witchbottles
Forum Guru
okay I'm by no means a whiz with 110% of all recorded research material so far on the Pearl Harbor attack. I do , however, own an extensive collection of photostats and scans from primary source documents and secondary source analyses on the attack, its preliminary events, and its immediate aftermath - as my Thesis was on the influence of Churchill's rhetoric to mold American policy to a "Germany First" strategy, when Japan was clearly the aggressor in the minds of most Americans from Dec 7th 1941 to Feb 26th, 1942 ( the end of the ARCADIA conferences).
As such, I've read and referenced just about every primary source of the period, from the memorandums of Welles during the Atlantic Charter conference, to the many telegram decodings of messages to and from Tokyo to their US ambassadors circa 1938-1941, to the now infamous "East Wind Rain" and "War Warning Order" telegrams - to just about everything else concerning the attack....
That said, this "bombshell" landed into my lap, courtesy of a colleague at Yale:
"...TOKYO, January 27, 1941-6 p.m.
[Received January 27-6: 38 a.m.]
...
125. A member of the Embassy was told by my ------- colleague that from many quarters, including a Japanese one, he had heard that a surprise mass attack on Pearl Harbor was planned by the Japanese military forces, in case of "trouble" between Japan and the United States; that the attack would involve the use of all the Japanese military facilities. My colleague said that he was prompted to pass this on because it had come to him from many sources, although the plan seemed fantastic.
GREW
Source: U.S., Department of State, Publication 1983, Peace and War: United States Foreign Policy, 1931-1941 (Washington, D.C.: U.S., Government Printing Office, 1943), pp. 617-618."
I'd not seen this telegram yet, even as I own the referenced the US GPO publication - it never caught my eye until tonight as being in there - I looked it definitely is.
This prefaces the "East Wind Rain" purple code intercept by a full3 months, and by all accounts, really is the first hard primary source evidence of a legitimate warning of the attack.
Sometimes, epiphanies just fall into your lap when you are not expecting them.....
Undersecretary to the U.S. Consul in Tokyo - forwards a memorandum of a conversation held at a party, at the embassy. The telegram and its following MemCon are in NARA, and can be referenced as original preserved documents there. Amazingly, neither was used during the Navy or the Congressional investigations into the attack. An oversight? Or perhaps a deliberate removal of Dept of State junior personnel from involvement being documented in the preliminaries before the attack?
Hard to tell, worth a closer investigation.....
As such, I've read and referenced just about every primary source of the period, from the memorandums of Welles during the Atlantic Charter conference, to the many telegram decodings of messages to and from Tokyo to their US ambassadors circa 1938-1941, to the now infamous "East Wind Rain" and "War Warning Order" telegrams - to just about everything else concerning the attack....
That said, this "bombshell" landed into my lap, courtesy of a colleague at Yale:
"...TOKYO, January 27, 1941-6 p.m.
[Received January 27-6: 38 a.m.]
...
125. A member of the Embassy was told by my ------- colleague that from many quarters, including a Japanese one, he had heard that a surprise mass attack on Pearl Harbor was planned by the Japanese military forces, in case of "trouble" between Japan and the United States; that the attack would involve the use of all the Japanese military facilities. My colleague said that he was prompted to pass this on because it had come to him from many sources, although the plan seemed fantastic.
GREW
Source: U.S., Department of State, Publication 1983, Peace and War: United States Foreign Policy, 1931-1941 (Washington, D.C.: U.S., Government Printing Office, 1943), pp. 617-618."
I'd not seen this telegram yet, even as I own the referenced the US GPO publication - it never caught my eye until tonight as being in there - I looked it definitely is.
This prefaces the "East Wind Rain" purple code intercept by a full3 months, and by all accounts, really is the first hard primary source evidence of a legitimate warning of the attack.
Sometimes, epiphanies just fall into your lap when you are not expecting them.....
Undersecretary to the U.S. Consul in Tokyo - forwards a memorandum of a conversation held at a party, at the embassy. The telegram and its following MemCon are in NARA, and can be referenced as original preserved documents there. Amazingly, neither was used during the Navy or the Congressional investigations into the attack. An oversight? Or perhaps a deliberate removal of Dept of State junior personnel from involvement being documented in the preliminaries before the attack?
Hard to tell, worth a closer investigation.....