UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II 

The Western Hemisphere 

GUARDING 

THE UNITED STATES 

AND ITS OUTPOSTS 

by 

Stetson Conn 

Rose C. Engelman 

Byron Fairchild 

C£NT£R OF MILITARY HISTOR Y 

UNIT£D STATES ARMY 

WASH INGTON D.C., 2000 





Foreword

This is the second and final volume in The Western Hemisphere subseries

of UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II. The area covered is

vast, and so are the topics. The reader will embark upon a long journey and

become involved in a complex series of events, ranging from guarding inland

waterways to fighting the Japanese, from rounding up one forlorn German

on the coast of Greenland to battling German submarines, from conducting

staff conferences with the Navy to negotiating with His Britannic Majesty's

ministers, from withstanding the cold of the arctic or the heat of the tropics

to overcoming the ever-present ennui of soldiers who wait for the stress of

battle that never comes.

Guarding the United States and Its Outposts is instructive. Dealing often

with the twilight between peace and war, it focuses upon problems of immediate relevance to the Army and the nation today. Then as now the nation

found itself in a revolution in doctrine, weapons, and methods of defense.

The way in which men caught in this revolution faced the situation can be

a guide to those meeting similar circumstances today and in the future. This

book highlights problems in unified command and contains excellent examples of military diplomacy, of how to get along, or fail to get along, with

other armed forces of the United States and with our Allies. It contains

authoritative accounts of several highly controversial events, especially the

Pearl Harbor attack and the evacuation of the United States citizens of

Japanese descent from the west coast of continental United States.

Washington, D.C. WILLIAM H. HARRIS

25 May 1961 Brig. Gen., U.S.A. Chief of Military History

vii
The Authors

Stetson Conn, Chief Historian of the Department of the Army since 1958,

holds the Ph.D. degree in history from Yale University and has taught history

at Yale, Amherst College, and The George Washington University. After

joining the Office of the Chief of Military History in 1946, he served as

senior editor, as Acting Chief Historian, as Chief of the Western Hemisphere

Section, and as Deputy Chief Historian before taking over his present post.

He is coauthor of The Framework of Hemisphere Defense, the first volume

of this subseries, and his previous publications include Gibraltar in British

Diplomacy in the Eighteenth Century, a volume in the Yale Historical

Series, and a chapter in Command Decisions, published in 1959.

Rose C. Engelman received her Ph.D. degree in history from Cornell

University and taught at Hunter College before joining the Office of the

Chief of Military History in 1949. Until 1953 she was a member of the

Western Hemisphere Section, OCMH. She is now the historian of the

U.S. Army Mobility Command in Detroit.

Byron Fairchild, a member of the OCMH staff from 1949 to 1960, received his Ph.D. degree in history from Princeton University and has taught

at the University of Maine, Amherst College, and the Munson Institute of

Maritime History. He is the author of Messrs. William Pepperrell, which

in 1954 received the Carnegie Revolving Fund Award of the American Historical Association for the outstanding manuscript in any field of history.

Dr. Fairchild is coauthor of The Framework of Hemisphere Defense, and

The Army and Industrial Manpower in this series, and wrote a chapter in

the official version of Command Decisions. He is at present a historian in

the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

viii
Preface

This is the second of two volumes on the plans made and measures

taken by the Army to protect the United States and the rest of the Western

Hemisphere against military attack by the Axis Powers during World War

II. The global character of American participation in the war, described in

the many volumes of this series, tends to obscure the primary and basic

concern of the United States Government, and consequently of the Army,

for the safety of the continental United States. The security of the Panama

Canal and of the island of Oahu as the principal outposts of continental

defense was of almost equal concern in the decades between World Wars

I and II. When in the late 1930's the action of aggressor nations in the

Eastern Hemisphere foreshadowed a new world war that would inevitably

involve the security of the United States, Army and Navy planning officers

concluded that the continental United States could not be threatened seriously by either air or surface attack unless a hostile power first obtained

a lodgment elsewhere within the Western Hemisphere. To prevent that

from happening, the United States adopted a new national policy of hemisphere defense.

In the opening chapters of the first volume of this subseries, The Framework of Hemisphere Defense, the authors have described the evolution of

the policy of hemisphere defense from 1938 to December 1941, in relation

to contemporary American military means and the sequence of world events.

These chapters were designed to introduce the story told in the present

volume as well as the description of the new military relationships of the

United States with the other American nations that completes the first volume. Consequently, the authors have chosen to use a shortened version of

the concluding chapter of the first volume as an introductory chapter to

this one.

After the introductory chapter this volume describes first the organization of Army forces for the protection of the continental United States before

and during the war, the steps toward improving continental harbor and air

defenses, the Army's role in civilian defense and in guarding nonmilitary

installations, and the measures for continental security and threats to it

ix
after the Pearl Harbor attack. Because of the controversial character of the

action, the authors have next included a rather detailed account of the

evacuation of persons of Japanese ancestry from the west coast, and in

Chapter VIII a briefer account of the similar action planned for Hawaii.

This chapter is the last of three that summarize the Army's preparations

for defending Oahu and its great naval base, the reaction of the Army's

Hawaiian Department to the threat and then to the reality of war, and the

measures taken by the Army after the Japanese attack to secure the Hawaiian

Islands against invasion. In accordance with the chronology of enemy action,

the narrative turns from Hawaii to Alaska and the Aleutian campaign, the

only major ground operation to occur within the Western Hemisphere

during the war. Then it shifts far southeastward to describe the system of

Army defenses for the protection of the Panama Canal and the Caribbean

area against enemy intrusion, erected within the framework of military cooperation with the Latin American nations described in detail in the first

volume to this subseries. Because of the nature of the destroyer-base agreement of 1940 and the Army's focus toward South America, the account of

the extension of the continental outpost line along the North Atlantic front

is closely related at the outset to similar activity in the Caribbean area. In

due course this extension became more intimately related to the preservation

of the North Atlantic lifeline to Great Britain, and American participation

in the defense of Iceland in 1941 was a prelude to action in Europe as well

as a culmination of the defensive measures undertaken by the land and air

forces of the United States before it became a full participant in World

War II.

The events recorded in this volume occurred under circumstances and

technological conditions that differed greatly from those of the present

day. On the eve of World War II the concept of collective security, of

hemisphere defense, had not yet been translated into firm international

undertakings. The underlying threat was relatively clear-cut. Only if a

hostile power acquired military bases within the Western Hemisphere could

the United States be seriously threatened. Today the United States is an

active member of the United Nations and the military ally of many nations

in both hemispheres. The range of aircraft has transcended oceanic limitations, the intercontinental missile is a reality, and the potency of weapons

has undergone a truly awful change. Nevertheless, the changes and complexities of the nuclear age have not eliminated, they have only added to

and underscored, the basic threat and the old problems of national defense.

The fundamental and necessary concern of the United States for its own
security remains, and this concern will continue to shape some of the general characteristics of its military defenses and of its military relationships

with other American nations.

This is a work of joint authorship and endeavor. The introductory chapter and the chapters which follow on the continental United States and

Hawaii are primarily the handiwork of Conn, the first two Alaska chapters,

of Engelman, and the remaining chapters, of Fairchild. Much of the research

for the whole volume was undertaken as a common enterprise. In preparing

this volume the authors have profited immensely from participation in a

large collaborative history program, in which almost every aspect of the

Army's activity before and during the war has been under scrutiny. Without

the free interchange of information and criticism that such a program makes

possible, the research and writing for this volume would have been much

more difficult and we would have presented our story with much less confidence.

In particular we are indebted to Dr. John Miller, jr., Deputy Chief Historian of the Office of the Chief of Military History, who supervised the

review of this volume and offered many helpful criticisms of it. The members of the review panel whom he assembled to discuss and criticize the

volume were Lt. Col. Joseph Rockis, Chief of the Histories Division, and

Dr. Leo J. Meyer, from within the office; and Professor Arthur A. Ekirch, Jr.,

of The American University, and Dr. Kent Roberts Greenfield, former Chief

Historian. To all of them we owe acknowledgment for constructive criticism,

and especially to Dr. Greenfield, under whose immediate supervision this

work was launched and brought near to completion. Brig. Gen. Paul McD.

Robinett, former Chief of the Special Studies Division, also reviewed the

whole volume with his usual thoughtfulness, and we are deeply obliged to

many outside the Office of the Chief of Military History who have given

freely of their time and knowledge in reviewing parts of it. Especially helpful comments were obtained from Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt on the west

coast and Alaska chapters, from Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid on the Attu

and Kiska operations, and from Maj. Gen. Charles H. Bonesteel and former

Consul General B. Eric Kuniholm on Army activity in Iceland. For help of

a different sort, we record our indebtedness to Dr. Herman Kahn, former

Director of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, and to members of his

staff, for access to and friendly guidance into the President's papers; and

to McGeorge Bundy, former professor at Harvard University, for access to

the diary of Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson.

We wish also to express our appreciation to those members of the Edixi
torial Branch, headed by the late Miss Ruth Stout, who guided the manuscript through the last stage of preparation for the printer—especially to

Mrs. Marion P. Grimes, whose copy editing was above and beyond the call

of duty; to Mr. Billy C. Mossman, who prepared the maps; and to Miss

Ruth Phillips, who selected the photographs. The index was compiled by

William Gardner Bell.

These acknowledgments of assistance are in no way delegation of responsibility for the contents of the volume. The presentation and interpretation of events it contains are the authors' own, and we alone are responsible

for faults of commission or omission.

Washington, D.C. STETSON CONN

24 May 1962 ROSE C. ENGELMAN

BYRON FAIRCHILD

xii
Contents

Chapter Page

I. THE FRAMEWORK OF HEMISPHERE DEFENSE. ............. . 3

II. THE COMMAND OF CONTINENTAL DEFENSE FORCES. .... . 16

Peacetime and Planned Wartime Organization. .................. . 17

Reorganization, July 1940-December 1941...................... 22

The Wartime Organization.................................. 33

III. PREPARATIONS FOR CONTINENTAL DEFENSE............. . 45

Harbor Defenses........................................... 45

Air Defense Preparations. .................................. . 54

The Army and Civilian Defense.............................. 64

Guarding Nonmilitary Installations. .......................... . 73

IV. THE CONTINENTAL DEFENSE COMMANDS AFTER

PEARL HARBOR ...................................... . 80

Defense Measures on the West Coast, 1941-42. ................ . 82

Defense Measures on the East and Gulf Coasts, 1941-42. .......... 94

Guarding the Sault Ste. Marie Canal. ......................... . 102

The Period of Reduction, 1942-45............................ 105

V. JAPANESE EVACUATION FROM THE WEST COAST......... . 115

The Background of Evacuation Planning. ...................... . 116

The Decision for Mass Evacuation............................. 127

The Evacuation of the Japanese. ............................. . 137

VI. THE REINFORCEMENT OF OAHU. ......................... . 150

The Hawaiian Department Before 1941........................ 150

Defense Preparations During 1941............................ 161

xiii
Chapter Page

VII. THE PEARL HARBOR ATTACK. ............................ . 174

The Approach to War. ..................................... . 175

The Plan and Launching of the Attack......................... 184

The Attack and the Response................................. 187

Investigation and Judgment. ................................ . 194

VIII. THE HAWAIIAN DEFENSES AFTER PEARL HARBOR. ....... . 197

The Impact of War. ...................................... . 199

The Question of Japanese Evacuation.......................... 206

Reinforcement ........................................... . 214

Midway ................................................. . 219

IX. THE GARRISONING OF ALASKA, 1939-41.................... 223

Initial Army Plans and Preparations. .......................... . 224

The Alaska Defense Command. .............................. . 230

Making Ready To Defend the Navy's Bases. ................... . 232

The Air Defense Problems..... ............................ . 239

Airfields, Radar, and the Construction Program................... 244

Reinforcing the Air Defenses. ............................... . 247

On the Alert. ............................................ . 250

X. ALASKA IN THE WAR, 1942. .............................. . 253

Reinforcement ........................................... . 255

The Attack on the Aleutians. ................................ . 257

The Army's Reaction........................................ 263

Command Problems ........................................ 266

Aid to the Soviet Union...................................... 268

The Advance Westward. ................................... . 270

XL CLEARING THE ALEUTIANS............................... . 277

Attu Retaken.............................................. 279

Kiska—Grand Anticlimax. .................................. . 295

XII. FORGING THE DEFENSES OF THE CANAL. ................ . 301

The Prewar Defenses. ..................................... . 301

Emergency Measures, August 1939-January 1940. .............. . 310

Reorganization and Expansion. .............................. . 314

The Puerto Rican Outpost, 1939-40. ......................... . 322

The Alert of June 1940..................................... 327

xiv
Chapter Page

XIII. OUT FROM THE CANAL ZONE. ........................... . 328

Organizing the Caribbean Theater. ........................... . 329

The Alert of July 1941...................................... 335

The Outposts in the Dutch West Indies. ....................... . 337

Securing the Pacific Approaches. ............................. . 339

Expansion in the Republic of Panama. ........................ . 344

Strength and Readiness of the Defenses, 1941................... 348

Naval Factors in Area Defense................................ 351

XIV. THE NEW BASES ACQUIRED FOR OLD DESTROYERS. ...... . 354

The Local Setting.......................................... 355

Planning the Garrisons. .................................... . 358

Negotiating the Base Agreement. .............................. 366

Launching the Construction Program........................... 375

XV. MANNING AND ORGANIZING THE NEW ATLANTIC BASES. . 384

The Garrisons and Their Mission.............................. 384

Problems of Organization and Command. ..................... . 392

Early Administrative Problems. .............................. . 397

XVI. THE CARIBBEAN IN WARTIME. ........................... . 409

The First Effects of War. ................................... . 409

Shaping the Local Commands. ............................... . 416

The First Blow. ........................................... . 423

The Watch on the Canal. .................................. . 424

The War Against the U-Boat. ............................... . 429

Passing the Peak........................................... 436

XVII. GREENLAND: ARCTIC OUTPOST. .......................... . 442

Growth of American Interest in Greenland. ..................... 443

Greenland's Strategic Importance Reappraised. ................. . 447

Establishing the BLUIE Bases. ............................... . 451

The Defense of Greenland. ................................. . 455

XVIII. PLANNING THE ICELAND OPERATION. ................... . 459

The Shifting Focus of American Interest........................ 461

The President's Decision and the War Department's Response....... 466

Problems, Remote and Immediate. ........................... . 468

INDIGO Planning, First Phase............................... 472

A New Decision: Reinforcement, Not Relief. .................. . 479

The First American Forces Land in Iceland. ................... . 481

INDIGO Planning, Second Phase.............................. 484

A Backward Glance at the INDIGO Planning. .................. 491
Chapter Page

XIX. ESTABLISHING THE ICELAND BASE COMMAND. ........... . 494

The Movement of the Second Echelon, Task Force 4.............. 495

Problems of Defense: Ground and Air. ....................... . 498

Problems of Administration and Human Relations. .............. . 507

The Question of Reinforcements and Relief. ................... . 520

A New Role. ............................................. . 527

Basic Considerations for Determining the Post-Pearl Harbor

Course of Action......................................... 530

XX. THE NORTH ATLANTIC BASES IN WARTIME. ............. . 532

The Build-up.............................................. 533

The Command Problem .................................... . 539

Operations Against the Enemy. .............................. . 548

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ........................................ . 555

GLOSSARY ...................................................... . 561

INDEX .......................................................... . 569

Tables

No.

