch the Allies off-balance and ill-prepared.
The obvious threat of war with Japan had not been ignored by any of these Allied nations, but the tremendous advantage of choice of time and place of attack rested with the aggressor. Japan intended to strike during a period when most of the resources in men and material of the British Commonwealth were being devoted to the defeat of the European Axis partners. The Netherlands, which existed only as a government-in-exile, could contribute quite a few ships but only a small number of men to a common defense force. And the United States, most certainly Japan’s strongest enemy, was heavily committed to supporting the Allies in Europe and the Near East. Moreover, that nation was only partially mobilized for war.
The initial Japanese war concept did not envisage the occupation of any territory
east of Tarawa in the Gilberts. All operations beyond the limits of the Southern Resources Area were designed to establish and protect a defensive perimeter. The cordon of strategic bases and island outposts was to stretch from the Kuriles through Wake Atoll to the Marshalls and Gilberts and thence west to the Bismarck Archipelago. The islands of Timor, Java, and Sumatra in the East Indies were to be seized and Japanese troops were to occupy the Malayan Peninsula and Burma.
The major force which might prevent or delay the accomplishment of the Japanese plan was the United States Pacific Fleet based at Pearl Harbor. Recognizing the threat posed by the American naval strength, the Commander in Chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, directed that a study be made of the feasibility of a surprise aerial attack on Pearl, timed to coincide with the outbreak of war. In February 1941, the first staff considerations of the projected raid were begun, but the actual details of the operation were not worked out until September when it seemed increasingly obvious to the Japanese high command that war was inevitable and that they needed this bold stroke to insure the success of initial attacks.
On 3 November the Chief of the Naval General Staff, Admiral Osami Nagano, approved the draft plan, and on the 5th commanders of fleets and task forces were given their assignments. Orders were issued to selected task force units to begin moving singly and in small groups to Hitokappu Bay in the Kuriles on or about 15 November. Ten days later a striking force, its core six large fleet carriers transporting the pick of the Japanese Navy’s planes and pilots, sortied from the secluded anchorage bound for the Hawaiian Islands. The approach route lay well north of the search areas patrolled by American planes based at Midway and Wake and out of normal shipping lanes.
The tentative day of attack, X-day, had been set for a Sunday, 7 December (Pearl Harbor time). Japanese intelligence indicated that most of the Pacific Fleet would be in port on a weekend. Tallies of the ships present at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base received from the Japanese consulate at Honolulu were transmitted to the attack force as late as 5 December. Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, the striking force commander, received orders from Yamamoto on 2 December confirming the chosen date. There was still time to turn back; if the approaching ships had been discovered prior to 6 December they had orders to return. No one saw them, however, and the carriers arrived at their launching point right on schedule.
At midnight of 6-7 December, the Japanese Combined Fleet Operation Order No. 1 informed its readers that a state of war existed with the United States, Great Britain, and the Netherlands.
American War Plan8
A nation’s war plans are never static. The constantly changing world political scene demands continual reevaluation and amendment. In the 1930’s, American war
plans were concerned primarily with courses of action to be taken in the event of a conflict in one theatre and against one nation or a contiguous groups of nations. In the so-called “color plans,” each probably enemy was assigned a separate color designation; Japan became Orange. With the advent of the Axis coalition, American military men began thinking in terms of a true world war. As these new plans evolved they were given the name Rainbow to signify their concept of a multi-national war.
The United States was deeply involved in the war in Europe soon after its outbreak, if not as an active belligerent, then as the arsenal of the democracies. By the spring of 1941 American naval vessels were convoying shipments of war materiel at least part of the way to Europe and they were actively guarding against German submarines a Neutrality Zone that extended far out into the Atlantic. The intent of these measures and others similar to them was clearly to support Britain in its war against Germany, Italy, and their satellites. There was little question where the sympathies of the majority of Americans lay in this struggle and none at all regarding the position of their government.
On 29 January 1941, ranking British and American staff officers met in Washington to discuss joint measures to be taken if the United States should be forced to a war with the Axis Powers. It was regarded as almost certain that the outbreak of hostilities with any one of the Axis partners would bring immediate declarations of war from the others. By insuring action on two widely separated fronts, the Axis could expect at the very least a decreased Allied capability to concentrate their forces. The American-British conversations ended on 27 March with an agreement (ABC-1) which was to have a profound effect on the course of World War II. Its basic strategical decision, which never was discarded, stated that:–
Since Germany is the predominant member of the Axis Powers, the Atlantic and European area is considered to be the decisive theatre. The principal United States military effort will be exerted in the theatre, and operations of United States forces in other theatres will be conducted in such a manner as to facilitate that effort ... If Japan does enter the war, the Military Strategy in the Far East will be defensive.9
The defensive implied in the war against Japan was not to be a holding action, however, but rather a strategic defensive that contemplated a series of tactical offensives with the Pacific Fleet as the striking force. A new American war plan, Rainbow 5, was promulgated soon after the end of the American-British talks. Almost the whole of the Pacific was made an American strategic responsibility and the Army’s primary mission under the plan was cooperation with and support of the fleet.
