Sneak Attacks

 

Credit: U.S. Navy

You're looking at the U.S.S. Arizona in ruins, on December 7, 1941--Pearl Harbor. Many people remember the attack. They forget the congressional inquiry, which launched debates every bit as heated as those the 9/11 Commission continues to stir this week.

 Today's Knowledge
What Did They Know? When Did
They Know It?

Now Americans want to know why U.S. intelligence failed to uncover the September 11 surprise attack. The story starting to emerge shows a complicated web of warnings that seem obvious--at least with 20/20 hindsight. Lost from common historical memory is the fact that Japan's December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor was no different.

Rumors dismissed

Almost a year before the attack, the U.S. ambassador to Japan reported a rumor that the Japanese were planning a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. The source of the information was a woman working for the Peruvian Embassy in Tokyo, who said she heard it from her boyfriend. The Office of Naval Intelligence passed the information along to the commander of Pearl Harbor, but with this note: "Naval Intelligence places no credence in these rumors."

History ignored

In 1904, Japan coordinated a surprise attack on Russian warships at Port Arthur, China, and Inchon, Korea. Only after immobilizing the Russian fleet did Japan declare war. And just a few years before Pearl Harbor, in 1937, Japan attacked China without warning.

Not enough analysts

In 1941, the U.S. imposed an oil embargo on the Japanese Empire. That precipitated a diplomatic crisis between the two nations, and officials met repeatedly from June to December to work out a compromise. But the U.S. had a secret advantage in the negotiations. Coded instructions wired from Tokyo to the Japanese consulate in Washington were intercepted at Army and Navy listening posts and decrypted.

Unfortunately, cryptanalysts and translators were in short supply, and messages about the negotiations got priority over what appeared to be routine requests for information. So no one noticed a telegram from the Japanese navy to its spy in the Hawaiian consulate requesting twice-weekly updates on the positions of U.S. warships in Pearl Harbor. Another cable, intercepted on December 2 but decrypted December 30, said: "The presence in port of warships, airplane carriers, and cruisers is of utmost importance. . . . Wire me in each case whether or not there are any observation balloons above Pearl Harbor . . . [and] whether or not the warships are provided with anti-mine nets."

No one listens to the little guy

One coded message, sent in September from Tokyo to the consulate in Hawaii, did get noticed. It requested detailed information about the ships in Pearl Harbor. Yet when an Army intelligence officer raised an alarm, his immediate superior dismissed his concerns. The colonel then forwarded the message to three more higher-ups, including the Secretary of War. But they all agreed that it was just routine information-gathering by the Japanese.

Same result

Americans found the enormity of the attack on Pearl Harbor almost overwhelming. In one day, 2,403 people died, and 1,178 more were wounded. Eighteen ships had been sunk or seriously damaged. Congressional leaders launched an investigation, as did the Navy and the Army. In fact, there were nine official inquiries over five years compiling information. In the 60 years since, many people have read those reports, connected the dots, and concluded that the Roosevelt administration was either incompetent or involved in a conspiracy to conceal the impending attack.

But in 1962, a respected analyst of Pearl Harbor, Roberta Wohlstetter, published an oft-quoted study that seems wise in its take on "what did they know, and when did they know it?" scandals. She wrote: "It is much easier after the event to sort the relevant from the irrelevant signals. After the event, of course, a signal is always crystal clear; we can now see what disaster it was signaling, since the disaster has occurred. But before the event it . . . comes to the observer embedded in an atmosphere of 'noise,' i.e., in the company of all sorts of information that is useless and irrelevant for predicting the particular disaster. . . . In short, we failed to anticipate Pearl Harbor not for want of the relevant materials, but because of a plethora of irrelevant ones."

From: KnowledgeNews