1. Recommended and Approved Strengths for Atlantic Bases, 1940-41........ 360

2. Estimated Cost of Army and Air Bases, 1940......................... . 376

3. Estimated Cost of Army and Air Bases, 1941......................... . 377

4. Actual Cost of Army and Air Bases................................. . 378

5. Shipping Losses in the Caribbean Area, January 1942-July 1944. ......... . 431

Chart

1. Organization Approved 3 May 1941................................ . 332

Maps

I. Continental Defense Organization, 20 May 1942................. . facing 39

II. Oahu Island.............................................. . facing 151

III. The Capture of Attu, 7th Infantry Division, 11-30 May 1943....... . facing 281

IV. Iceland .................................................. . facing 499

xvi
Illustrations

Page

Lt. Gen. Hugh A. Drum............................................. . 19

Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt. ............................................ . 21

Six-Inch Gun Emplacement on Jasper Parapet. ........................... . 53

Mayor La Guardia in Action During Practice Alert. ...................... . 69

Camouflaged Airplane Factory........................................ . 90

Infantrymen on Beach Patrol......................................... . 100

Japanese Free Balloon............................................... . 112

Japanese Evacuees Arrive at the Colorado River Relocation Center. .......... . 142

Troop Maneuvers in Hawaii.......................................... . 162

Wheeler Field After the Bombing. .................................... . 190

Japanese Children Drilling. .......................................... . 213

View of Dutch Harbor. ............................................. . 233

Naval Base at Kodiak............................................... . 251

Construction on Adak............................................... . 271

Attu Landings..................................................... . 286

Early Radar Installation............................................. . 313

Panama Airfields .................................................. . 318

Antiaircraft Defenses of the Panama Canal.............................. . 347

U.S. Army Installations in the Bermuda Islands........................... . 380

The Edmund B. Alexander. .......................................... . 386

First Troops in Trinidad............................................. . 398

Installations in Newfoundland........................................ . 399

Optical Height Finder Mounted on Old El Morro Fortress. ................. . 425

Torpedoed Vessel Being Towed Into San Juan Harbor. ................... . 432

Coast Guard Tug Aiding Freighter Off Greenland........................ . 446

Abandoned German Equipment in Greenland............................ . 450

Temporary Supply Dump in Reykjavik. ................................ . 482

Maj. Gen. Charles H. Bonesteel....................................... . 491

Gale in Iceland.................................................... . 497

Army Posts in Iceland............................................... . 518

U.S. Army Troops Arriving in Reykjavik, January 1942................... . 525

Section of a Greenland Airfield, 1943.................................. . 540

American Fighter Planes Over Camp Artun, Iceland. ...................... . 550

German Prisoners Under Guard in Greenland............................ . 551

All but three of the illustrations are from Department of Defense files. The photograph on page 69 is used by courtesy of the New York Daily News. The two photographs on page 90 were furnished by The Boeing Company.

xvii

GUARDING

THE UNITED STATES

AND ITS OUTPOSTS

CHAPTER I

The Framework

of Hemisphere Defense

Before it entered World War II, the United States committed itself to

defend the entire land area of the Western Hemisphere against military

attack from the Old World.1 In the course of planning for this purpose, the

United States Government defined the hemisphere as including all of the

land masses of North and South America plus Greenland, Bermuda, and

the Falklands (but not Iceland or the Azores) in the Atlantic area, and all

islands east of the 180th meridian and all of the Aleutians in the Pacific.

The armed power of the United States did not prevent minor enemy invasions of New World territory, as the Germans in Greenland and the

Japanese in the Aleutians were to demonstrate. But its forces were strong

enough by late 1941 to make a sustained attack on the hemisphere an unprofitable venture for hostile powers.

The commitment to defend the whole hemisphere by force was a new

departure in the military policy of the United States, although it was a

natural outgrowth of American policy and practice under the Monroe

Doctrine. It was also a natural extension of the primary mission of the

armed forces—defense of the homeland. For more than a century the possibility of a serious attack across continental land frontiers had been exceedingly remote, and until the late 1930's an effective attack by land-based air

power was impracticable. Therefore, the Army had concentrated after

World War I on protecting the continental United States against attack by

sea and against coastal invasion backed by sea power. It was almost equally

concerned with the defense of the Panama Canal Zone and Oahu, as the

principal outlying bastions for continental defense.

1

 This introductory chapter is a somewhat shortened version of the concluding chapter of the

companion volume of this subseries, Stetson Conn and Byron Fairchild, The Framework of Hemisphere Defense, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1960). It is

included here to provide a broader setting for the account that follows of the specific plans and

measures for defending the continental United States and its outposts during World War II.
4 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

By the late 1930's a rapid increase in the range and striking power of

military aircraft introduced a new and potentially serious threat to New

World security, a development that coincided with the rise of Adolf Hitler

and the secret and formidable preparation of the German nation for war.

It was this coincidence that gave birth to the policy of hemisphere defense

after Hitler made clear his power and his warlike intent during the Munich

crisis of September 1938. The United States decided that as soon as possible

it had to have the means to forestall the establishment of any hostile air base

or other military installation on Western Hemisphere territory from which

its continental area or the Panama Canal could be threatened or attacked.

To prevent the establishment of enemy bases remained the essence of hemisphere defense during the prewar period of American military preparation

from late 1938 to December 1941.

Whatever the United States did for hemisphere defense, it did primarily

to safeguard its own national security and interests. As a senior general put

it, "In the formulation of all these plans, the vital interests of the United

States must be uppermost in our minds."

 2 The over-all purpose of the new

policy, an Army planner noted, was to "deny an enemy bases from which

he might launch military operations against any of the democratic nations of

this hemisphere"; but its basic design was "to reduce to a minimum the likelihood of accepting war upon our own territory."

 3 All of the measures

planned and taken in the name of hemisphere defense, including those taken

during 1941 for the salvation of Great Britain and the British lifeline across

the North Atlantic, had the fundamental objective of promoting the security of the United States itself.

The basic threat to national security, as conceived by President Franklin

D. Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull from late 1937 onward,

was the increasing probability that Germany in combination with Japan

might achieve domination over the land masses of the Eastern Hemisphere,

wreck the British Commonwealth of Nations, and eventually and almost

inevitably threaten the Western Hemisphere with military attack and conquest. The Munich "settlement" gave reality to this specter. Nazi Germany

acquired a superior military position for launching an offensive war, and the

League of Nations henceforth became completely ineffectual as an instrument for preventing a general war in the Eastern Hemisphere. The amoral

leadership of Hitler together with the tremendous lead of Germany over

2

 Memo, CG Third Army for WPD, 8 June 40, WPD 4175-11. 3

 Memo for Rcd, Lt Col Jonathan W. Anderson, WPD 4175-2.
THE FRAMEWORK OF HEMISPHERE DEFENSE 5

the democratic nations in rearmament made it appear probable by early

1939 that Germany would soon launch an offensive war of unpredictable

dimensions.

On the other side of Eurasia, Japan had been engaged since 1937 in the

conquest of China, and increasingly the Japanese Government was succumbing to the control of war lords who aimed at Japanese domination of all

East Asia and Indonesia. Between 1938 and 1941 these developments made

for a constant and serious threat of war between Japan and the United

States, though not for a serious Japanese threat to territory in the Western

Hemisphere. During the prewar period Army planners believed it in the

realm of possibility only that Japan could establish bases in the Aleutians

or western Alaska, in outer islands of the Hawaiian group, or in islands

southwest of Hawaii and east of the 180th meridian. That Japanese aircraft

carriers might launch hit-and-run attacks on Hawaii or Panama they considered a more likely possibility. Since the United States after 1937 kept the

bulk of its naval strength in the Pacific, the Army and the government generally tended to discount these dangers, and hemisphere defense came to

mean very largely Atlantic defense against the menace of Nazi Germany.

President Roosevelt and the military planners foresaw in 1939 that the

greatest danger to the United States and to the rest of the hemisphere would

be the defeat of France and Great Britain with the surrender or destruction

of their naval power. Widespread German influence in Latin America, much

of it clandestine and subversive in intent, constituted a more nebulous danger

but a serious weakness in the American position. The smashing German

victories of 1939 and 1940 naturally bolstered this influence. After France's

defeat in June 1940, the Germans planned two specific operations which, if

successfully carried out, would have required much more vigorous measures

than were actually put into effect. The Germans planned to invade Great

Britain and to sweep through Spain in order to capture Gibraltar and Northwest Africa. Hitler's decision to postpone these operations until he had conquered the Soviet Union greatly eased the Atlantic situation in 1941, but

did not dissipate American concern for hemisphere defense until Germany

lost its ability to shift its major war effort from east to west in 1942. The

German threat that had most to do with drawing the United States into

World War II was the air and sea attack on Great Britain and its North

Atlantic lifeline, which in 1941 shifted the military focus of the United

States toward the northeast and into the Battle of the Atlantic.

In defense planning, after World War II began in September 1939, the

United States assumed that Hitler had embarked on a calculated scheme of
6 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

world conquest; and in 1941 it assumed that Germany and Japan were acting

in close military concert. These were the safe and proper assumptions for

military planning. Actually, the Germans and Japanese became associates

rather than partners in conquest and did not act in close military concert

either before or after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Whatever schemes for world conquest Hitler may have had in mind, he never

spelled out more than Old World domination (except in what he construed

as Japan's proper sphere) and appropriate revenge against the United States

for supporting his enemies by such tactics as a bombardment of New York

City. Known Japanese plans for conquest were also limited to the Eastern

Hemisphere, but unlike Hitler the Japanese, in furtherance of their plans,

felt ready in 1941 to challenge the military power of the United States. After

the Japanese unleashed their attack, and notwithstanding its unanticipated

scope and violence, the United States Government decided that Hitler and

German military superiority still posed the greater danger to the national

security and to the whole Western way of life, and it reaffirmed the decision

made in early 1941 that if the nation were drawn into the war it should

strive to defeat Germany first.4

The seriousness of the German threat in 1940 led the United States, for

the first time in its history, to seek and enter into close military relations

with most of the other Western Hemisphere nations. Generally, the other

American nations were as aware as the United States of the Nazi menace to

democracy, and Canada had almost immediately joined with Great Britain

in the war. Inter-American solidarity in World War I furnished some precedents for wartime collaboration, but not for the military staff agreements

and defense boards of World War II, or for the extensive deployment of

United States forces throughout the hemisphere that occurred between 1939

and 1945. In view of the preponderant strength of the United States and its

very recent abandonment of intervention, the other American nations entered into these military ties with an understandable concern for their own

national sovereignty and interests.

Military relations with Canada differed from those with the Latin American nations, not only because Canada became a belligerent in September

1939 but also because Canada had not participated in the earlier Pan American gatherings that formulated the basic principles for association with the

nations to the south. The close military contacts that developed with Canada

4

 See Louis Morton, "Germany First: The Basic Concept of Allied Strategy in World War II,"

Study 1 in Department of the Army, Command Decisions (Washington, 1960).
THE FRAMEWORK OF HEMISPHERE DEFENSE 7

in 1940 and 1941 were also tied in with the growing military intimacy of

the United States and Great Britain. Thus the Permanent Joint Board on

Defense, Canada-United States, was an immediate outgrowth of the destroyer-base negotiation with the British in August 1940, and joint war plan

ABC-22 with Canada was based in large measure on the strategy developed

jointly in the Anglo-American staff conversations of early 1941. On the other

hand, the prewar and wartime association of the United States and Canada

naturally reflected the tradition of the long-unguarded frontier, the economic and demographic intimacy of the two nations, and the precedent of

joint boards and commissions created for various purposes during the preceding decades of the twentieth century.5

In the area of Latin America, the key to fulfillment of measures for

defense was the success of the United States both before and after Pearl

Harbor in staying within the bounds of its prewar political commitments,

which collectively comprised the Good Neighbor policy. By 1938 national

policy was against further territorial expansion in the New World, and the

United States had ceased its political and military interventions in certain

Caribbean countries and foresworn intervention for any purpose in any

American nation. In general the United States had also committed itself

not to "play favorites" among the American nations. On the other hand,

to have any reality, hemisphere defense required the availability of existing

or the development of new military bases. In its military planning the United

States therefore assumed that when necessary its forces could use existing

military bases and essential supporting facilities in other American nations

and in colonial territories of the European powers. Until Pearl Harbor the

United States as a matter of policy avoided either the lease or outright acquisition of new base sites in other American nations, and at least in theory

avoided exclusive acquisition and use of new bases anywhere in the hemisphere except within its own territory. After Pearl Harbor it carefully

avoided any use of military bases that could fairly be construed as an infringement on the sovereignty of other New World nations.

A fundamental of the policy and defense plans of the United States has

been that potential Old World enemies must not obtain control over any

territory in the Western Hemisphere, either by force or by negotiation.

In Army usage before and during World War II the Monroe Doctrine

meant just that and nothing more. Germany's victory in the west in 1940

5

 Stanley W. Dziuban, Military Relations Between the United States and Canada, 1939-1945,

UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1959), contains the fullest description of the prewar and wartime association of the two nations.
8 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

naturally made this a problem of great moment, and the United States prepared to take any necessary steps to prevent British, French, Dutch, and

Danish possessions from falling into German hands or under German control. To avoid any pretext for military attack, the United States also opposed

the defense of French, Dutch, and Danish possessions by friendly belligerents, and insisted that these lands should be defended as necessary by United

States or Latin American forces. After the destroyer-base exchange "the

United States also assumed a major share of the responsibility for defending British North Atlantic and Caribbean territories.

As for the territory of the Latin American nations, the United States

pledged itself in military staff agreements negotiated in 1940 to employ its

forces to assist in defeating any external attack by the armed forces of a

non-American state or internal attack supported by a non-American state,

if the recognized government of the nation concerned asked for such assistance. While the larger Latin nations had sizable military establishments,

these were not equipped or trained to meet an Old World enemy force in

strength. Nor did the United States have the means to help equip and train

their forces sufficiently or in time to handle major threats from abroad.

Therefore, prewar plans for hemisphere defense had to assume that United

States forces would be required to defend the Latin American area against

major overseas attacks. The large movement of trained Canadian forces to

Great Britain made a similar assumption necessary for the northern reaches

of the hemisphere. Acting on these assumptions, the United States in military

negotiations with other American nations before Pearl Harbor had as its

main objectives obtaining assured access to existing military base facilities,

and receiving warning of impending enemy attacks in time to allow United

States forces to reach threatened areas.

The leaders of the United States Army realized during the prewar years

that even under the most auspicious circumstances the Army was ill prepared

for any large-scale operations. With only a nucleus of trained and equipped

troops, the Army undertook in 1940 to develop a large strategic reserve of

units that for the most part would not be ready for even limited action before

late 1941. Given this situation Army planning continued to be dominated

by the idea of maintaining a perimeter defense of the citadel, the continental United States. Until 1939 the defense perimeter followed the continental shore line and was supported by strong but distant outposts in

Panama and Hawaii. With military expansion and in accordance with the

new policy of hemisphere defense, the defensive perimeter was extended

from the citadel. By mid-1941 it included Greenland, Newfoundland, Ber-
THE FRAMEWORK OF HEMISPHERE DEFENSE 9

muda, Puerto Rico, and Trinidad along the Atlantic front and Alaska and

Oahu and the Canal Zone along the Pacific. Army planners wanted to project the perimeter southward to include the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific

and the eastern tip of Brazil in the Atlantic. They believed that with this

further extension the perimeter could be held by a minimum number of

combat forces and that no enemy could establish a base for major operations in the Western Hemisphere without first capturing one or more strongpoints in the perimeter.

As long as the United States Navy kept the bulk of its fleet in the eastern

Pacific, neither Japan nor any other nation had the capability of establishing

a hostile base from which to launch a major operation against the hemisphere's Pacific front, and Nazi Germany with all of its military might could

not act similarly in the northern Atlantic as long as the British Fleet was in

being and based on the British Isles. In October 1940 the Chief of Staff,

General George C. Marshall, described the naval aspects of hemisphere defense as "fundamental," and said: "As long as the British fleet remains undefeated and England holds out, the Western Hemisphere is in little danger

of direct attack." But, he added, "the situation would become radically

changed" if the British Fleet were sunk or surrendered.6

If Britain fell and the British Fleet were lost, it was more than conceivable that the hemisphere might be invaded from the northeast via Newfoundland and the St. Lawrence estuary. This was the threat that aroused

the interest of President Roosevelt in acquiring bases for United States forces

in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland; it was a matter discussed at the first

meeting of the Permanent Joint Board on Defense, Canada-United States;

and it remained a threat covered by Army expeditionary force plans in 1940

and 1941.

Partly because both British and American naval power was stationed so

far away, the Army was most concerned during the prewar period with the

situation in the Caribbean area and in eastern South America. The Caribbean

Sea and the Gulf of Mexico were the Atlantic approaches to the Panama

Canal, and also to the "soft underbelly" of the United States itself—its

unprotected Gulf coast. Furthermore, two prime strategic materials—oil

and bauxite—originated around these seas and traveled through them.

After June 1940 the presence in this area of French colonies loyal to the

Vichy Government added to the Army's concern.

