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Pearl Harbor (last updated February 21, 2003) (back to top) Questions linger even now about whether the United States somehow had advance word of the Japanese attack on Hawaii's Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, which sparked the United States' entry into World War II against Germany, Japan, and Italy. Did President Franklin D. Roosevelt have advance warning of the Japanese attack and choose not to act? Moreover, did FDR deliberately provoke the Japanese in order to get the United States into World War II? Roosevelt and other top officials were increasingly sure as 1941 progressed that Japan and the United States would eventually go to war. They also recognized that it would be better if Japan made the first strike so that it would be clear that Japan was the aggressor, and at least some thought that a Japanese first strike would help end the ongoing debate within the United States about aiding Britain against Nazi Germany. Officials in Washington and in Hawaii did not think Pearl Harbor was a likely target; the Philippines or Guam seemed better candidates. Nevertheless, officials in Washington did pass on at least some of these warning signs to those military officers in charge of defending Pearl Harbor and the U.S. Pacific Fleet anchored there; some have concluded that these signs should have been enough for commanders to take more precautionary defensive measures. Possible signs of an attack specifically on Pearl Harbor were misinterpreted or did not make it far or quickly up the chain of command, and were not necessarily deliberately concealed or destroyed. Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and Lieutenant General Walter C. Short, the two commanding officers from the Navy and Army at Pearl Harbor, received much of the blame for allowing the Pearl Harbor disaster. They were relieved of command within days and were later charged with dereliction of duty, though neither was convicted. Several investigations in the 1940s as well as in the 1990s determined that they were not fully to blame, and that they had not been provided full information regarding the escalating Japanese situation. For example, a 1995 report concluded that "Army and Navy officials in Washington were privy to intercepted Japanese diplomatic communications … which provided crucial confirmation of the imminence of the war," that "the evidence of the handling of these messages in Washington reveals some ineptitude, some unwarranted assumptions and misestimations, limited coordination, ambiguous language, and lack of clarification and follow-up at higher levels," and that "together, these characteristics resulted in failure … to appreciate fully and to convey to the commanders in Hawaii the sense of focus and urgency that these intercepts should have engendered." But such reports do not indicate that FDR deliberately had such information withheld from Kimmel and Short, or that FDR had more specific information about an attack on a particular target at a specific time. Some critics and historians have argued that FDR wanted to provoke Japan into launching a first attack that would have enabled the United States to enter into World War II via the "back door," but others have criticized that argument as presuming too much power to FDR and as excusing Japan's aggressiveness and boldness in making the attack. Moreover, even if FDR did want Japan to make the first strike, some have asked what he would have gained by having Pearl Harbor be unprepared. If FDR simply wanted Japan to take the first shot and thus spur the United States into action, why would FDR hobble the U.S. forces and thus ensure the deaths of the lives and battleships needed for the war he wanted to enter? About 2,400 people were killed, and 18 ships and many planes were destroyed. In any event, some of the signs available to officials in Hawaii before the attack included :
 Blacks in the Military circa World War II (last updated February 8, 2003) (back to top) During World War II, black soldiers and sailors had to struggle within their own government long before they could fight against the Axis enemy. In the Army, they were placed in segregated units, put disproportionately into non-combat service units, and as combat units were not allowed to go overseas until late in the war. In the Navy, blacks were relegated almost exclusively to steward and other service functions. The military did not even welcome blacks until ordered to do so in 1940, and then only grudgingly. Blacks were generally seen as second-rate troops who lacked the intelligence and ability to be good soldiers. This was in part due to their experience in World War I, which owed more to their lack of training, poor equipment, and unclear orders. Nonetheless, the military began opening its doors due to the Selective Service Act of 1940, which prohibited racial discrimination in military recruitment, and due to a new policy implemented by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt that year, which required that blacks be inducted according to their proportion of the population. FDR's policy maintained segregated units, but made blacks eligible to serve in the Army Air Corps, eligible for officer training, and eligible for civilian jobs within the military. Like other minorities, blacks joined for a variety of reasons : because of the economic opportunities there, because of the hope that military service might lead to social change back home, and because Hitler would be worse than anything in the United States. Boxer Joe Louis, for example, was quoted as saying that "[t]here may be a whole lot wrong with America, but there's nothing that Hitler can fix."