A listing of the contemplated offensive actions of Rainbow 5, which included the capture of the Caroline and Marshall Islands, would be interesting but academic. The success of the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor forced a drastic revision of strategy which effectively postponed amphibious
assaults in the Central Pacific. Certain defensive measures which were mentioned in the plan, however, were implemented prior to the outbreak of war and in most of them Marine forces figured prominently.
Some of the Marine defense battalions, tailored to meet the needs of garrisons for isolated island outposts, were already in the Pacific by the time Rainbow 5 was published. The plan called for the development of bases, primarily air bases, at Midway, Johnston, Palmyra, Samoa, and Wake. All of these islands which were under control of the Navy, were to have Marine garrisons. Guam, in the center of the Japanese-held Marianas, which had long had a small Marine barracks detachment, was decisively written off in the war plan; its early capture by the Japanese was conceded. The rest of the islands were placed in a category which called for defense forces sufficient to repel major attacks.
The purpose of establishing bases on these island was twofold. Samoa was to help protect the routes of communication to the Southwest Pacific; Johnston, Palmyra, Wake, and Midway were to serve as outguards for the Pacific Fleet’s home port at Pearl. (See Map 1, Map Section)
Marine Garrisons10
The Navy did not start cold with its advance base development scheme for the four island outposts of the Hawaiian Group. A blueprint for base expansion in the Pacific had been laid out in the report of the Navy’s Hepburn Board, a Congressionally authorized fact-finding group which, in the spring of 1938, made a strategic study of the need for additional United States naval bases. The potential utility of Midway, Wake, Johnston, and Palmyra was recognized,11 and surveys were conducted and plans made for the construction of base facilities, airfields, and seadromes during 1939 and 1940. The responsibility for developing garrison plans and locating coastal and antiaircraft gun positions was given to Colonel Harry K. Pickett, 14th Naval District Marine Officer and Commanding Officer, Marine Barracks, Pearl Harbor Navy Yard. The fact that Colonel Pickett personally surveyed most of the base sites insured active and knowledgeable cooperation at Pearl Harbor with requests from the islands for men and materiel to implement the garrison plans.
Although they were popularly referred to in the singular sense, a custom that will be continued in this narrative, each of the outposts was actually a coral atoll encompassing varying numbers of bleak, low-lying
sand islands within a fringing reef. Each atoll had at least one island big enough to contain an airstrip; Midway had two. The lagoons within the reefs were all large enough to permit the dredging and blasting of seaplane landing lanes and anchorages for small cargo ships; Midway’s and Wake’s were also slated for development as forward bases for the Pacific Fleet’s submarines. Civilian contractors were hired to build the naval base installations, but until war actually broke out most of the work on the island defenses was done by the men who were to man them, Marines of the 1st, 3rd, and 6th Defense Battalions.
The organization of the defense battalions varied according to time and place of employment, but by late 1941 the standard T/O called for a unit with more than 900 men assigned to a headquarters battery, three 5-inch coast defense gun batteries, three 3-inch antiaircraft batteries, a sound locator and searchlight battery, a battery of .50 caliber antiaircraft machine guns, and a battery of .30 caliber machine guns for beach defense. Midway was the only outpost that actually drew an entire battalion, although Wake originally was slated to be garrisoned by one. On Johnston and Palmyra the habitable area was so limited that it was impossible to accommodate more than a small defense detachment.
Some development work had been done on Wake and Midway, the two northern islands, before the arrival of the naval contractors’ construction crews. In 1935 Pan American World Airways had set up way stations for its Clipper service to the Orient on both Midway and Wake and a relay station of the trans-Pacific cable had been in operation on Midway’s Sand Island since 1903. Most construction, like the passenger hotel on Wake and the quarters for the airline’s and cable company’s personnel, was of little military value.