In South America the bulge of Brazil, closer to Africa than to the nearest

6

 Résumé of conversation between Gen Marshall and Gen Nicolas Delgado, CofS Paraguayan

Army, 31 Oct 40, WPD 4385-1.
10 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

of the Antilles, was the one point in the hemisphere vulnerable to largescale air attack or invasion. Northeast Brazil was undefended, inaccessible

to existing Brazilian Army forces, and beyond the range of United States

air power based in the Caribbean area. Even if Britain survived, it seemed

to Army planners that this position must be defended by United States forces

if German forces moved into western Africa. Furthermore, they held, the

effective defense of this one position would ensure the whole southern

Atlantic front against external attack and reassure all of the Latin American

nations against any serious threat from abroad. It was in order to make this

position defensible that the Army arranged with Pan American Airways to

construct two chains of airfields leading from the United States to eastern

Brazil. But it could not persuade the Brazilians to request United States

Army defenders for the area.

Germany's smashing victories in western Europe in the spring of 1940

had the immediate effect of re-emphasizing hemisphere defense as the basic

military policy of the United States. On 23 May President Roosevelt and his

principal advisers decided that the nation must avoid war with Japan and

concentrate on what they called the "South American situation." Eastern

Brazil was the most immediate cause for anxiety, and during the following

weekend the President and the Army and Navy engaged in hurried planning

for a possible expeditionary force to that area. Actually, the services were

then unready to carry out any such plan, but they quickly prepared a more

comprehensive one for defending the hemisphere on all fronts. This plan,

RAINBOW 4, remained the basic guide for American military action until

the spring of 1941. In June 1940, after France fell, the President and his

principal military advisers confirmed their determination to avoid war or

offensive action in the Pacific, ruled out intervention in the European war,

and decided that the nation must concentrate on mobilizing its manpower

and economic strength for hemisphere defense. Underlying these decisions

was a grave doubt that Great Britain could survive through 1940.

The first breach in the June decisions on national strategy was the agreement with Great Britain to exchange destroyers for bases, concluded on 2

September. During September Army and Navy leaders as well as the President acquired a conviction that Great Britain could hold out at least six

months more, and that even if the British Fleet was surrendered in the spring

of 1941 it would take the Germans six additional months to make it useful.

Therefore, Germany could not launch a major attack across the Atlantic

before the autumn of 1941, and by then the United States expected to have

a trained and equipped army of 1,400,000 men as well as greater naval
THE FRAMEWORK OF HEMISPHERE DEFENSE 11

strength. While eventually Germany might muster the strength to challenge

the United States, a transatlantic invasion of the hemisphere by German

forces within the next two or three years appeared improbable, even if

co-ordinated with a Japanese offensive in the Pacific. With the bounds of

neutrality already broken by the destroyer-base exchange, and with a much

more optimistic outlook than in June, the United States Government from

September onward charted a new course of much greater aid to Great Britain.

Eventually and inevitably this new course disrupted plans for a perimeter

defense of the hemisphere, as plotted in RAINBOW 4.

While Germany stayed its military hand in the autumn and winter of

1940, the United States reached new decisions on national policy. These

reaffirmed a defensive posture in the Pacific and concentration on the Atlantic and European situations. But the new policy went much further: it

assumed the salvation of Great Britain and the British Fleet, and it contemplated American entry into the European war to defeat Germany. By

December 1940 the civilian and military leaders of the War and Navy

Departments were convinced that the United States must eventually enter

the war against Germany to save itself, and that to save itself it had to save

Great Britain. They also agreed that the eventual "big act" in getting into

the war would be the one undertaken by United States forces to help protect the North Atlantic seaway to Great Britain.7

 President; Roosevelt

matched these convictions with his conception of lend-lease. In effect, the

new orientation of national policy made Great Britain the pivot of measures

for defending the nation and the hemisphere during 1941. It also brought

the United States Navy into the midst of Atlantic action.

Although the Army was the more active service in preparations for

continental and hemisphere defense before 1941, it had actually been playing a secondary role behind a first-line screen of naval power. The Navy

much more than the Army kept its eyes on the Pacific, where its main strength

lay and where it assumed its main task would be if war came. Nevertheless,

as the Army recognized, throughout the prewar years the Navy in conjunction with British naval power was carrying out its primary mission of providing the nation with a first line of defense at a distance. Army leaders were

also well aware during these years that only the Navy had a force in being

ready for war.

After September 1939 the principal task of the Navy in the immediate

defense of the hemisphere was to maintain a neutrality patrol in Atlantic

7

 Diary of Henry L. Stimson, entry of 16 Dec 40, examined at Sterling Memorial Library, Yale

University.
12 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

waters to persuade belligerent warships, and especially German vessels, to

keep away from American shores. The Navy gradually extended this patrol

outward into the Atlantic, and the destroyer exchange, though temporarily

weakening the patrol, provided new and improved bases for supporting its

operations. Then, in January 1941, President Roosevelt authorized the Navy

to prepare for the larger role in the Atlantic of helping to escort American

aid to Britain. While the Navy was getting ready for this task, the United

States and Great Britain agreed in staff conversations on the course of action

they would follow if the United States entered the war, and Congress passed

the Lend-Lease Act. But when the Navy in April came up with a forthright

escort scheme in its Western Hemisphere Defense Plan No. 1, President

Roosevelt after some indecision ordered a more circumscribed line of action

that confined American naval operations to the western half of the Atlantic

and to measures short of escort duty. Even so, it seemed to Army and Navy

leaders in the spring of 1941 that the nation was on the brink of open war.

Germany's attack on the Soviet Union in June helped to postpone war in

the Atlantic and to precipitate it in the Pacific. Intelligence of the impending German thrust eastward was one of the factors influencing the decision

of President Roosevelt to send American troops to Iceland, and their arrival

furnished a justification for escort operations by the United States Navy to

the longitude of Iceland. Then in September and October came the "shooting

war" and more open naval collaboration with Great Britain under the Navy's

Western Hemisphere Defense Plan No. 5.

Whether these successive Navy plans of 1941 were really measures for

hemisphere defense was a bone of contention for isolationists then as it has

been for some of Mr. Roosevelt's critics since. Granted that the broadening

military operations of the United States in the North Atlantic were steps

toward the defeat of Hitler's Germany, they were also genuine and effective

defense measures, and their dual purpose should be recognized. Certainly

under these plans and the associated plans of the Army the United States

took its most effective action for Atlantic and hemisphere defense during 1941.

The Army played only a secondary role in the vigorous measures of mid

and late 1941 for saving Great Britain and its North Atlantic lifeline.

Execution of these measures meant that the Army could not carry out other

plans for defense in the areas for which it had previously felt so much concern, the Caribbean and South America. On the other hand, with the North

Atlantic increasingly secured and the Germans heavily engaged in the Soviet

Union, new Army defense steps to the south had less urgency than before

mid-1941. Thereafter the Army tried to keep the number of combat troops
THE FRAMEWORK OF HEMISPHERE DEFENSE 13

sent into the Caribbean area to a bare minimum, and, beyond the Caribbean,

it wished only to establish an air reconnaissance base southwest of Panama

and send minimum defense forces to the eastern bulge of Brazil.

The position of President Roosevelt toward hemisphere defense after

the spring of 1940 is somewhat difficult to determine from his addresses and

other remarks. As a rule, his intimate conversations with advisers were not

recorded. From his known remarks and actions it is apparent that after the

summer of 1940 Mr. Roosevelt did not feel any acute concern about the

possibility of a major military attack on the hemisphere for several years to

come. There is no question about the President's detestation of Hitler and

the Nazis, nor about his appreciation of how great the threat to the United

States would be if Germany secured a dominating position in the Eastern

Hemisphere. Nor is there any question about Mr. Roosevelt's determination

to use all courses of action that American public opinion would support to

stop Hitler.

One of these courses was an appeal to the traditional American doctrine

of freedom of the seas. As early as October 1940, the President and Secretary

of State Hull had emphasized in public addresses how essential friendly control of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans was to hemisphere defense. In January 1941 the President began to stress freedom of the seas rather than hemisphere defense as a rallying ground for military preparedness. He also took

the position that there should be no "aggressors" peace. Furthermore, he

believed that saving Great Britain alone was not enough, because the strength

and security of Britain depended upon the continued support of the rest of

the British Empire and its sea communications everywhere. In one of his

most revealing utterances the President wrote:

A nationally known advertising man wrote me the other day ... to suggest that we

tell the truth, i.e., that we are not concerned with the affairs of the British Empire but

are concerned with our own safety, the security of our own trade, the future of our own

crops, the integrity of our own continent, and the lives of our own children in the next

generation.

That, I think, is a pretty good line to take because it happens to be true and it is

on that line itself that we must, for all the above purely selfish reasons, prevent at

almost any hazard the Axis domination of the world.8

The President's expressed goals clearly called for a larger effort in 1941

than the nation needed to make for the immediate defense of the hemisphere.

They also called for a different sort of effort from that which Army planners

8

 Pers Ltr, President Roosevelt to Senator Josiah W. Bailey, 13 May 41, in F.D.R.: His Personal

Letters, 1928-1945, edited by Elliott Roosevelt (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1950), II,

1154.
14 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

advocated, as illustrated in discussions about Iceland and the Azores. From

the planners' viewpoint it was not necessary nor even desirable to garrison

either as a military outpost for the hemisphere; from the President's point

of view, both were essential guardians of Atlantic seaways, which had to be

controlled to save Britain, and he was convinced that Britain's salvation was

an essential to hemisphere and national security.

Until late 1941 the President was apparently more reluctant about getting into the war than were some of his principal advisers. He kept his ears

tuned sensitively to American public opinion and opinion polls, and to judge

from the public opinion polls Mr. Roosevelt never let the actions of the

United States get very far out of step with the opinion of the majority of

its people. Several of the President's advisers thought that he lagged behind

the majority; and perhaps there was much truth in the remark of a distinguished English observer who wrote him: "I have been so struck by the way

you have led public opinion by allowing it to get ahead of you."

 9 American

opinion remained heavily opposed to any declaration of war until the attack

on Pearl Harbor. But in 1940 and 1941 a majority indorsed every action taken

in the name of hemisphere defense or freedom of the seas, including the

support of Great Britain and military operations in the North Atlantic.

The public also approved the action, urged by the President and taken by

Congress on 13 November 1941, repealing prohibitions against arming

American merchant ships and against allowing them to enter war zones.

By that action Congress ended the apparent ambiguity and undercover character of Atlantic operations during the preceding months of 1941 and set

the stage for war with Germany.

Then, before a full state of war could develop in the Atlantic, Japan

struck in the Pacific. The Japanese Government wanted to convert the nations and colonial areas of eastern Asia and Indonesia into subservient tributaries of Japan, and the war in Europe seemed to provide a golden opportunity for conquest. The Japanese might have been willing to create their

so-called Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere by negotiation, but they

were not willing to limit their objective. When Great Britain and the United

States and the other nations involved decided not to capitulate, Japan cast

the die for war.

Until the summer of 1941 new Army measures for defense in the Pacific

lagged behind Atlantic preparations. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson

among others did not believe that Japan would go to war as long as Britain

remained undefeated. Alarms in January and July 1941 produced some

strengthening of Oahu's Army air defenses and a more rapid garrisoning of

9

 Pers Ltr, 3 Jun 41, Roosevelt Papers, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N. Y.
THE FRAMEWORK OF HEMISPHERE DEFENSE 15

Alaska. Since the Army's primary mission in Alaska, Hawaii, and Panama

was the guarding of naval bases and installations, the Navy had the chief

voice in determining where Army Pacific reinforcements should go until

August 1941. Then, under the impulse of a new design to contain Japan by

air power, the reinforcement of the Philippines instead of hemisphere outposts became the goal. As a result some of Hawaii's newly acquired air

strength was shifted to the Far East, and the movement of modern aircraft

to Alaska was further postponed. The decision to reinforce the Philippines

broke through the perimeter concept in the Pacific as the defense of Iceland

and Great Britain had broken through it in the Atlantic. The Japanese

attacked just as this reinforcement was getting under way.

A glance at the distribution of troops in mid-1942 shows that in the first

few months after Pearl Harbor continental and hemisphere defense plans

continued to provide the main guides to the actual deployment of Army

ground and air forces, despite a large movement of forces to the Southwest

Pacific and smaller movements to the British Isles and Iceland. At the beginning of July 1942, when the Army had about 800,000 officers and men assigned to active theaters and defense commands, Western Hemisphere garrisons and commands contained about three-fourths of this strength, divided

about equally between defense commands in the continental United States

and overseas outposts within the hemisphere. In other words, the Army did

not begin to move the bulk of its ready forces across the oceans until after

the nation and its outposts were reasonably secure. After 1942 the principal

task of Army defenders within the hemisphere was to guard outposts that

now became bases for the support of overseas offensives.10

The focus of Army planning had begun to shift from hemisphere defense

to future operations outside the hemisphere long before, in late 1940 and

early 1941. During 1941 military men moved somewhat more slowly than

political leaders toward the new strategy, partly because the former were

more aware than the latter of minimum defense needs and partly because

military leaders were painfully aware of the unreadiness of most of the

Army until late 1941 for offensive action. Indeed there was a remarkable

coincidence between the Army's readiness for limited offensive action and

the outbreak of full-scale war. Enough forces were ready in December 1941

so that Army planning and action could turn quickly and naturally to launching operations overseas that would obviate the need for hemisphere defense

at home.

10

 For graphic presentations of the distribution of Army forces among tactical commands in

late 1941 and 1942, see charts 1, 2, and 3 in Maurice Matloff and Edwin M. Snell, Strategic

Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1941-1942, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II

(Washington, 1953) (hereafter referred to as Matloff and Snell, Strategic Planning, 1941-42).
CHAPTER II

The Command of

Continental Defense Forces

As the United States Army began its rapid expansion in the late summer

of 1940 for the eventuality of war, it had a command organization far better

adapted to the control of peacetime than of wartime operations. For many

years the War Department had foreseen that this organization would have

to be changed whenever a major war threatened, and it had planned accordingly. The plans for transforming the command system to a wartime basis

were in fact partially carried out during the year and a half preceding the

formal entry of the United States into World War II and immediately thereafter. They could not be carried out in full because the circumstances of

American involvement in the war and the problems of defense during the

initial mobilization of forces differed from those that had been assumed.

Instead of beginning its mobilization on a relatively fixed M-day to deal

with a clearly defined war situation, the Army spread its prewar expansion

over many months during which the war outlook underwent continuous

change. Even without these factors, the earlier plans for wartime organization would have required some modification because of the changed character and increasing complexities of warfare and therefore of the nature of

the dangers that war would bring to the United States.