 The 99th Pursuit Squadron, one of those comprising the Tuskegee Airmen. Photo from the National Archives Port Chicago (last updated April 1, 2002) (back to top) More than 55 years after being convicted on a mass mutiny charge, one of the 50 black sailors who refused to load explosive munitions after a disastrous explosion was pardoned by President Bill Clinton in December 1999. All 50 sailors were convicted in 1944 and eventually had their sentences reduced and were given honorable discharges, but all retained their convictions until the 1999 pardon. Freddie Meeks, the only sailor pardoned, was one of only three still known to be alive at the time. The explosion occurred on the night of July 17, 1944 at a munitions loading facility located near Port Chicago, to the east of San Francisco. The force was equivalent to five kilotons of TNT, near that of the atomic bomb dropped at Hiroshima, and the explosion destroyed the facility and caused the deaths of 320 men, of whom 202 were black sailors. Only 51 bodies were recovered sufficiently intact to be identified. Another 390 people were injured, of whom 233 were black. This one incident was the worst homefront disaster of World War II and, by itself, accounted for more than 15 percent of all black naval casualties during the war. Blame for the disaster quickly fell onto the black sailors who were stationed at the facility. A naval court of inquiry convened within weeks of the explosion could not identify the ultimate cause of the explosion, but concluded that it was likely caused by a supersensitive element that had been mishandled. The court thus implied that the incident was effectively the fault of black personnel, who allegedly had been shown through testimony to be "neither temperamentally or intellectually capable of handling high explosives." Even sympathy was sparsely given. The disaster was seen as a national tragedy, and Congress initially proposed giving beneficiaries $5,000 in compensation. However, Congress then reduced the maximum allowable grant to $3,000, allegedly because a representative objected that most beneficiaries would be black. On August 9, 1944, just three weeks after the explosion, the sailors were ordered to resume working. Refusing to handle ammunition out of fear of another explosion, 328 sailors refused to do so, though it is apparently unclear whether they were ordered or if they were simply asked if they would be willing to do so. Of the 328, 258 were then confined to a stationary barge. Two days later, the 258 men were divided into two groups based on whether they were willing to work. Forty-four men still refused to work, and six more men who originally said they were willing to work were added to this group when they failed to show up for work duty. These 50 sailors, who ranged from de facto leader Joe Small to a man who had refused to work because his wrist was fractured, were charged with conspiring to mutiny during a time of war, a crime punishable by death. The trial of the 50 sailors began in September 1944 and lasted six weeks. The prosecution was led by Lt. Commander James F. Coakley, who was later elected district attorney of Alameda County in the 1950s and achieved national attention in prosecuting the Black Panthers. The defense was provided by the Judge Advocate General's office and was headed by Lieutenant Gerald E. Veltmann; defendants were divided into groups of ten and assigned counsel. One legal question hanging over the trial was whether the men should have been charged with mutiny at all. The sailors' defense lawyers at the time questioned whether they should have been charged with lesser charges, such as individual subordination. Mutiny implies a deliberate intent to overthrow or to take power, while a work stoppage is generally considered a passive act of resistance. In any event, all fifty men were found guilty of mass mutiny on October 24, 1944, after only 80 minutes of deliberation by the court. All were sentenced to be reduced to apprentice seamen and to be confined for 15 years, then to be dishonorably discharged. An appeal by civil-rights lawyer Thurgood Marshall, who would later become a Supreme Court justice, forced the naval court to reconsider its decision but without using improperly-admitted hearsay evidence, but the court again found all 50 men guilty. Still, 40 of the 50 men then had their sentences reduced to a total of 7 to 11 years each, and almost all were freed from prison in July 1946, after the end of the war. This clemency was tempered, however, by the fact that all the convictions