Sunday in hell, p.81
Sunday in Hell, page 81
The problem and related questions now were “How many are we going to have to evacuate to the mainland, who are they, what are the priorities to be given in evacuating them, how soon and on what ships are we going to place them?” Short notice, rushed, effective communication with many people, in the face of an immediate need for the utmost secrecy regarding ship movements, plus congestion and inconvenience were to become a way of life. Placing announcements and press releases in newspapers and on the radio regarding ship departures and arrivals, could result in ship sinkings and heavy loss of life. The phrase “loose lips sink ships,” which later became more than a slogan, was deadly serious.
What’s more, the brutal attack suddenly added to the list of evacuees. The more seriously wounded in the attack, along with accompanying doctors and nurses; widows and children of men killed and those still carried missing in action, entered into the equation, all with higher priority than non-essential government employees, military dependents and employees of contractors.
Tourists had come by sea on the vessels plying in and out of Honolulu from the mainland and points further west, including the two mainland football teams from San Jose State and Willamette University. En route from Manila by way of American Samoa, and due to arrive on the 16th, were the President Coolidge and Hugh L. Scott, escorted by the Louisville, the two American President Liners already laden with passengers who had left further distant shores, many voluntarily returning to the United States.
Compounding the circumstances, was the immediate, serious threat of Japanese submarines. The threat, expected if war broke out, first becoming evident an hour before the air attacks on Oahu, was punctuated with the sinking of the Cynthia Olson 1,000 miles to the northeast, then the sinking of the Japanese submarine I-70 north of Oahu and the Matson Line’s Lahaina, the latter two on the 11th. The initial blows on the 7th were followed by a rash of increasing submarine attacks on Navy task forces and on unescorted vessels in the shipping lanes between Hawaii and the West Coast - as well as in the waters adjoining Oahu and surrounding the islands.
A leisurely, planned, voluntary evacuation by single, unescorted, unarmed vessels was now out of the question. The Pacific Fleet suddenly had thrust upon it, what undoubtedly had been part of contingency planning - all shipping to and from the mainland, and further toward American bases in the Pacific, had to be escorted by Naval combatants with well-prepared and well-led anti-submarine capabilities. Fortunately, the Navy was already improving those capabilities as a result of the Atlantic Fleet’s support and assistance of the British, plus the Atlantic neutrality patrols undertaken earlier in the year.
Added to the immediate problem were the virtual destruction of all the Navy’s long-range patrol aircraft on Oahu, and the termination of Pan American Airways’ burgeoning civil air travel route from the mainland through Oahu to faraway points in the Far East and the Southwest Pacific. A small number of Pan American Clipper passengers from the two planes which had been forced to divert and turnaround from their planned routes, now were on Oahu, a number of them seeking a way back to the mainland.
The afternoon of 12 December retired Captain Frucht, whose office was on the 7th floor of the Aloha Tower in Honolulu, asked Mr. Randolph Sevier, the manager of the Steamship Department of Castle & Cooke, Limited, which ticketed commercial ship passengers, to make office space available for Frucht and his staff. Frucht asked for locations that would facilitate their management of the evacuation. Late that same afternoon, Sevier replied by letter, offering a 14x20-foot office space on the first floor, near Castle & Cooke’s passenger department.
For the moment, the form of transportation to be furnished for evacuees was unknown, and Sevier advised Frucht to avail himself of the services of their Passenger Department. Though Sevier seemed to acquiesce to Frucht’s request, to satisfy his company’s management procedures, he also wanted the retired captain’s request and any other such requests to come from Rear Admiral Bloch, the Commandant of the 14th Naval District, and suggested the wording to be used. The move continued to be held up by bureaucratic nonsense despite Admiral Bloch’s written request to Sevier on 14 December, worded precisely as Sevier asked.