In planning for the command of active operations, the Army tried to

adhere to certain basic strategic and organizational principles. Jt wanted to

avoid dispersing its forces in a weak cordon defense of the frontier, whether

of the continental United States or of the Western Hemisphere. Instead, it

planned to group the bulk of Army ground and air forces in a mobile reserve

within the continental United States. The very large expansion of the Army

decided upon in the summer of 1940 required a tremendous training effort,

and it was the Army's policy to meet current tactical needs with the least possible interference to the training program. In reorganizing its command

structure, the Army tried to conform to the principle that the officers responsible for planning operations should also be responsible for executing

them. Finally, the Army theoretically favored the establishment of unity of
THE COMMAND OF CONTINENTAL DEFENSE FORCES 17

command both over its own ground and air forces and over Army and Navy

forces in potential or actual theaters of operations, although in practice not

much progress was made in either direction before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Peacetime and Planned Wartime Organization

The National Defense Act of 1920 provided the basis for the establishment of a new command system for the Army after World War I. The War

Department on 1 September 1920 established nine corps areas with fixed

boundaries and gave their commanders full tactical and administrative control over all Army forces and installations within their areas except for those

specifically exempted. The Army forces in the Panama Canal Zone, Hawaii,

and the Philippines were organized into departments, identical in character

and authority with the corps areas in the continental United States. Until

the eve of World War II, the few Army troops in Puerto Rico and Alaska

were not separately organized but were attached to the Second and Ninth

Corps Areas, respectively. On 1 July 1939 Puerto Rico became a separate

department, but Alaska remained under the Ninth Corps Area and successor

defense agencies until 1 November 1943. Theoretically, from 1920 until

1932 Army forces at home and overseas were divided among three army

areas, but these areas never had more than a nominal existence. Until the

fall of 1932, the tactical control of the ground and air combat forces remained with the corps area commanders, who in turn were directly responsible to the Chief of Staff. Under the corps area commanders, the commanders

of five coast artillery districts were responsible for planning and executing

the Army's seacoast defense mission. Corps area commanders themselves were

responsible for defending the Canadian and Mexican land frontiers and for

protecting the nation against internal disturbances.1

The system of command began to change in the fall of 1932 when the

War Department established four armies without fixed territorial bounds

though located within the limits of specified corps areas—the First Army

within the First, Second, and Third Corps Areas, for example. The initial

"four-army" directives of 1932 seemed to indicate an intention to transfer

1

 The 1920 organization was established by WD General Orders 50 and 75, 1920; for the

corps areas and departments, see Army Regulations 170-10, 1 May 1924, and its various changes

and revisions; for the coast artillery districts, AR 90-30, 26 June 1935; see also the manuscript

prepared by the Control Division, Army Service Forces, History of Service Commands, Army Service Forces, pp. 10-19. All unpublished historical manuscripts, unless otherwise indicated, are

in OCMH files.
18 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

all tactical responsibility except for internal security measures from the corps

area to the army commanders, but modifications of the four-army plan in

1933 and 1934 restricted the army commanders to war planning and the direction of field maneuvers within their areas. Furthermore, until the autumn

of 1940 the armies were not given separate commanders and staffs to perform

these functions; the senior corps area commander within an army area served

as the army commander, and used his corps area staff to conduct the army's

business.2 Since three of the four army headquarters changed location between

1932 and 1940, this last provision meant in practice that much army staff

work had no continuity. Under these circumstances, although General Staff

war plans after 1932 regularly specified that the armies should work out

detailed area defense plans, the armies could do little effective planning of

this sort before the fall of 1939.3

The War Plans Division of the General Staff defined the peacetime

defense responsibilities of the corps area and army commanders in February 1940 in the following terms:

a. The missions of the several corps areas comprise: Defend as may be necessary

important coastal areas in their respective corps areas; arrange with appropriate naval

district commanders for cooperation of local naval defense forces in execution of

assigned missions; provide anti-sabotage protection for such installations and establishments vital to national defense as cannot be adequately protected by local civil authorities; take necessary action under the Emergency Plan—WHITE;4

 and, in certain cases,

receive at detraining points, move to concentration areas, care for, supply, and move

to ports of embarkation units designated for [overseas] movement.

b. The armies are responsible for coordinating the defense of the coastal frontiers

of the corps areas included in their respective army area; for exercising general supervision of the arrangements made by those corps areas with the naval districts concerned

for the cooperation of their local defense forces; and for effecting any necessary coordination of anti-sabotage measures along corps area boundaries.5

Irrespective of this definition, or of the wording of current regulations

and directives, the army commanders during late 1939 and 1940 began to

play a more active role in war planning and in the tactical direction of the

military forces within their areas. Their authority was potentially enhanced by

an act of 5 August 1939 giving them the rank of lieutenant general and thus

2

 AR 160-10, 3 July 1934, states the responsibilities of the army commanders in much more

restricted terms than had the directives of the Chief of Staff issued on 9 August and 22 October

1932. On the modification of the original plan, see particularly Memo, CG Fourth Army for

TAG, 7 Mar 33. Papers referred to are in AG 320.2 (8-6-32). 3

 Memo, Maj Stephen H. Sherrill for Lt Col Robert W. Crawford, WPD, 1 Nov 39, WPD

3640-3. 4

 The plan for using federal troops to quell domestic uprisings. 5

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 26 Feb 40, WPD 2917-25.
THE COMMAND OF CONTINENTAL DEFENSE FORCES 19

GENERAL DRUM

making them superior in rank to the

corps area commanders. A month

later, after the outbreak of war in

Europe, the War Department

launched a series of immediate action measures to improve the

Army's state of readiness. Thereafter, Lt. Gen. Hugh A. Drum,

commanding the First Army (and

Second Corps Area) on the east

coast, and (from December 1939)

Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt, commanding the Fourth Army (and

Ninth Corps Area) on the west

coast, assumed the increasingly

broad responsibility that circumstances required. Without any immediate change in existing regulations and directives, the army commanders began to exercise the superior

tactical authority within their areas that had originally been proposed for

them.

A second major change in the command structure occurred in 1935 with

the creation of the General Headquarters (GHQ) Air Force. This organization centralized control over all tactical air units in the continental United

States under one commander. Until the fall of 1940 air units under the

GHQ Air Force were divided among three wings located adjacent to the

Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific coasts. The GHQ Air Force commander was

directly responsible to the Chief of Staff until 1 March 1939, when he was

placed under the intermediate command of the Chief of the Air Corps. The

removal of air units from the control of armies and corps areas did not

change the responsibility of their commanders for planning the co-ordinated

ground and air defense of their areas, but increasingly the air organization

began to engage in defense planning on its own behalf.6

The proper development and co-ordination of the means for air defense

presented the Army with a new organizational problem late in 1939. Suc6

 Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate, eds., "The Army Air Forces in World War II,"

vol. I, Plans and Early Operations: January 1939 to August 1942 (Chicago: The University of

Chicago Press, 1948) (hereafter cited as Craven and Cate, eds., Plans and Early Operations),

pp. 31ff.
20 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

cessful air defense depended upon the integrated action of interceptor planes,

antiaircraft guns, and aircraft warning devices for detecting the approach

of hostile aircraft. Interceptor aircraft were then under GHQ Air Force command, and most antiaircraft units were controlled by the coast artillery

district commanders. The armies had been specifically charged in 1935 with

planning for the employment of antiaircraft artillery and aircraft warning

devices in air defense. The War Plans Division officer most concerned with

the development of long-range radar equipment urged in November 1939

that corps area commanders be made responsible for planning its employment. Noting that the Fourth Army had previously turned over this task

to coast defense commanders, he observed that an air attack on the United

States was as likely to strike deep in the interior as against the coast. Therefore, he contended, only the corps areas provided a framework that could

plan the nationwide employment of aircraft warning devices. A War Plans

Division colleague expressed opposing views and urged that aircraft warning

plans be a responsibility of the army commanders because they would presumably be called upon to execute these plans in the event of a real emergency. His views prevailed, and the War Department on 23 May 1940

directed the army commanders to develop plans for the effective use of aircraft warning devices and to select the sites for the location of detector

stations.7

The graver problem of organizing a co-ordinated and effective air defense

system under a united command occupied the attention of an Army Air

Defense Board during the winter of 1939-40. There was general agreement

that the War Department ought to create a new type of command that could

exercise control over the various air defense elements in an emergency. The

Air Corps wanted this new organization to be under the GHQ Air Force.

After much discussion General Marshall decided to create an experimental

Air Defense Command in the northeastern United States and to place it

under the First Army. The War Department specified that its commander,

although put under First Army Command, should be free to co-ordinate

details of his work with the GHQ Air Force and corps area commanders.8

The division of responsibility for war planning and immediate defense

action among corps area, army, Air Defense Command, and GHQ Air Force

commanders did not matter too much so long as the likelihood of an attack

on the continental United States appeared remote and the size of the Army

7

 WPD Interoffice Memos, 30 Oct and 1 Nov 39, WPD 3640-3; Memo, WPD for CofS, 31

Jul 40, AG 660.2 AA (1-1-40), sec. 1. 8

 Ltr, TAG to CG's, 26 Feb 40, AG 320.2 (11-24-39).
THE COMMAND OF CONTINENTAL DEFENSE FORCES 21

GENERAL DEWITT

was still too small to justify the

establishment of the more elaborate

organization planned for wartime.

A transition toward reorganization

became mandatory as the actual

threat of war loomed in May and

June 1940, and as the Army thereafter began its rapid expansion and

the tremendous task of training the

new Army for war employment if

that should become necessary.

In the wartime organization

planned under the Defense Act of

1920 the capstone was to be a General Headquarters (GHQ). Until

otherwise directed by the President;

the Chief of Staff in wartime was

also to serve as Commanding General of the Field Forces and to direct both ground and air operations through

GHQ. Under GHQ, there might be one or more active theaters of operations,

with commanders who would exercise full authority over all Army activities

within theater boundaries. Theaters of operations might be established either

overseas or in the continental United States; the remainder of the continental

United States not included in theaters of operations would constitute the zone

of the interior.9 The four armies in the continental United States on M-day (or

before, if so directed by the War Department) would assume full responsibility for the defense of their areas against external attack; at the same time,

they were to be prepared to move to a theater of operations if so directed. The

corps area commanders on M-day would retain tactical responsibility for internal security only within the zone of the interior; theater commanders in the

continental United States would assume this as well as all other tactical

responsibilities.

The armed services had agreed to co-ordinate their frontier defense activities in peace and war in accordance with the provisions of Joint Action

of the Army and the Navy, as revised by the Joint Board in 1935 and subsequently amended. During peace, Joint Action provided for the co-ordination

of local seacoast defense preparations between the Army's corps area com9

 FM 100-10, 9 Dec 40, pp. 5-12.
22 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

manders (or alternately, through the latter's subsidiary coast artillery district

and harbor defense commanders) and the corresponding naval district commanders. Army commanders were responsible in peacetime for planning

wartime coastal defense measures, and on M-day they were to assume responsibility for their execution. Joint Action provided for the establishment

of four coastal frontiers (North Atlantic, Southern, Pacific, and Great Lakes)

and for their subdivision in war into sectors and subsectors. These coastal

frontiers were to become active commands in wartime, at which time the

Army's coast artillery districts were to cease to exist as such and their commanders and staffs were to man the Army's portion of the wartime coast defense organization and be responsible in turn to the army commanders.10

The coastal command system prescribed in Joint Action had two outstanding

deficiencies. First, it did not provide an effective means for establishing unity

of command where it was really required. Unity of command was not established anywhere until the attack on Pearl Harbor illustrated the disastrous

consequences of not doing so. Second, there was no clear delineation of Army

and Navy responsibility for coastal air defense, and thus there was no agreement as to how an effective air defense of coastal regions should be organized

and controlled.

Reorganization, July 1940-December 1941

The critical situation facing the United States in June 1940 furnished the

immediate impetus for the first steps toward the establishment of a wartime

command organization. With Britain's early downfall still considered probable, and therefore the chance of early American involvement in the war

believed likely, the War Department in July moved to activate GHQ. The

order establishing a nucleus of GHQ specified that GHQ's purpose was to

assist the Commanding General of the Field Forces in the exercise of "jurisdiction similar to that of Army Commanders" over all mobile ground and

air and fixed harbor defense forces in the continental United States. Army

commanders at this time had jurisdiction over war planning and field maneuvers within their areas, but GHQ's activities for the time being were expressly confined to the over-all direction and supervision of combat training.11

The War Department also turned its attention, coincidentally with the

establishment of GHQ, to a reorganization of the field forces in the con10

 Joint Action, ch. V. 11

 Ltr, TAG to CG's, 26 Jul 40, AG 320.2 (7-25-40).
THE COMMAND OF CONTINENTAL DEFENSE FORCES 23

tinental United States in order to give better direction to their training and

to improve their readiness for action should the nation become involved in

the war. This reorganization had to be adjusted to the rapid increase in the

Army's strength that followed the induction of the National Guard, approved by Congress in August 1940, and the passage of selective service

legislation in September. These measures together with an increase in

Regular Army strength were to multiply the Army's numbers more than

fivefold by the summer of 1941, and most of the men and units that were

brought into federal service required intensive training. What the Army

needed in 1940 and 1941 was a command system that would improve the

normal peacetime machinery for the planning and direction of operations

without unduly disrupting training.

The problem of fitting the Army's air arm into an effective reorganization of command was complicated by additional factors. Air Corps officers

wanted a greater degree of autonomy in planning and directing the employment of air power, and they tended to resist the adoption of any organizational scheme that would place air planning and operations under ground

commanders. The airmen had good reason for maintaining their position,

since the problem of continental and hemisphere defense seemed increasingly

to be primarily one of air defense. The technological improvement of aircraft also tended to render obsolete the older plans for coastal defense

organization. The greater range and mobility of the new combat planes

made it undesirable to set up any organization that would require the attachment of air units to relatively small territorial commands and restrict their

employment to the confines of these commands. The scarcity of combat aircraft added emphasis to the other arguments against territorial attachment.

In June 1940 the Army had adopted an ambitious program for organizing

and equipping fifty-four air combat groups, but national policy after September dictated the diversion of an increasingly large proportion of American combat aircraft production to Great Britain and the other nations fighting the Axis Powers. During late 1940 and most of 1941, therefore, almost

all of the combat airplanes available to the Army within the continental

United States had to be used in training. There was virtually no "GHQ

Reserve" of combat planes and units, and units in training had to be designated for current defense employment if that became necessary. The effective training of the rapidly expanding air forces required that in the meantime these units remain under air command.

With the easing of the critical Atlantic situation from September 1940

onward, the Army was able to concentrate more attention on training its
24 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

rapidly growing forces for future operations. Accordingly, the next moves

toward a tactical reorganization were associated more with training than

with the planning and direction of operations. A proposal of the G-3

Division of the General Staff in July 1940 that the corps areas be provided

with additional tactical headquarters to facilitate training grew into a War

Department directive of 3 October 1940 ordering the separation of the field

armies and the corps areas. This directive and supplementary War Department orders provided the armies with separate commanders and staffs, and

contemplated also a complete segregation of army and corps area headquarters and functions. The armies were given command of the ground combat

forces, which had hitherto been under corps area control except during

maneuvers, and the armies now assumed full responsibility for planning and

directing the employment of these troops in the defense of the continental

United States against external attack. Though the corps area commanders

retained their responsibility for internal security measures, the corps areas

thereafter became essentially supply and administrative agencies.12

The War Department similarly initiated a reorganization of the combat air forces in the summer of 1940, after the adoption of the fifty-four

group program. In August the Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall,

directed the establishment of four air districts to replace the existing threewing subordinate organization of the GHQ Air Force. These air districts

were intended primarily to facilitate the supervision of training. Under the

four air districts, GHQ Air Force units were to be organized initially into

seventeen wings and forty groups. The existing Air Defense Command,

operating in the northeast United States under the direction of the First

Army commander, was to serve as a model for a nationwide air defense command system. This air reorganization was only partially carried through in

1940; the air districts were not activated until 15 January 1941, and the

expansion of the air defense command system was not approved until March

1941. In the meantime, the War Department on 19 November 1940 removed

the GHQ Air Force from the control of the Chief of the Air Corps and

placed it under GHQ. The appointment, shortly before this change, of

Maj. Gen. Henry H. Arnold, the Chief of the Air Corps, to the additional

post of Deputy Chief of Staff made it possible for him to continue to exert

a measure of control over the operations of the GHQ Air Force.13

12

 Ltrs, TAG to CG's, 3 and 7 Oct 40, and other papers, AG 320.2 (8-2-40) (4), sec. 2. 13

 Ltr, TAG to CG's, 19 Nov 40, and other papers, AG 320.2 (11-27-40); Craven and Cate,

eds., Plans and Early Operations, chs. 4 and 5; Kent Roberts Greenfield, Robert R. Palmer, and

Bell I. Wiley, The Organization of Ground Combat Troops, UNITED STATES ARMY IN

WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1947), "Origins of the Army Ground Forces: General Head-
THE COMMAND OF CONTINENTAL DEFENSE FORCES 25

The organizational changes of late 1940 left a confused and unsatisfactory definition of responsibility for the planning and direction of current

and future defense tasks in the continental United States. The confusion

was such that subordinate ground and air commanders had to be reminded

in December that GHQ still had no functions except those associated with

training.14 The four armies had acquired responsibility for planning and

controlling operations, but the armies were not territorial organizations and

in theory were subject to transfer from their areas to overseas theaters of

operations. The situation seemed to call for a new type of fixed territorial

defense organization. In October 1940 the GHQ staff, noting that neither

the armies nor the planned coastal frontier organization met existing requirements, proposed that four territorial defense commands be organized,

with bounds approximating those of the armies. Maj. Gen. Lesley J. McNair,

the GHQ Chief of Staff, personally objected to the term "defense commands" and wanted the new organizations called "theaters." Whatever they

were called, these defense areas in peacetime were to engage only in planning and were to be commanded by army commanders assisted by a small

separate staff, but they were to be so organized that in time of war they could

be transformed into a theater of operations type of organization which would

operate under GHQ and command the ground and air forces assigned for

the execution of continental defense missions.15

The War Plans Division incorporated the GHQ proposal for the creation

of defense commands into a study on continental defense organization prepared by Col. Jonathan W. Anderson in late 1940 and presented to the

Chief of Staff in mid-January 1941. It appeared to Colonel Anderson that

the wartime defense organization prescribed by Joint Action of the Army

and the Navy was archaic, since Joint Action provided for a narrow coastal

frontier defense only, whereas the possibilities of air attack now required

a defense in depth well into the interior of the country. Furthermore, political

considerations demanded at least an outline defense organization for the

quarters, United States Army, 1940-42," chs. I, VIII, IX, X; Ray S. Cline, Washington Command Post: The Operations Division, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1951) (hereafter cited as Cline, The Operations Division), chs. I, IV; Mark Skinner

Watson, Chief of Staff: Prewar Plans and Preparations, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD

WAR II (Washington, 1950) (hereafter cited as Watson, Prewar Plans and Preparations), ch. IX.