stood. An effort to lift these convictions failed in the 1970s, but a renewed effort by Representative George Miller (D-California) has had more success. In 1992, Miller was active in enacting legislation ordering the Navy to review the mutiny cases; however, the JAG review ultimately concluded that race was not a factor in the outcome of the trial. Navy Secretary John Dalton stood by the JAG review but did acknowledge that "prejudice in the first instance resulted in the assignment of African-American sailors to hard, dangerous work, but segregated them and denied them the dignity accorded to others in uniform." Representative Miller then worked with the law firm of Morrison Foerster to develop a pardon appeal on behalf of Freddie Meeks, who was one of only three of the 50 convicted sailors still known to be alive. President Bill Clinton granted this appeal on December 23, 1999. Miller now continues to seek a pardon for the other 48 sailors. As for the 208 sailors who had ultimately said they would be willing to work, they were sentenced to bad-conduct discharges and three months' forfeiture of pay. Upon reviewing an early report on the charges, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had sympathized with these sailors, noting that they should receive nominal sentences since they had acted out of "mass fear." For more information on presidential pardons, go here. Sources: Robert L. Allen, The Port Chicago Mutiny (Amistad Press, 1993). Press releases by Congressman George Miller are on-line here and here. The law firm of Morrison Foerster is on-line here. A comprehensive site on the incident is on-line here; it is sponsored in part by Revelations Entertainment, on-line here, which produced a made-for-television movie on the Port Chicago mutiny that aired on NBC on March 28, 1999. Who Killed Yamamoto? (last updated May 15, 2002) (back to top) Two years after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy intercepted and decoded a message that Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto would be flying to Bougainville Island in the South Pacific near Papua New Guinea to inspect Japanese troops. On April 18, 1943 the United States sent several P-38's from Gaudalcanal to intercept the bomber and to kill Yamamoto. The incident is generally seen by international law experts as a wartime operation and an intended attack against an enemy leader, but not an assassination. Assassinations in general involve covert attacks against individuals who are non-combatants during peacetime. Admiral Yamamoto was clearly a combatant, and he was involved in military operations against the United States; he had, after all, planned the attack on Pearl Harbor. The mission was a surprise to Japanese forces but it was carried out through overt military action, not through covert or "treacherous" means such as a sniper or poison. (for more on assassinations and the distinction between assassinations and overt military actions, go here). The mission succeeded and is considered the only time that U.S. forces have ever succeeded in eliminating a major enemy leader by direct attack. Yamamoto was on one of the bombers that was shot down and he was found dead at the crash site. That much has always been certain. Other parts of the story have not been as clear, from how many Japanese bombers were shot down that day to who should be credited with the kill. According to the post-flight report, the U.S. forces sighted three Mitsubishi "Betsy" bombers with fighter escort, and all three bombers were shot down. Two crashed on land, one crashed into the sea. Immediately after the mission, the Navy unofficially kept data cards indicating that both pilots had earned one full "kill" credit for shooting down a bomber, and that Barber had earned another half-kill credit for shooting down the third bomber with another pilot, Besby Holmes. However, Japanese records released after the war indicated that only two bombers were shot down that day. The Air Force subsequently directed its historical division to compile and verify aerial victory credits. In 1978, the Air Force's Historical Research Center finally published its aerial victory credit report for World War II, in which it said that two bombers were shot down and that Lanphier and Barber should share joint credit for shooting down Yamamoto's bomber. The pilots thus shared one official victory credit, depriving each of one-half of the full credit previously assigned. The debate over who shot down Yamamoto began to be played out in Reader's Digest and eventually reached the military review system. Barber eventually embarked on a long struggle to overturn the Air Force's findings and to get sole credit, first on his own and then later with the help of the Second Yamamoto Mission Association (SYMA), a group formed to aid his cause. In 1985, an unofficial "Victory Credit Board of Review" convened by the Chief of Air Force History reviewed the record and concluded that credit was properly shared. Another panel of combat pilots made the same conclusion a few years later. In October 1991, the Air Force Board for Correction of Military Records