Midway, which had the most ambitious base plan, was also the first outpost scheduled to receive a Marine garrison—the 3rd Defense Battalion, which arrived at Pearl Harbor on 7 May 1940. The bulk of the battalion remained in Hawaii for the next eight months while reconnaissance details, followed by small advance parties, did the preliminary work on supply and defense installations.12 On 27 January 1941, in the face of the threat posed by Japan’s aggressive actions, the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) directed that the rest of the 3rd Defense Battalion be moved to Midway, that detachments of the 1st Defense Battalion be established at Johnston and Palmyra, and that the 6th Defense Battalion, then in training at San Diego, move to Pearl Harbor as a replacement and reserve unit for the outposts.13
On 15 February, the same day that the 3rd Battalion began unloading its heavy equipment at Midway, and advance detachment of the 1st Defense Battalion left San Diego on the Enterprise. At Pearl Harbor the detachment left the carrier and transferred to a small cargo ship that steamed on to the southwest for 800 miles
to reach tiny Johnston where on 3 March two 5-inch guns, six Marines, and two naval corpsmen were set ashore. After a few days layover to help the caretaker detail get set up, the rest of the advance party (3 officers and 45 enlisted men) went on to Palmyra, approximately 1,100 miles south of Oahu.
After the remainder of the 1st Defense Battalion arrived at Pearl, small reinforcing detachments were gradually added to the southern outpost garrisons as the islands’ supply and quartering facilities were expanded. On Johnston and Palmyra, as at Midway, the civilian contractors’ crews and construction equipment were heavily committed to the naval air base program, and only occasionally could the Marines borrow a bulldozer, truck, or grader to help out in their own extensive schedule of defense construction. For the most part, the garrisons relied on pick and shovel to get their guns emplaced and to dig in the ammunition magazines, command posts, and fire direction centers necessary for island defense.
Duty on the small atolls was arduous and dull with little relief from the monotony of a steady round of work and training. When a few hours off was granted, there was no place to go and little to do; the visible world shrank to a few uninviting acres of dunes, scrub brush, and coral surrounded by seemingly endless stretches of ocean. The visits of patrol planes, supply ships, and even inspection parties were welcomed. Under the circumstances, morale at the isolated posts remained surprisingly high, helped perhaps by the prospect of action.
In so far as possible, the 14th Naval District attempted to follow a policy of rotation for the men at the outlying posts, replacing those that had been longest “in the field” with men from pearl Harbor. In midsummer a groups of 1st Defense Battalion personnel was sent to Midway to start the relief of the 3rd Battalion and on 11 September the 6th Defense Battalion arrived to take over as the atoll’s garrison. The 3rd Battalion returned to Hawaii for a well-deserved break from the grueling monotony and work of building defenses.
By August 1941 the work on the naval air base at Wake was well along and the need for a garrison there was imperative. An advance detachment of the 1st Defense Battalion arrived at the atoll on 19 August and immediately began the now familiar process of backbreaking work to dig in guns, dumps, aid stations, and command posts. Again the contractor’s men and machines were largely devoted to work on the airfield and the lagoon, and the Marines had to get along with the hand tools organic to the unit. In late October reinforcements from the parent battalion made the 2,000-miles trip from Hawaii to bring the garrison up to a strength of nearly 400 men. The unit scheduled to be the permanent garrison on Wake, the 4th Defense Battalion, arrived at Pearl Harbor on 1 December, too late to reinforce or replace the Wake Detachment. A most important addition to the atoll’s defenses did arrive, however, before war broke. Twelve Grumman Wildcats of Marine Fighter Squadron 211 flew in to the airstrip off the Enterprise on 4 December.
Just before the Japanese attacked, the strength of defense battalion personnel on outpost duty and at Pearl Harbor was:
| Pearl Harbor | Johnston | Palmyra | Midway | Wake | ||||||
| Off | Enl | Off | Enl | Off | Enl | Off | Enl | Off | Enl | |
| 1st DefBn | 20 | 241 | 7 | 155 | 7 | 151 | – | – | 16 | 406 |
| 3rd DefBn | 40 | 823 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| 4th DefBn | 38 | 780 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| 6th DefBn | 4 | 17 | – | – | – | – | 33 | 810 | – | – |
For armament the outposts relied mainly on the organic weapons of the defense battalions: 5-inch naval guns, 3-inch antiaircraft guns, and .30 and .50 caliber machine guns. Midway had, in addition, three 7-inch naval guns still to be mounted and a fourth gun at Pearl Harbor waiting to be shipped. The breakdown of weapons strength showed:14
| Midway | Johnston | Palmyra | Wake | |
| 5-inch guns | 6 | 2 | 4 | 6 |
| 3-inch guns | 12 | 4 | 4 | 12 |
| .50 cal MGs | 30 | 8 | 8 | 18 |
| .30 cal MGs | 30 | 8 | 8 | 30 |
Although the list of weapons was imposing, the garrisons were not strong enough to man them adequately; the standard defense battalion of 1941, moreover, included no infantry.