The cited portions of these other volumes in this series deal with organizational changes in the

1940-41 period, and they have been drawn upon for this and succeeding paragraphs in this chapter. 14

 Ltr, TAG to CG's, 13 Dec 40, AG 320.2 (12-5-40). 15

 Memo (not used), CofS GHQ for Gen Marshall, 21 Oct 40; Memo, CofS GHQ for DCofS

Maj Gen William Bryden, 7 Dec 40. Both in GHQ 320.2/78. Memo, CofS GHQ for WPD,

14 Dec 40, GHQ 381 (S), binder 1.
26 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

whole continental area. General McNair, in discussing these matters with

Colonel Anderson, emphasized the desirability of holding to a minimum

the forces tactically assigned to the First, Third, and Fourth Armies guarding the seacoast frontiers, and of keeping as many combat units as possible

with the Second Army in the interior. General McNair's thought was:

"If we give to the First Army three corps, regardless of their needs, . . . they

will plan the employment and distribution of three corps, and ... it may be

difficult at a critical time to pry these troops loose." The First Army, on the

other hand, naturally and strongly advocated a defense organization that

would give it wartime control over all ground and air forces within its area,

peacetime control of a nucleus of bombardment as well as pursuit aviation,

and full air defense responsibility. It also wanted to extend the boundaries

of the North Atlantic Coastal Frontier to include all United States garrisons

established in the North Atlantic area. In principle, War Plans and GHQ

agreed on the necessity of holding the ground and air forces assigned to

defense missions to a minimum, and of retaining all possible forces in GHQ

ground and air reserves from which they could be allocated to active theaters

as necessary. General McNair wanted to place the air defense commands in

peacetime under GHQ Air Force control in order to facilitate their training;

War Plans wanted them under the defense commands in order to establish

unity of command in peacetime over all Army defense elements that would

be under the defense (or theater) commander in time of war.16

The issue of where to put the air defense commands in the new continental defense organization had deeper implications. Giving the GHQ

Air Force control over all air defense means would be another big step

toward air autonomy. In November 1940, before War Plans circulated its

continental defense proposal for comment, G-3 had taken the initiative in

suggesting that the existing Air Defense Command and new commands

modeled after it be put under the air districts, and that the air districts,

under the GHQ Air Force, be given a very different function from that approved for them by General Marshall the preceding August. They would

become tactical as well as training and administrative organizations. Each

air district would have a bombardment-fighter force for offensive air operations and an air defense command for defensive purposes. This scheme

would centralize air defense control for the whole United States in one

16

 Memo, Brig Gen Francis B. Wilby, CofS First Army, for Col Anderson, WPD, 30 Nov 40,

no sub; Memo for File (recording conversation with Gen McNair), Col Anderson, WPD, 5 Dec

40; Memo, ACofS WPD for CofS 14 Dec 40, sub; Def Plans—Cont U.S.; OCS Brief of WPD

Memo, 16 Jan 41. All in OPD 320 Def of Cont U.S., Bulky Package 37.
THE COMMAND OF CONTINENTAL DEFENSE FORCES 27

headquarters, to be located in Washington. Subject to the over-all control

of GHQ, the GHQ Air Force would collaborate directly with the Navy in

fending off sea and air invaders until an actual land invasion of the continental United States occurred; only then would unity of command over all

ground and air forces be established. Adhering to these views, G-3 refused

to concur in the War Plans study. In the meantime, and after he had heard

"disturbing rumors," the commanding general of the GHQ Air Force urged

General Marshall to put all air defense elements under the air districts and

thus under his force. When General Marshall found time in mid-January

to study and discuss the War Plans, G-3, and GHQ Air Force proposals, he

noted that he was "considerably impressed" with the G-3 argument. This

argument was further fortified shortly thereafter by Lt. Col. William K.

Harrison, Jr., of the War Plans Division who, after observing the Air

Defense Command's exercises at Mitchel Field, likewise recommended that

the air defense commands be put under the air districts.17

An intensive and month-long round of discussions with respect to the

peacetime continental defense system followed. Those who favored placing

the air defense commands under the four territorial commands argued that

there must be unity and continuity of command in peace and war over all

defense elements. This argument undoubtedly would have carried more

weight if the United States had been closer to war and its continental area

more imminently threatened. Everyone agreed that in time of war each

theater commander should have control over all air and ground forces within

his area. But, as General Arnold pointed out, under existing circumstances

it was impossible to foresee where real theaters of operations might be

required, and thus it was impossible to delimit them in peacetime. General

Arnold believed that the greatest immediate need was for air defense commands overseas in Hawaii and Panama, and that the GHQ Air Force was the

proper agency for training mobile air defense commands within the United

States that could be sent overseas where needed. He argued therefore that

"the United States should be considered basically as a Zone of the Interior,"

in which "all elements of the Field Forces must be prepared for overseas

operations primarily, and the defense of the United States secondarily."

 18

17

 Memo, ACofS G-3 for CofS, 17 Nov 40, AG 320.2 (11-27-40); Pers Ltr, Lt Gen Delos C.

Emmons, CG GHQ Air Force, to Gen Marshall, 23 Dec 40; Ltr, Marshall to Emmons, 31 Dec. 40.

Last two in WPD 4247-7. Memo, ACofS G-3 for WPD, 6 Jan 41; Memo, CofS for Gen Bryden,

15 Jan 41. Last two in OPD 320 Def of Cont U.S., Bulky Package 37. Memo, Col Harrison,

WPD, for ACofS WPD, 24 Jan 41, WPD 4247-8. 18

 Memo, Gen Arnold (as DCofS for Air) for Gen Bryden, 6 Feb 41, OPD 320 Def of Cont

U.S., Bulky Package 37. General Arnold stated the arguments in favor of Air control of air defense

in three lengthy memorandums: two (27 Jan 1941 for General Bryden and 21 Feb 1941 for
28 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Maj. Gen. James E. Chancy, commanding the existing Air Defense Command, joined in urging the Chief of Staff to put air defense under the GHQ

Air Force.19 Finally, after extended discussion, General Marshall decided

to put the air defense system under the direction of the GHQ Air Force in

time of peace and then directed the War Plans Division to work out a continental defense organization on this basis.20

Accordingly the War Department on 17 March 1941 directed that the

continental United States be divided into four strategic areas (Northeast,

Central, Southern, and Western) to be known as defense commands. It

defined a defense command as "a territorial agency with appropriate staff

designed to coordinate or prepare to initiate the execution of all plans for

the employment of Army Forces and installations against enemy action in

that portion of the United States lying within the command boundaries."

 21

The new commands were to operate under the direction of GHQ, but not

until the War Department enlarged the GHQ staff so that it could undertake

this additional responsibility.22

The defense commands were made responsible during peacetime for

planning the defense of their areas against ground and air attack, the corps

area commanders retaining their responsibility for internal security plans

and measures. Other features of the new command system were described

in some remarks of Colonel Anderson:

The four Army Commanders, in addition to their responsibilities as Army Commanders, are designated as Commanding Generals, Defense Commands. The responsibility of the Commanding General, Defense Command, includes all planning for the

defense of the area, the coordination of these plans with the Navy, and the execution

of them in war until such time as the War Department directs to the contrary. The

Commanding General, GHQ Air Force, is given the responsibility for the peacetime

organization and training for air operations and air defense throughout the entire

continental United States. He exercises this responsibility through four Air Forces,

each of these Air Forces replacing one of the existing Air Districts. In addition, he is

responsible for the aviation and air defense portions of the defense plans for Defense

General Marshall) in his capacity of Deputy Chief of Staff, in file cited above; the third (3 Feb

1941 for General Marshall) in his capacity of Chief of the Air Corps, filed in AG 320.2

(11-24-39). 19

 Memo, Gen Chancy for Gen Marshall, 15 Feb 41; Pers Ltr, Gen Chaney to Gen Marshall,

17 Feb 41. Both in OPD 320 Def of Cont U.S., Bulky Package 37. 20

 General Marshall's genuine puzzlement over the best solution to this problem is reflected in

his remarks at conferences in his office on 14, 16, and 19 Feb 1941, and at the War Department

General Council meeting on 19 Feb 1941. His decision was announced in Memo, DCofS Bryden

for WPD, 28 Feb 41, WPD 4247-9; and elaborated in Memo for Rcd, Col Anderson, WPD,

3 Mar 41, OPD 320 Def of Cont U.S., Bulky Package 37. 21

 Ltr, TAG to CG's, 17 Mar 41, AG 320.2 (11-27-40). 22

 Ltr, TAG to CG's, 25 Mar 41, AG 320.2 (11-27-40).
THE COMMAND OF CONTINENTAL DEFENSE FORCES 29

Commands. Each Air Force is organized as a bomber command and an interceptor

command, the latter replacing the currently named Air Defense Command. The above

organization centralizes under the Commanding General, GHQ Air Force, full control

and responsibility for the peacetime development and training of aviation and means

and methods of air defense. It decentralizes to the Commanding Generals, Defense

Commands, responsibility for peacetime planning for coordination with the Navy

and for execution of defense in war. It provides for unity of command in all elements

employed in each Defense Command.23

The new organization in effect was designed to free the armies from

defense responsibilities and thereby permit them to give their full attention

to training ground combat units. Though the new defense commands, when

activated in June and July, actually consisted of only a few headquarters

staff officers engaged in regional planning, the defense command promised

to provide a suitable means of transition toward a wartime theater organization, should that become necessary.

The March 1941 reorganization marked a further step toward air autonomy, but the Air Corps had plans for a new and more sweeping air reorganization. Nor was the Air Corps alone in questioning the adequacy of

the March reorganization. Before the month was over General Marshall had

given his approval to a virtually independent handling of air matters within

the War Department.24 In April Secretary of War Stimson noted that the

defense system established in March struck him as a "dangerous arrangement"

pregnant with "possibilities for misunderstanding and trouble."

 25

 Mr. Stimson had previously indicated his approval of a unified command system for the

Army's air forces, and in his own office he had elevated Robert A. Lovett

to the long-vacant post of Assistant Secretary of War for Air. With encouragement such as this, the Air Corps continued between April and June to

work out the details of its planned reorganization.

In the air reorganization approved and instituted in June the GHQ Air

Force disappeared. The new air establishment was an integral part of the

War Department placed directly under the Chief of Staff. Its Chief, General

Arnold, continued to occupy the position of Deputy Chief of Staff for Air

as well. The Army Air Forces had two components, the Air Corps to handle

service functions, and the Air Force Combat Command to control combat

training, planning, and operations. The charter of the Army Air Forces—

Army Regulations 95-5 issued on 20 June 1941—in effect gave it complete

23

 Remarks of Colonel Anderson at Conf in office of DCofS Bryden, 14 Mar 41, OCS Conf,

binder 11. For a graphic presentation of the new organization, see Greenfield, Palmer, and Wiley,

Organization of Ground Combat Troops, charts 4 and 5, pp. 118, 120-21. 24

 Watson, Prewar Plans and Preparations, pp. 291-92. 25

 Stimson Diary, entry of 24 Apr 41.
30 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

authority over air defense planning and operations within the continental

United States, at least until theaters of operations were established there.

The Chief of the Army Air Forces delegated his specific responsibility for

air defense planning to the Air Force Combat Command, which in turn called

upon the commanders of the four regional air forces for local defense plans.

The War Department gave the Army Air Forces authority over air defense planning and operations within the United States without revoking

any of the responsibility allocated in March to the defense commanders for

all defense planning—air as well as ground—within their areas. To add to

the confusion, their area defense plans were to be subject to the review and

approval not of the Army Air Forces but of GHQ as soon as it was activated

as an operational headquarters, as it was about to be.26 The following statement, agreed on by the Army Air Forces and the War Plans Division, represented an early effort to clarify the situation:

The Chief of the Army Air Forces, pursuant to policies, directions and instructions

from the Secretary of War, has been made responsible for the organization, planning,

training, and execution of active air defense measures, for continental United States.

Active operations will be controlled by G.H.Q. These operations will be directed by

appropriate commanders, either ground or air, as may be dictated by the situation.27

Subsequently, General Arnold agreed that neither the Army Air Forces nor

its component Air Force Combat Command had any official authority to

conduct or control air combat operations within a theater of operations

established either overseas or within the continental United States.28

These interpretations failed to meet the basic objections leveled by the

War Plans Division against the new air organization on the eve of its establishment. The War Plans staff then noted that "the essentials of proper

organization require that responsibility and authority be centered in a single

agency, and that where this authority and responsibility lie be clearly and

definitely stated," and also that "no organization should be set up which

requires material change to pass from a peace to a war basis." According to

the War Plans Division, the new air organization failed in two vital points

when tested by these principles. Noting that Assistant Secretary Lovett in

26

 In commenting on the Operation and Concentration Plan, RAINBOW 5, distributed for comment by the War Plans Division in early July, G-3 noted that in paragraphs 32-34 of the plan the

defense commanders were assigned the mission of defense against air attack, whereas paragraph 40

charged the Chief of the Army Air Forces with responsibility for active air defense measures.

Memo, G-3 for WPD, 14 Jul 41, WPD 4175-18. 27

 WPD Memo for File, 30 Jun 41, WPD 4247-18. 28

 Memo, DCofS for Air for CofS GHQ, 18 Aug 41, quoted in Greenfield, Palmer, and Wiley,

Organization of Ground Combat Troops, p. 135.
THE COMMAND OF CONTINENTAL DEFENSE FORCES 31

presenting the air organization for approval had agreed that GHQ should

be ultimately responsible for the planning and conduct of operations, War

Plans nevertheless held that the air organization as proposed failed "to grant

the Commanding General of the Field Forces at GHQ command authority

over all the means." The proposed organization also failed "to prescribe a

rapid and certain means of coordinated employment of ground and air

forces."

 29

 All of which meant that while the air reorganization of June 1941

brought order within the Army's air arm, it had not eliminated the "possibilities for misunderstandings and trouble" that Secretary Stimson had foreseen

after the March 1941 reorganization.

In the meantime the passage of the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941 followed by President Roosevelt's decision to extend the scope of American

naval operations in the North Atlantic had again presented the prospect of

active if limited American involvement in the war. It appeared by May that

the Army might be ordered on short notice to arrange the dispatch of expeditionary forces from the United States to sundry strategic points along the

Atlantic front. Such an order was actually issued on 22 May when the

President directed that the Army and Navy prepare an expeditionary force

ready to sail to the Azores within one month's time. The preparation and

dispatch of a force of this sort required a type of detailed theater planning

and executive supervision that no War Department agency was then prepared to perform.

General Marshall met this need by establishing an operations section in

GHQ. The directive for this new agency, which he approved on 24 June,

stated that GHQ should also prepare to divest itself of its training functions,

thus indicating the intention of translating GHQ into the type of operational

headquarters contemplated in prewar planning. GHQ was granted broad

powers to plan and to control military operations, but only when it was

authorized by the War Department to do so for specified commands and

areas. When GHQ assumed its new operational functions on 3 July 1941,

it also had instructions to take over the responsibility for defense planning

in the continental United States as soon as its operational staff was ready to

handle the work.30

As things worked out, before Pearl Harbor GHQ was not given the

authority to command the new continental defense organization established

in March and June 1941, and it had only limited authority over continental

29

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 14 Jun 41, WPD 3774-20. 30

 WPD office Memo and Note for Rcd, both dated 17 June 41, WPD 3209-11; Memo, WPD

for CofS, 19 Jun 41, WPD 3209-10; Ltr, TAG to CofS GHQ, 3 Jul 41, AG 320.2 (6-19-41).
32 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

defense planning. The terms of the new GHQ directive and a statement in

the War Department RAINBOW 5 plan distributed in July together were

interpreted by the War Plans. Division and GHQ as giving the latter the

responsibility for supervising the preparation of plans by the defense commands in the continental United States. Subsequently the War Department

specifically authorized GHQ to supervise the preparation of continental as

well as overseas regional defense plans and to consult with appropriate

representatives of the Army Air Forces, the defense commands, and overseas organizations in the execution of this responsibility.31

 Neither GHQ

nor the defense commands were given the authority to approve or disapprove continental air defense plans; they could only co-ordinate the air

defense portion of over-all plans with the plans of the Army Air Forces.