conducted hearings on Barber's petition. Two of the five members voted to deny the petition, two voted to grant the petition, and the fifth believed that the proper action would be to convene a new Victory Credit Review Board to render a final decision. Donald B. Rice, then the Secretary of the Air Force, reviewed the record and denied the petition. In explaining his decision, Rice listed five points that he said were critical. Three points dealt with the evidence supporting Lanipher's involvement and the difficulty of reconstructing what had happened, especially since Lanipher had died in 1987. Two spoke to larger concerns. "First, the magnificent accomplishments of Colonel Barber remain undiminished. His contributions to World War II have inspired a generation, and will inspire all who follow in his footsteps. For their sake, it would be desirable to bring to a close the continuing debate surrounding this case. I share the Board's view that such debate is not an appropriate memorial to heroes," Rice wrote. "A final, overarching point is the role of teamwork in the Yamamoto mission. The entire operation was a triumph of intelligence and airmanship in terms of planning and execution. Glory should go to the team." Barber and the SYMA challenged the Secretary's action in federal court. Explaining that his function was not to decide the historical record but only to decide whether the Secretary's action was so arbitrary or unfounded as to be an abuse of discretion, Magistrate Judge John Jelderks for the District Court of Oregon upheld the Secretary's decision in November 1993. On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 1996 upheld Jelderks's decision that the Secretary's decision should stand. "While this determination is unlikely to satisfy Barber's desire for sole recognition for the downing of Yamamoto's bomber, it is the necessary result in this limited legal proceeding under the applicable standard of review. We do not express an opinion as to which pilot, if indeed only one pilot, was responsible for shooting down Yamamoto," the court wrote. "We agree that the time has come to lay this controversy to rest in the courtroom, if not in the annals of history." After retiring from the Air Force in 1961, Barber went on to become a justice of the peace, a church elder, and the mayor of his hometown, Culver, Oregon. He died on July 26, 2001 at the age of 84. Sources: The Second Yamamoto Mission Association is on-line here and has documents there, including the magistrate judge's 1993 decision to uphold the Secretary's decision. The Ninth Circuit opinion upholding that 1993 order is published as 78 F.3d 1419 (9th Cit. 1996). Information on Barber's life and death was published on-line by the Sisters Rotary here and by the 18th here. Hiroyuki Agawa, The Reluctant Admiral: Yamamoto and the Imperial Navy (Kodansha International, 1979). Carroll V. Glines, Attack on Yamamoto (Orion Books, 1990). W. Hays Parks, Executive Order 12333 and Assassination, Army Lawyer (1989). Stephen T. Hosmer, Operations against Enemy Leaders (Rand, 2001). The Enola Gay Controversy at the Smithsonian (last updated January 27, 2002) (back to top) On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 in the morning, the Enola Gay dropped the world's first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima; about 200,000 people died. Two days later, the United States dropped the world's first plutonium bomb on the city of Nagasaki. On August 14, 1945, Japan surrendered, ending World War II. Whether the use of the atomic bomb was necessary to prevent the massive loss of American lives, and how many American lives were thus saved, are perhaps still the most controversial issues of World War II. These debates drove most of the controversy surrounding the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's plans to display the Enola Gay on the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. The exhibit had been planned since the late 1980s and would have placed the Enola Gay into the context of World War II and of the nuclear arms race it effectively began, but was cancelled after vehement protest by veterans and many members of Congress. Veterans, particularly in the American Legion and the Air Force Association, opposed the Smithsonian's planned exhibit, charging that the exhibit would demonize the United States' action as racist and would ignore how the bombing of Hiroshima both served as proper punishment for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and saved American lives by ending the war without a costly invasion. How many lives is a subject of much speculation. Estimates have ranged from 30,000 (an estimate made for invading Kyushu, Japan's southernmost island) to more than a million (an estimate made by Secretary of War Henry Stimson in a 1947 article in Harper's magazine). Historian Barton Bernstein has argued that Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy estimated at a June 18, 1945 meeting that casualties would be no more than 63,000. Another difficulty in sorting out this issue is that casualties generally includes fatal and non-fatal injuries, so the