In contrast to the garrisons of the Pearl Harbor outposts, the 7th Defense Battalion slated for duty at Tutuila, main island of American Samoa, was a composite infantry-artillery unit. The battalion was organized at San Diego on 16 December 1940 with an initial strength of 25 officers and 392 enlisted men. Its T/O called for a headquarters company, an infantry company, and an artillery battery as well as a small detail which had the mission of organizing and training a battalion of Samoan reservists.
The islands of American Samoa had a native population of almost 10,000 which could be drawn upon as a labor force and for troops to back up a regular garrison. This was not the only significant difference between the outpost atolls and Samoa, however. The terrain of Tutuila, which was by far the largest and most heavily populated of the islands, was mountainous and heavily forested, and its 52 square miles contained a number of areas that could be converted into camps and supply depots. There was room for training areas and small arms ranges. The fine harbor at Pago Pago, site of the U.S. Naval Station and headquarters of the naval governor, could be used by large vessels. This combination of harbor, elbow room, and an indigenous labor force, plus its location along the shipping route to the Southwest Pacific, made Tutuila a vital strategic base. (See Map 3)
During the spring and early summer of 1940, Major Alfred R. Pefley of Colonel Pickett’s staff made a thorough survey of Tutuila and prepared a detailed plan for its defense. On 29 November the CNO directed that defense plans based on Pefley’s recommendations be implemented
immediately. The naval governor was authorized to begin construction of coast defense and antiaircraft gun positions. Most of the guns to be mounted were already in storage at the naval station and the Bureau of Ordnance was directed to provide the ammunition and additional weapons still needed.15
The primary purpose of raising the 7th Defense Battalion was the manning of the four 6-inch naval guns and six 3-inch antiaircraft guns provided for in initial defense plans. The wisdom of including infantry in the battalion and making provision for reinforcement by trained Samoan reserves can hardly be questioned. Tutuila was for too large an island to be adequately protected by a relatively few big guns, most of which were concentrated around Pago Pago harbor. Small beach defense garrisons were needed all around the island shorelines to check enemy raiding parties. It was intended that most of the Samoan reserves would be equipped and trained with rifles taken from naval stores and used in the beach defenses where their knowledge of the terrain would be invaluable.
An advance party of the 7th defense Battalion, which left the States before the unit was formally activated, arrived at Pago Pago on 21 December 1940. The rest of the battalion made the 4,500-mile voyage from San Diego via Pearl Harbor in March, arriving on the 15th. The next months were busy ones as guns were emplaced and test fired, beach defenses were constructed, miles of communication lines were laid, and trails were cut which would enable quick reinforcement of threatened landing point.
It was midsummer before the first Samoan Marine was actually enlisted, but many natives voluntarily took weapons training on an unpaid status, continuing a practice begun by the naval governor in November 1940.16 The first native recruit was enlisted on 16 August 1941 and the 1st Samoan Battalion, Marine Corps Reserve, was a going concern by the time war broke. The authorized strength of the battalion was 500 enlisted men, but this figure could never be reached because of the great number of men needed as laborers on essential base construction.
There was one factor of the defense picture at Tutuila that matched the situation at Midway, Johnston, and Palmyra. None of these islands had, at the onset of war, and land planes. The Marine air squadrons which were scheduled to join the defenders were either still in the States or else based on Oahu, waiting for the signal that the airfields were ready for use. That part of Marine Air which was in the Hawaiian Islands was based at Ewa Field, located approximately four air miles west of Pearl Harbor. Just prior to the Japanese attack, the units stationed at the field were Headquarters and Service Squadron of Marine Aircraft Group 21 (MAG-21); Marine Scout Bomber Squadron 232 (VMSB-232); Marine Utility Squadron 252 (VMJ-252); and the rear echelon of VMF-211, which had moved forward to Wake. Operational control of the Marine planes in the Hawaiian area was exercised by the Commander Aircraft, Battle Force, Pacific Fleet.17
Aside from the Marine forces in the Western Pacific assigned to the Asiatic Fleet,18 the only sizeable Marine units in the Pacific not already accounted for were guard detachments on Oahu and the 2nd Engineer Battalion (less Companies C and D) which had been sent to Oahu to establish an advance amphibious training base for the 2nd Marine Division. There was a 485-man Marine Barracks at the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard and 102 men assigned to the barracks at the Naval Air Station at Ford Island. Marines provided the guard (169 men) at the Naval Ammunition Depot at Lualualei in the hills northwest of Honolulu. The defense battalions which were quartered in or near the navy yard were under the operational control of the Commanding Officer, Marine Barracks, Colonel Pickett.
There were an additional 877 Marines present in Pearl Harbor on 7 December as members of the guard detachments of the battleships and cruisers of the Pacific Fleet.19 In all, there were more than 4,500 Marines on Oahu that first day.