The operational mission of GHQ was further complicated by a fundamental difference of opinion as to how best to organize for continental and

overseas defense. The method prescribed in March 1941 contemplated the

segregation of continental defense 'forces from those of overseas areas and

bases. Generals Drum and DeWitt, commanding the armies and defense

commands on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, favored the linking of continental and overseas forces as the best way of permitting the projection of

Army power in the direction of a hostile threat. General DeWitt wanted to

keep Alaska under his command, and General Drum's Northeast Defense

Command headquarters in August 1941 assumed that even Army bases

established in Great Britain would come under its authority.32 The Army

Air Forces wanted to establish northeastern and northwestern air theaters

that would tie in overseas areas and bases with the air forces stationed along

the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States.33 Under this plan the

air strength of outlying bases could be kept at a bare minimum, since reinforcements could be readily shuttled from the continental United States

without violating command boundaries.

But a system under which the continental air forces would provide

overseas reinforcements on call was incompatible with a defense organization

segregating continental and overseas Army forces. With the armies in theory

also movable organizations, a similar incompatibility existed in the Armycontinental defense command relationship at the time of Pearl Harbor.

31

 1st Ind, TAG to CG WDC, 11 Oct 41, on Ltr, WDC to TAG, 10 Sep 41, AG 381

(9-10-41); Memo, WPD for CofS, 23 Sep 41, revised and approved as a WD directive, 22 Oct

41, WPD 4175-18. 32

 On the last point, see papers in WPD 4247-21. 33

 See below, ch. XV, pp. 395-96.
THE COMMAND OF CONTINENTAL DEFENSE FORCES 33

The Wartime Organization

When the United States went to war on 7 December 1941, the Army's

responsibility for defending the nation's continental area rested with the

four armies and four air forces rather than with the defense commands that

had been activated earlier in the year. The first step toward translating these

continental defense commands into something more than planning agencies

was taken the day before the Japanese struck in the Pacific. As a result of a

suggestion first put forward by the War Plans Division in August 1941, the

War Department on 6 December directed that the command of harbor and

coast defense units should pass from army to defense commanders not later

than 1 January 1942.34 The outbreak of war precipitated more far-reaching

changes. After conferring with his principal subordinates on 11 December,

General Marshall decided to designate the Western Defense Command (including Alaska) as a theater of operations. Instructions to this effect were

immediately dispatched to General DeWitt, who took command of the new

theater before midnight the same day.35 Also on the 11th, General Drum,

the commander of the First Army, arranged an informal system for coordinating Army and Navy defense forces in the northeastern United States

that lasted until the establishment of the Eastern Theater of Operations a

fortnight later.36 On both coasts the commanders proceeded to organize the

defense system long contemplated in Army and Navy planning, coastal

frontier sectors and subsectors replacing the peacetime coast artillery district

and local harbor defense organizations.

The Western Defense Command as a theater commanded the Fourth

Army, the Second and Fourth Air Forces, and the Ninth Corps Area. General

DeWitt retained personal command of the now subordinate Fourth Army

and exercised control through a combined theater and army headquarters.

As a theater commander, General DeWitt controlled all Army troops and

installations within the bounds of the Western Defense Command (which

comprised California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Idaho, Arizona, Utah,

Montana, and Alaska), except those specifically exempted by War Department instructions. These instructions imposed three important categories of

limitations on his authority: those associated with the organization and

movement of air units within his theater; those connected with the move34 Memo, WPD for CofS, 1 Aug 41, Ltr, TAG to CG's 6 Dec 41, and other papers, WPD

4247-9. 35

 Notes on Conf in OCS, 11 Dec 41, OCS Conf, binder 2; Rad, CG FF to CG Fourth Army,

11 Dec 41; Rad, Gen DeWitt to TAG, 12 Dec 41. Last two in AG 320.2 (12-11-41). 36

 Rad, Gen Drum to CofS, 12 Dec 41, WPD 4622-43.
34 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

ment of ground and air units and supplies through his theater to overseas

destinations; and those pertaining to nontactical functions and installations

that were kept under direct War Department control. The first group of

limitations was designed to prevent any undue infringement of the autonomy of the air organization, its training of air units, and their availability for

quick transfer to other theaters. The second and third groups were essential

to the establishment of any theater of operations within the continental

United States. These limitations did not seriously restrict General DeWitt's

freedom to use the means available within his theater for defending it

against both external and internal attacks.37

On the east coast General Drum by conference had arranged an interim

working organization for the Northeast Defense Command and a method

of coastal defense collaboration between Army and Navy commanders. The

First Army established a central headquarters to control all antiaircraft artillery units in the Northeast Defense Command. The Army and Navy commands set up a Joint Operations Office in New York that served as a model

for joint operations centers which the Chief of Staff and Chief of Naval

Operations asked other commands to establish. General Drum nevertheless

believed that the informal arrangements made were inadequate, and he recommended the activation of the Northeast Defense Command as the supreme

Army authority in the northeastern United States.38

The War Department appreciated the desirability of centralizing the

Army's command authority on the east coast, but it also recognized that the

situation there differed fundamentally from that on the Pacific coast since

there was no likelihood of any sizable land or air attack along the Atlantic

front. Furthermore, the existing defense organization could not be readily

translated into a theater of operations; the east coast was divided between

two defense commands, the Northeast and the Southern, and each extended

far into the interior of the continent. Air defense forces had to be organized

so that they could be concentrated anywhere along the Atlantic coast, both

in the continental United States and seaward to Newfoundland in the north

and to the Caribbean in the south.39 With nothing more than minor air or

naval attacks foreseeable, there seemed to be no justification for a theater 37

 Tactical limitations on General DeWitt's authority were spelled out in Ltr, TAG to CG

WDC, 11 Dec 41, WPD 4612-1. Nontactical (G-4 matters), in Ltr, TAG to CG WDC, 13 Dec

41, OCS 14943-78. In practice General DeWitt's command was usually referred to as the Western

Defense Command rather than the Western Theater of Operations. 38

 Rad, Gen Drum to CofS, 12 Dec 41, WPD 4622-43; Pers Ltr, Gen Drum to Gen Marshall,

12 Dec 41, WPD 4247-23; Memo, WPD for CofS, 30 Dec 41; Jt Ltr, CofS and CNO to Comdrs

and CG's, 31 Dec 41. Last two in WPD 4621-1. 39

 Proposed action papers for and against General Drum's proposal, Dec 41, WPD 4247-23.
THE COMMAND OF CONTINENTAL DEFENSE FORCES 35

organization of forces extending any great distance into the interior. Therefore, instead of activating the Northeast Defense Command, the Army

established a new Eastern Theater of Operations under General Drum's

command. The Eastern theater included Newfoundland and the continental

coast from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico at the Florida-Alabama line, and

extended inland to a line drawn about four hundred miles from the Atlantic

coast. The theater forces consisted initially of the First Army, the First and

Third Air Forces, units assigned or attached to the First, Second, and Third

Corps Areas, the forces of the Newfoundland Base Command, and "all

other units now stationed in the Eastern Theater of Operations." Units of

these forces currently located outside the theater's boundaries were also put

at the disposal of its commanding general. The limitations imposed on the

theater commander's authority were virtually the same as those prescribed

for the Western Defense Command. The new theater became active at noon

on 24 December 1941.40

The War Department placed GHQ in command of the continental

theaters established in December 1941, but did not extend its authority to

include the Central and Southern Defense Commands.41 These commands,

occupying about 55 percent of the continental United States, changed in

area, but their authority and means for carrying out defense measures remained poorly defined until March 1942. As long as the Eastern and Western theaters lasted as such, the zone of the interior was restricted, in theory,

to the areas of the Central and Southern Defense Commands. In accordance

with prewar plans the corps areas' responsibility for internal security measures had passed to the theater commanders, but it remained with the corps

areas in the zone of the interior. In both theaters the commanders began to

organize a theater-type supply system and in doing so made further inroads

on the functions of the corps areas.

The greatest anomaly in the December reorganization, and the one that

called for immediate remedy, was the air defense situation. The War Department's theater directives placed the four existing continental air forces under

40

 Ltr, TAG to CG's, 20 Dec 41, AG 371 (12-19-41); Memo, WPD for TAG, 25 Dec 41,

WPD 4627-1. 41

 On 28 December General Marshall explained to President Roosevelt "that when the Western

Defense Command had been set up and placed under GHQ, there had been a tendency on the

part of GHQ to move everything on the east coast to the Western theater, and this condition had

been remedied by setting up the Eastern Defense Command, which tended to balance this tendency

on the part of GHQ." Notes on White House Conf, 28 Dec 41, WDCSA 334 Mtgs and Confs

(1-28-42). Actually, War Department agencies rather than GHQ appear to have initiated most

of the troop moves to the west coast after Pearl Harbor, and GHQ took the lead in urging a reduction in west coast strength. See Memo, CofS GHQ for CG FF, 23 Dec 41, WPD 4612-5.
36 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

theater command, over the strong protest of the Army Air Forces, but left

the Air Force Combat Command responsible for air defense measures in the

Central and Southern Defense Commands. Early in January the Second and

Third Air Forces were moved inland from the theaters and again came under

Air Force Combat Command control, a move that did not satisfy the Army Air

Forces, which wanted either to regain responsibility for all air defense means

and measures in the continental United States or to be excused from any such

responsibility altogether. General Arnold, as Chief of the Army Air Forces,

protested to the War Department in late January that he was unable to discharge his assigned responsibilities for continental air defense; but as Deputy

Chief of Staff for Air, General Arnold directed that no action be taken on

this protest, except to use it as an additional argument for War Department

reorganization.42

The garrisons of the two continental theaters at the beginning of 1942

contained the bulk of the trained or partly trained combat ground and air

units of the Army in the continental United States. Their forces included

nineteen of the thirty-four divisions, most of the antiaircraft regiments, and

more than two-thirds of the available combat air units. A good many of the

ground combat troops were being used to guard vital installations—a task

for which Army field force units were neither designed nor trained. Despite

instructions directing the theater commanders to continue the maximum

degree of training compatible with tactical assignments, the existing deployment of ground and air forces was bound to interfere seriously with training,

and furthermore it was threatening to freeze the bulk of the Army's forces

in a perimeter defense of the continental United States. Only the imminent

threat of large-scale invasion could have justified a continued deployment of

this sort. Since it was soon evident that no such threat was in the offing on

either coast, GHQ had begun to study ways and means of reducing the theater

areas and garrisons even before the activation of the Eastern theater on 24

December.43

To correct the situation, GHQ proposed that the Eastern and Western

theaters be reduced to coastal frontier areas approximately one hundred miles

wide, with Newfoundland separated from the Eastern theater. Instead of com42

 Rpt of Air Officer, GHQ, 6 Dec 41, GHQ 337 Staff Confs, binder 2; Ltr, TAG to CG's,

30 Dec 41, AG 320.2 (12-30-41); Memo, AAF for TAG, 8 Jan 42, copy in OPD 320 Def of

Cont U.S./2; Memo, WPD for CofS, 15 Jan 42, and atchd WPD comment on AAF nonconcurrence, WPD 4627-2; Memo, LSK [Maj Lawrence S. Kuter] for SGS, 24 Jan 42, OCS 16125-591. 43

 Rpt at GHQ Staff Confs, 19 and 20 Dec 41, GHQ 337 Staff Confs, binder 2; Memo, G-3

GHQ for CofS GHQ, 31 Dec 41; Memo, CofS GHQ for CG FF, 6 Jan 42. Last two in GHQ

320.2 Study on Organization of Eastern and Western Theaters.
THE COMMAND OF CONTINENTAL DEFENSE FORCES 37

manding the bulk of the field forces, the theaters were to be considered as task

forces and would contain the air, antiaircraft, harbor defense, and troop

guard units actually needed for defending the coasts against minor attacks.

The First and Fourth Armies were to be separated from the theaters, or at

least partially segregated from them, so that all of the armies could concentrate on training larger field units. The corps areas would also be removed

from theater control and would assume all supply functions. The basic idea

of the GHQ plan was to "reduce theater forces to the minimum required for

defense of the coastal frontier, based on the present situation, and to return

the maximum number of field forces to a training status."

 44

 The War Plans

Division agreed with the premises underlying GHQ's proposals but disagreed

with the remedies suggested. War Plans wanted to maintain the existing

theater boundaries but to restrict interference with training by large-scale

exemption of units and installations from theater control. It wanted to keep

Newfoundland in the Eastern theater in order to permit its ready air reinforcement. Pending the training of military police battalions that could

replace the field units currently on internal guard duty, War Plans wanted

to keep internal security responsibility under the theaters in order to avoid

confusion and duplication in the assignment of troops to guard duty.45

To resolve the conflicting recommendations of GHQ and the War Plans

Division on continental organization, General Marshall decided to send Brig.

Gen. Mark W. Clark, Deputy Chief of Staff of GHQ, to make a survey of

conditions on the west coast. Before General Clark's departure, the Chief of

Staff apparently also decided that Generals Drum and DeWitt must be

retained as commanders of the First and Fourth Armies, thus disposing of

GHQ's recommendation that the armies and theaters be separated. After conferences with General DeWitt and other Army officials, General Clark recommended to General Marshall the abolition of theater status but the retention

of the existing bounds of the Western and Eastern commands—the latter to

be designated the Eastern Defense Command. The principal mobile ground

force units to be assigned to the Eastern and Western commands would be

approximately five and six regimental combat teams, respectively. He also

proposed to divorce the corps areas and their functions from the defense

commands, and to allot all internal security responsibility to the corps area

commanders as soon as military police or other special types of guard units

became available to replace field force units in guarding installations. The

44

 Various papers, 27 Dec 41-10 Jan 42, GHQ 320.2 Study on Organization of Eastern and

Western Theaters. 45

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 15 Jan 42, WPD 4627-2.
38 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

only exception would be the retention by the Western Defense Command of

responsibility for guarding certain vital aircraft factories on the west coast.

These proposals would have placed the four continental defense commands

on a common plane, except that the Eastern and Western commands would

have retained control of defensive air units and responsibility for air defense

measures and also, of course, would have had the great bulk of the forces

assigned to defense missions.46

There was general agreement on the major purpose of the new GHQ

recommendations—a sharp reduction in field forces currently assigned to the

theater commands. General DeWitt vigorously disagreed with the proposal

to remove the Ninth Corps Area and particularly its control of antisabotage

measures from his jurisdiction.47 General DeWitt's position was supported

wholly or in part in the War Department by the Provost Marshal General, by

the War Plans Division, by G-1, and by G-3. All agreed that internal

security in the Western Defense Command should remain a defense command

responsibility. War Plans wanted both Eastern and Western commands to

retain it, and also wanted to keep the theater designations.48

Before any action could be taken on the GHQ recommendations and the

objections raised thereto, a new element entered the picture. The decision made

in February for a sweeping reorganization of the Army high command required a further modification of the continental defense organization, since

the reorganization contemplated placing the corps areas under a new service

command. General Marshall therefore approved General Clark's GHQ plan

in principle, but he directed that it be revised to conform to the proposed

general reorganization of the Army and modified in other minor particulars.49

The general reorganization of 9 March 1942 reduced the War Department

to two parts, the civilian offices of the Secretary of War and his assistants, and

the military staff headed by the Chief of Staff and consisting of the War

Department General and Special Staff divisions. Under the Chief of Staff,

46

 Memo, Gen Marshall for Gen Clark, 18 Jan 42, OCS 21354-5; two Memos of Lt Col Bryan

L. Milburn, G-3 GHQ, n.d., but about 19 Jan 42, GHQ 320.2 Study on Organization of Eastern

and Western Theaters; Memo, Gen Clark for SGS, 29 Jan 42, and other papers, OCS 18417-33;

Memo, Gen Clark for Gen Marshall, 27 Jan 42; Draft Memo, CG FF for TAG, 29 Jan 42. Last

two in OPD 320 Def of Cont U.S./2. 47

 Pers Ltr, Gen DeWitt to Gen Marshal, 22 Jan 42, OCS 18417-33. 48

 Memo, PMG for DCofS Bryden, 2 Feb 42; Memo, G-1 for DCofS Bryden, 1 Feb 42; Memo,

G-3 for Gen Bryden, 2 Feb 42. All in OPD 320 Def of Cont U.S./2. Memo (not used), WPD

for CofS, n.d., WPD 4627-2. The mounting suspicion of the west coast population of Japanese

descent appears to have been an important factor in these objections. See ch. V, below. 49

 Memo, Gen McNair for Lt Gen Joseph T. McNarney, 6 Feb 42, GHQ 320.2 Army and

Corps, binder 11; Memo for WPD, unsigned and undated, but personally corrected and O.K.'d

by Gen Marshall, OPD 320 Def of Cont U.S./2.
THE COMMAND OF CONTINENTAL DEFENSE FORCES 39

three major commands—the Army Ground Forces, the Army Air Forces,

and the Services of Supply (redesignated Army Service Forces a year later) —

absorbed many of the old War Department bureaus and assumed control of

all nondefense functions of the Army within the continental United States.