actual cost in life is probably even lower than any estimates. In any case, historians also dispute whether the bomb was necessary at all in forcing a surrender. Strategic bombing and an effective naval blockade had already weakened Japan, Soviet forces had gatherd on the Manchurian border and were about to enter the war on a new front, and U.S. codebreakers had determined that Japan was interested in negotiating peace as long as it could retain its emperor. The Smithsonian had been planning to display the Enola Gay in some fashion since the late 1980s, and began developing in the early 1990s an exhibition and script spotlighting the Enola Gay in an overall discussion of nuclear weapons. The controversy became public in March 1994, when the Air Force Association issued a "special report" criticizing an early and confidential version of the exhibition's proposed script. One line in particular raised the ire of many: "For most Japanese, it was a war to defend their unique culture against Western imperialism." According to museum director Martin Harwit in his book "An Exhibit Denied," the line was meant simply to explain why Japan would not surrender unless guarantees were made that the emperor could be retained, but had been already been taken out prior to the controversy as being "clumsy and easily misunderstood." Some people contesting the exhibit said it violated federal law, specifically a provision under 20 USC 80a, which required that "the valor and sacrificial service of the men and women of the Armed Forces shall be portrayed as an inspiration to the present and future generations of America." Whether or not this statute actually could be read to ban the Enola Gay exhibit as planned, it simply did not apply to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum but to an armed forces museum that was authorized in 1961 and never funded or built. (Under federal law, 20 USC 77a, the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum "shall memorialize the national development of aviation and space flight; collect, preserve, and display aeronautical and space flight equipment of historical interest and significance; serve as a repository for scientific equipment and data pertaining to the development of aviation and space flight; and provide educational material for the historical study of aviation and space flight.") Martin Harwit, director of the National Air and Space Museum, met with veteran's groups in the fall of 1994 to work out an acceptable script for the exhibit. The changes here - especially with the then upset many historians, scientists and activists. At the same time, political pressure built up against the exhibit. As Republicans took control of the House and Senate in the fall of 1994, Congressional representation on the Smithsonian's board also changed hands, with Republicans taking control. In September 1994, the Senate passed a non-binding resolution expressing concern about the Enola Gay exhibition, and on January 24, 1995, 81 members of the House called for Harwit's resignation and for congressional hearings on the exhibit. Finally, on January 30, 1995, Smithsonian Institution Secretary I. Michael Heyman canceled the exhibition and said the Enola Gay would be displayed without any historical context. He subsequently, as requested by the American Legion and Congressman Sam Johnson, stopped publication of the catalogue that would have accompanied the exhibition and cancelled all related materials. The Enola Gay was displayed at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum with a simple plaque for about 10 months in 1995. It is now being restored for display at the Air and Space Museum's additional facility at Dulles National Airport and should be open for public viewing again in 2003. NOTE: Though the bombing of Hiroshima has been much debated since 1945, the bombing of Nagasaki has not been defended by many. Historical evidence shows that Truman ordered on July 25 that bombs be used "as soon as made ready" and that he did not retain control over each attack, so that Nagasaki was bombed simply because a second bomb was ready three days after Hiroshima was bombed. After learning of the bombing of Nagasaki, Truman ordered that no further bombs be dropped without his express permission and thus regained control of the bombs. Sources: Martin Harwit, An Exhibit Denied: Lobbying the history of Enola Gay (Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 1996). Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell, Hiroshima in America: Fifty years of denial (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1995). Barton J. Bernstein, The Atomic Bombings Reconsidered, Foreign Affairs (Volume 74, No. 1, Jan/Feb 1995). Henry L. Stimson, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, Harper's Magazine (February 1947). Timothy McNulty, War of Words: What the museum couldn't say, New York Times, February 5, 1995 (includes the March 1994 plan for the exhibit). Interview with information desk operator at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum on January 26, 2002. |
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