Planning moved ahead, undoubtedly at a frantic pace in spite of the delayed move. But the delay exercised by Castle & Cooke, and acquiesced in by Frucht in the face of a full blown crisis, was the first indicator of trouble ahead. Twelve days later Admiral Bloch’s patience would run dry. 42
On the 12th, Frucht had been given the estimated numbers of dependents to be evacuated to the mainland, from both the Army and Navy. On 15 December, Frucht received revised numbers totaling an estimated 10,000 Navy-related dependents and General Short sent Lieutenant Colonel Casey Hayes to Frucht’s office with revised numbers totaling 4,996 Army-related, which were passed to Admiral Bloch in a memo. The questions remained, who would be the first to depart on orders, and what would be the assigned priorities?43
While the evacuation planning was in progress Japanese submarines were continuing to make themselves felt. The night of the 14th, twenty-nine miles north, northeast of Oahu, off Cape Makapuu, the Norwegian freighter, Hoegh Merchant, which had left San Francisco for Manila, and on 8 December, had been rerouted to Honolulu, stopped to await daylight before proceeding to the port. She carried 7,500 tons of general cargo including 100 tons of explosives. Japanese submarine I-4, captained by Commander Hajime Nakagawa, found her in the dark, torpedoed, and sank the stationary ship. Fortunately there was no loss of life, and all 40 of her crewmembers were picked up by the minesweeper Trever (DMS-16), which brought them into Honolulu the same day.44
On 15 December, with Coolidge and Hugh L. Scott one day from arrival in Honolulu, Admiral Bloch, already showing frustration, wrote to Admiral Kimmel, the Commander-in-Chief:
I propose to immediately start to evacuate the dependents of Navy and Marine Corps personnel in Hawaii.
In order that I may have people available to go on the first transportation available, I request that you take necessary steps to have about 500 dependents of Navy and Marine Corps personnel attached to the Fleet register with the Transportation Office in the Navy Yard, giving their names, addresses, and other data that may be required in connection with this movement.
I suggest that the first ones taken be on a voluntary basis and that all notices put out be so communicated as not to cause panic among dependents.
At a later date, I hope to get an office established up town so that this registration can take place up there. At the present time this seems to be impracticable.45
On the 16th, the day of Coolidge’s and Hugh L. Scott’s arrival in Honolulu, and the same date the three Matson Liners’ departed San Francisco, Bloch’s Chief of Staff wrote a brief memorandum to go district-wide in the 14th Naval District: “Dependents of Navy Personnel desiring evacuation to mainland should register as soon as practicable with District Overseas Transportation Office, Pearl Harbor or with the Office of Captain M.M. Frucht, USN (retired), in the Castle and Cooke Building, Honolulu, T.H.”46
By 16 December, an evacuation order had been announced and received in all the civilian, Navy and Army organizations affected by the order. On the same day, Frucht readied a press release for the 17th containing the order’s key provisions.
Evacuation from Oahu to the Mainland will begin at once for all wounded who are able to travel, tourists, and dependents of Navy personnel, civil employees and defense employees, with priority in that order, it was announced yesterday by Capt. M.M. Frucht, U.S. Navy evacuation officer.
The number of persons to be evacuated was not disclosed. “Navy lists of wounded and personnel dependents have been completed,” Capt. Frucht said. “Tourists and family dependents of civil defense employees must register. There is a deferred list to include dependents employed by the government or on government projects, and dependents of employees who have permanent homes here.”
Registration is to begin immediately, and evacuations will begin right away, Capt. Frucht said. Capt. Frucht’s telephone number is 66752.