GHQ was abolished, its training functions being absorbed by the Army

Ground Forces, and its operating functions by the War Plans Division. This

division (soon renamed the Operations Division) became the Chief of Staff's

command post for directing operations. Thus the continental theaters and

commands came under the command direction of the War Plans Division,

while the corps areas (presently renamed service commands) were placed

under the intermediate control of the Services of Supply.50

On the same day that the Army published the general reorganization

plan, General McNair, who was about to take command of the new Army

Ground Forces, proposed to General Marshall a scheme for shifting most

of the larger field force units from continental theater to Army Ground Forces

control. He also proposed that the First and Fourth Armies remain under the

Eastern and Western commands but that they be virtually divorced from the

training of large units (corps and divisions), most of which would be put

under the Second and Third Armies.51 His recommendations were followed

generally in the continental reorganization that became effective on 20 March.

(Map I)

In this reorganization the Eastern Theater of Operations was abolished

and the Eastern Defense Command was established within the same area.52

Newfoundland remained under the administrative control of the Eastern

Defense Command, and a month later the Bermuda Base Command was

similarly attached to it. The Western Defense Command kept its bounds,

including Alaska, and its theater status, but at this time the War Department

intended that it too would cease to be a theater of operations as soon as the

movement of the bulk of the Japanese population into the interior had been

completed. All but one of the divisions were taken away from (though not

necessarily taken out of) the Eastern Defense Command; the Western

Defense Command kept direct control of two divisions, and the other major

units within its bounds were placed under a joint control with the Army

Ground Forces. The Eastern and Western Defense commanders might never50

 WD Cir 59, 2 Mar 42. For more detailed accounts of the March 1942 reorganization, see

Greenfield, Palmer, and Wiley, Organization of Ground Combat Troops, pp. 148-53; and Cline,

The Operations Division, pp. 90-95. 51

 Memo, CofS GHQ for CG FF, 2 Mar 42, OPD 320 Def of Cont U.S./3. 52

 War Department directives issued shortly thereafter, on 31 Mar and 19 Apr 1942, reduced

the Eastern Defense Command to the dimensions indicated on Map 3.

40 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

theless use any troops within their bounds in an emergency. Under the initial

directive, the Western Defense Command continued to command the Ninth

Corps Area, including its supply and internal security functions; in the rest

of the United States the corps areas and all their functions passed to the control of the Services of Supply. A fortnight later the War Department also

removed the Ninth Corps Area from Western Defense Command control,

but the defense commander retained responsibility for Japanese and enemy

alien evacuation and for guarding installations, as well as control over troops

assigned to carry out these activities. The commanding generals of the Second

and Third Armies continued to command the Central and Southern Defense

Commands, which were now clearly charged with all Army responsibilities

for repelling external surface and air attacks on their areas. Since this directive specifically exempted the air forces within the Central and Southern

Defense Commands from defensive missions, the interior defense commands

could get air support only by calling upon air units assigned to the Eastern

and Western Defense Commands. The First and Fourth Air Forces remained

with the Eastern and Western commands, which were also directed to centralize control over all antiaircraft units under the Air Forces' interceptor

commands.53

Soon after this reorganization, confusion developed over the control of

internal security measures. The War Department on 22 April rectified the

situation by authorizing the defense commanders to establish military areas

within their commands. Within the military areas, the defense functions of

the corps area commanders were to be put under the "direction and supervisory control" of the defense commanders, and otherwise the defense commanders were made "responsible for the planning and execution of all defense

measures."

 54

 Shortly thereafter, and with War Department approval, Generals

Drum and DeWitt created military areas coextensive with the boundaries of

their commands, and the Southern Defense Command established a military

area along the entire Gulf coast. Thus in a wide belt along the coastal frontiers

of the continental United States the Army continued to maintain unity of

command and centralized control over all means assigned to defense.

The Army Air Forces challenged this unity and centralized control in

June 1942 by raising anew the question of responsibility for continental air

53

 Ltrs, TAG to CG's, 18 Mar and 2 Apr 42, AG 381 (3-2-42). 54

 Ltrs, TAG to CG's, 22 Apr and 4 May 42, AG 381 (3-2-42). Remarks of Gen Marshall at

War Council Mtg, 27 Apr 42, SW Conf, binder 2. The War Department took this action under

authority of Executive Order 9066, 19 February 1942, issued then to facilitate the evacuation of

the Japanese from the west coast. See ch. V, below.
THE COMMAND OF CONTINENTAL DEFENSE FORCES 41

defense, and specifically by asking that the First and Fourth Air Forces be

returned to its control. The Air Forces also proposed to reorganize the four

fighter commands directly responsible for active air defense measures along

geographic lines very different from those of the defense commands. The

fighter commands would also be given control of blackouts, dimouts, and

radio broadcasts. The War Department passed these proposals on to the

defense commanders and to Army Ground Forces for comment.55

Army Ground Forces' single comment on the proposals was, "Centralizing

air defense would disrupt unity of command in the defense commands. . . .

Since unity of command is deemed vital, the proposals are not favored."

 56

This was the main reason for the War Department's rejection of the Air

Forces' requests. Though recognizing that Air control would at least in

theory permit a more uniform and better integrated continental air defense

system, the War Department held that "the principle of unity of command

within the geographical subdivisions is of paramount importance in order

that the local defense effort may be coordinated under one commander located

at the scene of action."

 57

 Besides, as General Drum pointed out, by midsummer of 1942 the existing continental defense organization was beginning to

function in as efficient a manner as the limited means of the defense commanders permitted. He added a comment worthy of inclusion in any study

of organization:

The success or failure of any organization depends as much on its being thoroughly

understood by all concerned and competently administered by all echelons as on its

original form. The present organization includes all elements essential to an effective

defense grouped under a single responsible commander, has been developed for and

is particularly well-suited to the assigned mission, and has the advantage of months of

trial and error.58

General DeWitt considered that the proposed changes were "dangerously

unsound and academic," that they would cripple the entire structure of west

coast and Alaskan defense, and that in any event it was absurd to centralize

control of west coast air defense in Washington, three thousand or more miles

from the scene of action.59 The views of the defense commanders prevailed,

and for the time being both the responsibility and the control of air defense

55

 Memo, CG AAF for CofS (Attn: OPD), n.d. but received in OPD 15 Jun 42, OPD 381/71;

Ltr, TAG to CG's, 25 Jun 42, AG 381 (3-2-42). 56

 1st Ind, CG AGF to TAG, 6 Jul 42, on TAG Ltr, 25 Jun 42, OPD 381/71. 57

 Memo, ACofS OPD for CG AAF (Through: DCofS), 1 Aug 42, WDCSA 381 Nat Def. 58

 1st Ind, Hq EDC and First Army to CofS WD, 30 Jun 42, on TAG Ltr, 25 Jun 42, OPD

381/71. 59

 1st Ind, Hq WDC and Fourth Army to TAG WD, 1 Jul 42, on TAG Ltr, 25 Jun 42, AG

381 (3-2-42).
42 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

means remained with the Eastern and Western Defense Commands. The

Southern and Central Defense Commands kept the responsibility but never

did get independent control of active air defense elements.

Before Pearl Harbor no one raised the issue of Army-Navy unity of command over continental United States defense forces. Immediately thereafter,

the Chief of the Army Air Forces proposed that he be given command of all

Army, Navy, and Marine Corps air operations launched from continental

bases. General Arnold pointed out that in accordance with the RAINBOW 5

plan the Army Air Forces was responsible for the active air defense of the

continental United States, and that the very limited number of combat and

patrol aircraft available to both services seemed to require centralized control

of those at hand. The War Plans Division recommended to General Marshall

the establishment of air unity of command only on the more exposed west

coast.60 The creation of continental theaters of operations during December

and the allocation to them of active air defense responsibility changed one

premise underlying General Arnold's proposal; and for the time being General Marshall withheld action on it.

The devastating submarine offensive that developed along the Atlantic

coast from January 1942 onward, and the continued threat of carrier-based

air attack on the west coast, required as much offshore air reconnaissance as

the Army and Navy could provide, as well as bombardment aviation ready

to strike at submarine and surface vessels. The conduct of air reconnaissance

and bombardment operations against ships (unless they comprised a hostile

invasion force) was a Navy mission, and the theoretical argument for Navy

unity of command over such operations was sound enough. But in early 1942

the Navy had very few shore-based planes available for such work, and the

Army had to provide the bulk of the planes so employed on both coasts. The

Army's air arm in early 1942 was itself too short of trained bombardment

units to assign any of them permanently to reconnaissance, which from the

Air Forces' point of view was distinctly a secondary mission. Besides, by the

end of January both continental theater commanders had worked out satisfactory arrangements with the Navy for co-ordination of air operations over

the sea. At General Marshall's request, General Clark of GHQ had also

investigated this problem on the west coast in late January. He joined with

the local commanders in recommending against any attempt to establish air

unity of command there. The Navy had so few planes that almost all of the

reconnaissance was being done by the Army anyway, and the co-ordination of

60

 Memo, CofAAF for CofS, n.d. but between 7 and 13 Dec 41, OPD Exec 8, bk. 1; Memo,

ACofS WPD for CofS, 13 Dec 41, OCS 21278-7, commenting on this proposal.
THE COMMAND OF CONTINENTAL DEFENSE FORCES 43

Army and Navy air operations was as good as could be expected under the

circumstances.61

The Navy rather than the Army was the first to propose a system of command unity for continental frontiers. This development came about in connection with a reorganization and redesignation of naval coastal defense

forces. "Sea frontiers" were replacing "naval coastal frontiers"; and these

sea frontiers, which were to contain almost all of the Navy's coastal combat

forces (ships and planes), were being put under fleet command. The Navy's

fleet commander, Admiral Ernest J. King, proposed that the sea frontiers

also command all Army air units allocated to overwater operations. General

Marshall countered with the proposal "that full unity of command in all

continental coastal frontiers and Alaska be vested in the Army over all naval

forces which do not normally accompany the fleet."

 62

Informal discussion between General Marshall and Admiral King in

mid-February produced a tentative agreement on continental unity of command. This arrangement would have placed the Navy's sea frontier commanders under Army command except during fleet operations off the coast.

It would have put Army harbor defense forces except antiaircraft units, and

all other Army units engaged in operations "involving missions in or over

sea areas," under the Navy sea frontier commanders. Thus Army overwater

air operations would have been under intermediate Navy command, but the

Army theater or defense commander would have retained authority to allot,

withhold, or rotate air units for this purpose as he desired. During adjacent

fleet operations, the normally allotted sea frontier forces (Army and Navy)

would have been under fleet command, but this command would not have

extended to other Army continental defense forces. Details of the arrangement were still unsettled when General Marshall and Admiral King transmitted an interim joint directive on 25 March vesting the Navy sea frontier

commanders immediately with unity of command "over all Army air units

allocated by defense commanders for operations over the sea for the protection of shipping and for antisubmarine and other operations against enemy

seaborne activities."

 63

61

 Min, War Council Mtg, 26 Jan 42, SW Conf, binder 2; Memo, Gen Clark, DCofS GHQ,

for Gen Marshall, 27 Jan 42, OPD 320 Def of Cont U.S./2. 62

 Memo, Adm King for U.S. CsofS, 5 Feb 42; Memo, CofS for Adm King, 11 Feb 42. Both

in WPD 2917-44. 63

 Memo, ACofS WPD for Gen Arnold, 16 Feb 42, WPD 2917-46; Remarks of Gen Marshall

at War Council Mtgs, 16 Feb and 23 Mar 42, SW Conf, binder 2; Memo, Adm King for Gen

Marshall, 19 Mar 42; Jt Dispatch, CofS and CinC to CG's, 25 Mar 42. Last two in OPD 384

(4-3-42).
44 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Instead of the agreement contemplated during February and March, the

Army and Navy in April agreed on a different plan for continental coastal

command—the essential difference being that in a "state of non-invasion"

unity of command would not extend beyond the scope of the 25 March directive. If invasion threatened, the Army and Navy chiefs were to declare either

a "state of fleet-opposed invasion" or a "state of Army-opposed invasion."

In the first case, the only change in the normal command relationship would

be to put under Army command such local naval defense forces as were

exempt from sea frontier command. In the second case, the Army would

command all coastal defense forces, including those of the Navy's sea frontiers. Admiral King and General Marshall on 18 April declared a "state of

non-invasion" to exist, and within the continental defense commands (except

in Alaska) this condition remained unchanged throughout the war. Unity of

command in the continental United States during World War II was therefore confined to Navy command of Army air units allocated to the Navy's

sea frontier commands for overwater missions.64

After mid-1942 the need for continental defense activity progressively

declined, but it was not until September 1943 that the First and Fourth Armies

were separated from the Eastern and Western Defense Commands, and the

First and Fourth Air Forces taken away from them and restored to the Army

Air Forces. Thereafter the theory of Army unity of command was maintained

by prescribing that, with War Department approval, the commanding generals of the Eastern and Western Defense Commands might assume command

of any air units within their territorial jurisdiction to meet a serious hostile

threat.65 On 27 October 1943 the War Department terminated the Western

Defense Command's theater status, detached Alaska from it, and designated

the latter a separate theater of operations effective 1 November 1943. The

Eastern Defense Command absorbed the functions and area of the Central

Defense Command at the beginning of 1944, and a year later similarly

absorbed the Southern Defense Command. Thus the Army's continental

defense structure remaining in 1945 was a mere shell of that created in

December 1942, but organizationally it still reflected the principles advocated

in prewar planning of wartime unified command responsibility and over-all

territorial coverage.

64

 Jt Dispatch, CofS and CinC to CG's, 18 Apr 42; Ltr, TAG to CG's, 11 May 42. Both in

OPD 384 (4-3-42). 65

 Hq EDC and First Army, GO 15, 9 Sep 43; Hq WDC and Fourth Army, GO 87, 14 Sep

43; Memo, CG AAF for CofS (Through: OPD), 10 Aug 43; Memo, ACofS OPD for CofS,

5 Sep 43. All in AG 381 (3-2-42).
CHAPTER III

Preparations for Continental Defense

Until the nation went to war in December 1941 the military preparations

for guarding the continental United States centered around four lines of

activity: harbor defense, defense against air attack, civilian defense, and the

protection of vital nonmilitary installations. Although primarily concerned

with measures for protection against bombardment from the air, the Army

did not entirely neglect the fixed coastal defenses that offered limited protection against surface attack. Seacoast defense against a determined surface

attack or invasion would have required the integrated employment of all

types of Army mobile ground and air forces in addition to the harbor defense

units, but plans for employing mobile forces for this purpose remained comparatively nebulous until after the United States entered the war. Prewar plans

for an integrated employment of the major air defense elements—aviation,

antiaircraft artillery, and an aircraft warning service—were far more concrete,

though actual preparations on the eve of Pearl Harbor left much to be desired. Civilian defense, associated with air defense but not considered a

direct Army responsibility, received a good deal of military attention during

the prewar period that helped to limit military commitments thereafter. On

the other hand, the Army had to do much more when war came than it had

planned to do in safeguarding nonmilitary installations.