The official notice issued from Capt. Frucht’s office follows in full:
“The Navy Department has directed the evacuation from the island of Oahu to the mainland in the following priorities:
1. Wounded.
2. Tourists.
3. Dependents of Navy Personnel.
4. Civil employees’ dependents
5. Defense employees’ dependents
Of the above categories the following will be placed on the deferred lists:
1. Dependents employed by government or on government projects.
2. Dependents of employees who have permanent homes here.
Persons coming in the second priority will register at the Honolulu Gas Company with Commander H.W. Boynton. Registration for the third, fourth and fifth priorities will be taken in the building of Castle and Cooke, Limited; in the Navy Housing Projects by Lt. Commander S.B. Wood, and in the Overseas Transportation Office, Pearl Harbor, by Commander Barrett. The registration will consist of obtaining the names of dependents, the local residence, household effects, if any, and whether they desire to leave as soon as convenient or wish to be placed on deferred lists for evacuation.”47
Similar sets of instructions went from the Army’s Hawaiian Department, telling department members and their dependents what must be done to obtain passage on ships evacuating Army wounded, dependents, and civilian employees’ dependents. The beginning of the evacuation, though far too late in planning, was gathering momentum, but there was much more to do - and much confusion. Because planning for the evacuation began barely 31 days prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, and had progressed slowly, Frucht and his staff, now trying to get organized, were being progressively overwhelmed by tasks needing prompt attention.
There were numerous additional considerations and details which had to be worked out in the last minute crush and scramble to begin evacuating the more than twenty thousand which would eventually leave through the port of Honolulu - beginning with the departure of the first convoy on 19 December.
There were many questions to be answered, such as how many people could be accommodated on each ship? The limitations for all the passenger-carrying vessels would be lifeboat and life raft capacity and the ship’s ability to accommodate that number with sleeping areas, food, water and life jackets. The Coolidge and Scott were already carrying passengers when they arrived on 16 December, though some number would disembark because Hawaii was their destination. Ships arriving from San Francisco in the coming days and had been quickly converted to troop ships capable of carrying increased passenger loads, would be disembarking all their passengers - the reinforcing troops, equipment and supplies, and could accommodate far more than Coolidge and Scott.
How would the evacuation be funded? Who fit the definition of tourist and how was their passage to be paid? How much would be charged per person for the one-way trip? Who might have to pay their own way? What household effects could be shipped? Could pets go with their owners? Could automobiles be shipped? Individual appeals were already pouring in, some asking to be exceptions to the evacuation order, others not on the priority list who were appealing because they wanted to escape the threat of renewed attacks. Some saw the tourist priority as a way out, and were quite willing to fraudulently pose and apply as “tourists.”
Three new questions arose from the appeals and requests for exceptions to the evacuation orders. How should appeals and exception requests be submitted? To whom should they be sent, who should decide and respond? As planning continued the people and military commands on Oahu received another shock - though not entirely unexpected.
Cutting the Lines
Not only was the nation and the world stunned by the calamity that befell the Pacific Fleet, the Army and Army Air Force on Oahu, there were less apparent, even more devastating, long range effects that followed. The relief of the Army, Army Air Force and Navy commanders on Oahu, the several follow-on, high-profile investigations into what occurred, the resulting media coverage, and the need to protect operational security, masked the far more ominous effects that impacted the course of the early war in the Pacific. Behind the necessary mask of secrecy and operational security, far more serious trouble was in the offing.
The blistering surprise attack, followed by the inability and now-badly-crippled, Oahu-based forces to search for and find the Japanese strike force, shook the senior military leaders’ and the Roosevelt administration’s confidence in the Pacific’s military commanders as well as the nation’s intelligence services. To compound the seriousness of the situation, Oahu, the United States’ first and most valuable stepping stone to Midway, Wake, Guam, the Philippines, and the far reaches of the Pacific, immediately appeared in grave jeopardy.
Where had the Japanese strike force come from and how did they come close enough to Oahu to deliver the body blows without being detected - then slip away? The answer soon came, but too late. Might they be able to repeat the strike? Oahu’s defenders had been weakened by the heavy blow, especially in long range patrol and pursuit aircraft. Then there was the seemingly, now-unanswerable question, might the Japanese have the force and logistical capability to instead, invade, seize, and hold Oahu, and all its military installations? Was there something missed in knowing the actual strength of the Japanese Navy, including their aviation and Naval infantry? If they possessed the capabilities, the United States forces could indeed be driven back to the mainland, and the war made even longer and more difficult.
Even more painful to consider, should the Japanese follow up their attack with another air attack that destroyed or heavily damaged the oil and aviation gasoline storage tanks on Oahu, the Pacific Fleet, Army and Army Air Forces could be forced back to mainland ports, bases and airfields - unless sufficient escorts and tankers could be mustered to ensure fleet, air operations and power generation were secured and sustained until the damage could be repaired.
In fact, almost immediately it became clear that the most direct line of communications and logistical support to MacArthur’s forces in the Philippines had been effectively severed by the Pearl Harbor disaster. And unless prompt, strong action was taken, the line of communications and logistical support to Australia and New Zealand - with Australia the southern route from Hawaii to the Philippines - was also in danger.
As the Japanese rapidly plunged deeper into the south Pacific, the situation worsened when the Asiatic Fleet commander, Admiral Thomas C. Hart, stated a few days later he couldn’t guarantee the safety of troop and supply ships, including tankers, his fleet was ordered to escort to the Philippines. He was confronting harsh reality. His fleet consisted of 3 cruisers, 13 World War I-era destroyers, 6 gunboats, 6 motor torpedo boats, 32 patrol bombers, and 29 submarines. A regiment of marines, withdrawn from Shanghai, also joined the defending forces late in November 1941.
The Japanese struck far south into Thailand and Malaya the day they struck Pearl Harbor, took Guam on 10 December, and landed two regiments on northern Luzon in the Philippines the same day. They held the World War I mandate of the Marshall Islands, which included Kwajalein, due south of Wake Island, and began almost daily bombing raids on Wake, indicating they were preparing to take the island. After Wake Island the next step east toward Hawaii was Midway.
The first hidden indicators of far more serious trouble were the rapid, but highly classified decisions immediately following the 7 December attack to reroute the 34th and 161st Regiments from their Philippine destinations, to Oahu. The Pensacola Convoy, Convoy No. 4002, which left Pearl Harbor on 29 November, was sailing via the southern route to Manila, to give wide berth to Japanese holdings in the Marshall Islands, south of Wake Island. With the highly successful air attacks on Pearl Harbor, followed by the air raid on Wake Island, and nine hours after Pearl Harbor, on bases in the Philippines, the convoy was immediately diverted southward from its course. Later the convoy commander was instructed to proceed to Suva in the Fiji Islands, where it was to remain until a final decision regarding its destination. On 12 December, after much discussion in Washington, the convoy was ordered to Brisbane, Australia, a second proximate, but for good reason, highly classified harbinger of far more serious trouble for General MacArthur’s forces in the Philippines.
In the history, U.S. Army in World War II, author Louis Morton described the ongoing discussions involving the Pensacola Convoy and the Philippines.
… The convoy was immediately ordered to put in at Suva in the Fiji Islands until a decision could be made on its ultimate destination.
The decision was made on 9 December at a meeting of the Joint Board. The chief planners of the Army and Navy, Brigadier General Leonard T. Gerow and Rear Adm. Richmond K. Turner, wanted the convoy brought back immediately to Hawaii to reinforce that badly battered garrison. General Gerow’s position was more extreme than that of his naval counterpart. He suggested that if the convoy was not sent to Hawaii it should be brought back to the United States. Following discussion, the Joint Board approved the plan to recall the Pensacola convoy to Hawaii.
While the safety of the Hawaiian Islands was undoubtedly of prime importance, the decision to bring back the Pensacola convoy was, in effect, an abandonment of the Philippine Islands. General Marshall was willing to concede the importance of Hawaii, but felt keenly the obligation to send help to General MacArthur. He had already assured the USAFFE commander on the afternoon of 7 December that he had “the complete confidence of the War Department,” and that he could expect “every possible assistance within our power.” On the morning of the 10th, “concerned with just what to say to General MacArthur,” he discussed the Joint Board decision with Mr. Stimson. He confessed that “he did not like to tell him [MacArthur] in the midst of a very trying situation that his convoy had had to be turned back, and he would like to send some news which would buck General MacArthur up.”