Harbor Defenses

For more than a century before World War II harbor defenses had constituted the primary element of the means employed by the Army for seacoast defense. Harbor defenses consisted of permanently installed guns of

various calibers, which could be supplemented in an emergency by mobile

coast artillery guns and controlled mine fields. Their purpose was, first of all,

to guard the defended area against invasion and capture; secondly, to protect

the area against naval bombardment, and shipping against submarine or

surface torpedo attack; and finally, to cover the seaward approaches to the
46 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

principal naval anchorages sufficiently far out to enable ships of the United

States Navy to emerge and meet attack. Indeed, the location of naval shore

installations and fleet anchorages was the most important factor in determining the location of Army harbor defenses, and the Navy's insistence on the

necessity of such defenses was the principal reason for their retention and

improvement during World War II. Adequate protection of bases and ships

in port freed the Navy for offensive action. The War Department was also

well aware of the fact that the maintenance of permanent seacoast defenses

gave major coastal cities a sense of security which might help to ensure

against an unsound dispersion of the Army's own mobile ground and air

forces in a war emergency.1

For a good many years before World War II the Army had recognized

the inadequacy of existing harbor defenses. They offered no protection against

aerial bombardment, and, since most seacoast guns were outranged by modern

naval armament, they could no longer guarantee defense against naval bombardment. In studying the situation in 1923, the War Department decided

that either a larger fleet or a much larger number of aircraft would provide

more effective protection for harbor areas than the existing defenses, but it

also held that the use of either would be highly uneconomical. It concluded,

"When it comes to preventing enemy ships from sailing into a harbor and

taking possession, the cheapest and most reliable defense appears to be guns

and submarine mines."

 2

Primarily for the latter reason, the General Staff decided in 1923 that

permanent seacoast fortifications should still be considered essential. It

recommended the abandonment of a number of harbor defenses that were

no longer of military value and concentration on the improvement of those

remaining, particularly by providing them with new long-range guns and

more antiaircraft protection. It also urged more combat aviation to supplement harbor defenses. It called for the retention of permanent defenses for

eighteen coastal areas—the same eighteen that were to be included in the

modernization program of 1940 and that still possessed fixed defenses in

1945.3

1

 Memos, WPD for CofS, 8 Mar 23 and 6 Aug 31, WPD 1105 and 1105-55; unsigned and

undated study (Jan 41?), title: Harbor Defenses, Their Purposes, Composition, and Organization,

WPD 1105-69; Joint Action, par. 19. See FM 4-5, 29 Jul 40, for details of Coast Artillery organization and tactics. 2

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 8 Mar 23, WPD 1105. This study, approved on 17 Apr 1923, remained the basic definition of War Department policy with respect to harbor defenses until the eve

of World War II. 3

 Ibid; Rpt of Harbor Def Bd, 27 Jul 40, AG 602 (4-30-40), sec. 1; tab A, OPD Interoffice
PREPARATIONS FOR CONTINENTAL DEFENSE 47

Between 1923 and the onset of the war emergency in the early summer

of 1940, the Army gave a good deal of thought to the improvement of harbor

defenses. It drafted new defense projects for each harbor area between 1930

and 1932, and in 1931 it established a Harbor Defense Board to supervise

the execution of these projects and outlined the basic policies that were to

guide the board in its recommendations. As a result of the growing tension

between the United States and Japan, most of the meager funds available

for harbor protection between 1933 and 1938 were spent on improvements

along the Pacific coast. The threat of war in Europe in 1939 prompted larger

appropriations and the resumption of work on gun installations along the

Atlantic front. The end of naval armament limitations during the 1930's had

also re-emphasized the need for better long-range guns; to meet this need

the Army had adopted the 16-inch barbette carriage gun as the standard

harbor defense weapon against capital ships, but only a few had been

installed. Existing harbor defense projects called for many other improvements, and it was estimated in February 1940 that to complete approved projects would cost about $60,000,000.4

 Three months later, the Chief of Coast

Artillery described the existing defenses in these terms:

With but few exceptions our seacoast batteries are outmoded and today are woefully

inadequate. Nearly every battery is outranged by guns aboard ship that are of the same

caliber. More alarming than this is the fact that every battery on the Atlantic Coast,

and all but two of the batteries on the Pacific Coast, have no overhead cover so are

open to attack from the air.5

Despite his protests, the War Department decided that the general shortage

of antiaircraft guns was so critical that no mobile and no more fixed antiaircraft guns could be included in harbor defense projects.6

The Harbor Defense Board was engaged in a resurvey of seacoast defense

needs at the time of France's downfall in June 1940.7 Until then, the posMemo, 24 Oct 45, OPD 660.2/62. From Maine to the State of Washington, these locations were:

Portland, Portsmouth, Boston, New Bedford, entrances to Narragansett Bay, eastern entrance to

Long Island Sound, New York Harbor, the Delaware and Chesapeake entrances, Charleston, Key

West, Pensacola, Galveston, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and the entrances to the

Columbia River and Puget Sound. The Navy considered all of the defenses except those at Galveston essential to its purposes. Memo, WPD for CofS, 6 Aug 31, WPD 1105-55. 4

 Various papers and studies, WPD 1105 and WPD 3617; Ltr, SW to Senator Augustine

Lonergan, 19 Aug 32, WPD 3793-40. 5

 Memo, CofCA for CofS, 31 May 40, WPD 1956-77. 6

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 26 Jul 40, WPD 1956-77; Memo, WPD for TAG, 31 Mar 41,

WPD 1956-92. 7

 In March the Veterans' Administration had raised anew the old question as to whether the

Army had any more posts that might properly be abandoned. This had initiated a resurvey of

harbor defense posts and needs.
48 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

sibility of any naval attack on the American coast line had appeared very

remote; thereafter, at least until the fate of the British and French fleets

became known, the United States faced the real possibility of serious naval

inferiority in either the Atlantic or the Pacific. The new naval outlook resulted

in an enlargement of the current survey into a complete reassessment of

harbor defenses.8

The board's report of 27 July 1940 recommended the general adoption

of the 16-inch gun as the primary weapon and the 6-inch gun as the secondary

weapon in all fixed harbor defenses. It proposed that defense projects include

27 new 16-inch two-gun casemated batteries and partial air cover for 23

primary batteries (including ten 16-inch) already installed or previously

approved. The 16-inch guns had a maximum range of about twenty-five miles,

and, at least theoretically, could keep any hostile ship at a safe distance from

any of the twelve harbor areas where they were to be installed. The board

also proposed the construction of 50 new 6-inch two-gun barbette carriage

batteries, which would provide long-range fire (about fifteen miles maximum) against cruisers and other lighter ships, and which would greatly

reinforce the 63 existing secondary batteries (mostly 6-inch and 3-inch semimodern barbette carriage guns) that were to be retained. Its plan called for

the abandonment of 128 obsolete and obsolescent seacoast batteries as soon

as the 77 new batteries were installed. Thereafter, too, coastal defenses could

be manned with substantially fewer troops. The board estimated that the

whole program would require three years to complete and would cost about

$82,000,000—less than the cost of one new battleship.9

After careful consideration the General Staff approved the proposed

modernization program. Informal questioning of the senior members of the

Navy's War Plans Division elicited the unanimous opinion that, in the

absence of the fleet, land-based aviation alone could not be considered a

sufficient defense against naval attack. In the Army only the Chief of the

Air Corps disagreed with this opinion. He thought that airplanes could be

safely substituted for land-based guns in coastal defense. The formal approval given the modernization program in early September 1940 was accompanied by a recommendation that $62,000,000, or about three-fourths of the

8

 On the general situation and other American defense preparations in June and July 1940,

see Conn and Fairchild, Framework of Hemisphere Defense, ch. II. 9

 Ltr, Maj Gen Walter C. Baker (CofCWS), President, Harbor Def Bd, to TAG, 27 Jul 40,

AG 602 (4-30-40), sec. 1. In 1940 the board consisted of the Chiefs of Coast Artillery, Engineers,

Ordnance, Chemical Warfare Service, and Air Corps, as well as the Chief Signal Officer, with

the senior member being the presiding officer. The board's recommendations with respect to

mobile coast artillery are mentioned below.
PREPARATIONS FOR CONTINENTAL DEFENSE 49

estimated total cost, be alloted for construction and contract authorization

through 30 June 1942.10

The planning, construction, and emplacement of seacoast guns and their

auxiliary equipment took a long time under the best of circumstances. This

was particularly true of the big guns. From the beginning the 1940 modernization program had to compete with the general and rapid expansion of the

whole Army, and the program was also slowed by the continuously expanding

naval construction program. By July 1941 only four 16-inch gun batteries

were ready for action, and construction work had been started on only five

others. By then it appeared that the 16-inch gun program could not possibly

be completed for several years and that in the meantime the planned expansion of American air and sea power would make the full program unnecessary. After rearguing the merits of airplanes versus guns in seacoast defense,

the War Department in the late summer of 1941 decided to limit active work

to those batteries that could be completed by 30 June 1944. As a result all

work on fourteen of the thirty-seven 16-inch batteries planned for the continental United States was indefinitely deferred.11

 The expansion of overseas

base activity during 1941 was an important factor in delaying the continental

6-inch gun program, the War Department in November giving priority to

the completion of twenty 6-inch gun batteries in outlying bases.12 In consequence, the condition of the continental fixed harbor defenses on the eve

of Pearl Harbor was not much different from what it had been before the

adoption of the modernization program fifteen months earlier.

The Army's mobile coast artillery in the continental United States in

December 1941 consisted of six tractor-drawn 155-mm. gun regiments and

parts of one 8-inch gun railway regiment. At this same time there were

thirty-one regiments and three separate battalions of fixed-gun harbor defense

units in the United States or, roughly, five times as many fixed-gun forces as

there were mobile.13 Plans in the 1930's had contemplated using a much

larger proportion of mobile guns, particularly of railway guns, to supplement fixed-gun defenses in wartime. But railway artillery had such limited

tactical mobility and such extreme vulnerability to air attack that it had been

10

 Various papers, dated 7 Aug-11 Sep 40, AG 602 (4-30-40), sec. 1, and WPD 4279-2. The

program was officially approved on 5 Sept, and the TAG letter announcing it was dated 11 Sept. 11

 Various papers, dated 2 July-2 Sep 41. WPD 4279-21. 12

 1st Ind, TAG for CofCA, 3 Nov 41, on Memo, CofCA for WPD, 4 Oct 41, AG 660.2

(9-11-40), sec. 1. 13

 Two studies by Lt. Col. Edward M. Harris, prepared in August 1949, summarize the organization and deployment of Army seacoast artillery units from World War I through World War II.

In OCMH.
50 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

all but discarded as a coastal defense weapon before the United States entered

the war.14 After Pearl Harbor, railway guns were used at a few east and west

coast locations but were replaced as soon as other weapons became available.

Pending the completion of approved 6-inch gun projects, the Army used

155-mm. gun batteries to cover their positions; and sixteen batteries of

these guns had been installed along the Atlantic front by December 1941.

During the war the Army made much wider use of tractor-drawn batteries,

placing them at many points along the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific coasts.

It used at the maximum seventy-two 2-gun batteries, both to bolster

permanent harbor defenses and to provide temporary protection to ports that

had no fixed-gun installations. For a while during 1942 the Army also drafted

field artillery batteries of 75-mm. guns and 105-mm. howitzers into coastal

defense service. This proceeding was reversed at the beginning of 1944 when

the Army discontinued the use of mobile guns in coast defense at home and

put coast artillery weapons of this type into field service.15

As an integral part of harbor defenses the Army for many years had planned to install strings of electrically controlled mines across the ship channels

and narrows of port approaches. Army mine fields were intended primarily to

prevent submarines from slipping into inner harbor areas. Controlled mine

fields, as provided for in harbor defense projects, were quickly installed in

many harbor entrances after the declaration of war. They caused much trouble, since the mines then available were of a buoyant type that rested only

fifteen feet below the water's surface, and passing ships frequently fouled the

connecting cables. In 1943 the Army replaced the buoyant mine with a newly

developed ground mine that all friendly ships could clear without danger and

that had an explosive charge powerful enough to destroy any sort of enemy

vessel that might attempt to intrude. Ground mine fields remained in position

until the summer of 1945.16

During the war Army harbor defenses were further improved by the introduction of radar and by the provision of new means for dealing with fast14

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 8 Apr 39, WPD 3617-39; Rpt of Harbor Def Bd, 27 Jul 40, AG

602 (4-30-40), sec. 1. 15

 History of the Eastern Defense Command (hereafter cited as Hist of EDC), OCMH, ch. 4,

and History of the Western Defense Command, 17 March 1941-30 Sept 1945, OCMH (hereafter

cited as Hist of WDC), ch. 14. 16

 Memo, CofCA for ACofS WPD, 8 May 41, WPD 2521-81, and other papers in this WPD

file and in AG 660.3 (8-23-41); Memo, CofS for CNO, 10 Feb 42, tab E, title: Misc Information

Concerning Use of Controlled Mines During War, WPD 1105-70; Hist of EDC, pp. 26-28;

Study by Col Herbert C. Reuter, 5 Sep 49, A Summary of Historical Information Pertaining to

Controlled Submarine Mining, prepared in connection with the transfer of submarine mine

responsibility from the Army to the Navy in 1949, copy in OCMH.
PREPARATIONS FOR CONTINENTAL DEFENSE 51

moving torpedo boats. Radar, though never completely reliable, normally

permitted the operation of Army guns and searchlights at their maximum

range instead of at a visual range determined by weather conditions.17 Studies

in late 1940 convinced the Army that it had no adequate weapons to deal

with motor torpedo boats. Coast Artillery School tests in 1941 indicated that

the best weapon would be the 90-mm. antiaircraft gun; but, because of the

shortage of such guns, existing 3-inch fixed guns had to serve as makeshift

antimotor torpedo boat weapons until late 1942. Thereafter the Army installed special antimotor torpedo boat defenses along the Pacific and northeast Atlantic coasts, ideally in a grouping of two fixed and two mobile 90-mm.

guns, and two mobile 37-mm. or 40-mm. antiaircraft guns. Toward the end

of the war some of the fixed 90-mm. guns were about the only actively

manned Army harbor defense elements, and incidentally they were also the

only shore-based antiaircraft weapons ready to operate as such along the

east coast.18

It was the Navy's responsibility to control all ship movements within defended harbor areas, and the Navy supplemented the Army's defenses by

installing harbor nets and booms, by planting contact mines and detection

devices in outer harbor approaches, and by conducting offshore patrols.19

Mine sweeping was also the Navy's business, and German mine-laying submarines gave the sweepers some work of this sort to do along the Atlantic

coast between May and November 1942.20

In each harbor the device for managing all of the defenses was the harbor

entrance control post, manned by both Army and Navy officers. A joint directive defined the mission of these posts as follows:

To collect and disseminate information of activities in the defensive sea area; to control unescorted commercial shipping in the defensive coastal area; and to take prompt

and decisive action to operate the elements of the harbor defense, in order to deny

enemy action within the defensive coastal area.21

Harbor entrance control posts began to appear during 1941. Throughout the

war they were maintained at all defended harbors, providing the main link 17

 Hist of EDC, p. 29; for types of harbor defense radar, see Dulany Terrett, The Signal

Corps: The Emergency, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1956)

(hereafter cited as Terrett, The Emergency), app. 18

 Various papers, WPD 3617-63 and WPD 1105-103; Hist of EDC, p. 25. 19

 Joint Action, ch. III, and Memo, CNO for Commandants, Naval Districts, 5 Nov 40, sub:

Jt Def of Harbors, WPD 1105-65, describe the respective responsibilities of the two services during World War II. 20

 See Samuel Eliot Morison, "History of United States Naval Operations in World War II,"

vol I, The Battle of the Atlantic: September 1939-May 1943 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1950) (hereafter cited as Morison, Battle of the Atlantic), app. IV; ch. IV, below. 21

 Jt Cir, approved by CNO, 29 May 41, and by CofS, 23 Jun 41, distributed by Ltr, TAG to

CG's, 25 Jun 41, AG 660.2 (5-29-41).
52 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

between higher command headquarters and all subordinate elements of a

harbor defense. It was generally believed during the war that these posts permitted a close interservice co-operation that gave the whole harbor defense

system a high degree of potential efficiency, but the enemy's failure really to

challenge the system leaves this a matter for conjecture.

Until 1940 fixed harbor defenses were maintained on a caretaking basis,

and the guns were not actually manned except at a few forts for training purposes. Regular Army harbor defense forces numbered about 4,200 men

in 1939—less than one-third of the number regularly maintained in harbor

defenses before World War I and less than one-tenth of the number that

would have been required to man the existing equipment with only one relief.

Army mobilization plans in 1938 and 1939 contemplated that the National

Guard would provide the bulk of the approximately 50,000 troops that would

be needed for harbor defenses in wartime, but National Guard units of this

sort numbered only 7,000 men in 1939.22 There was little change in harbor

defense strengths until the fall of 1940, when the induction of the National

Guard into federal service permitted the partial manning of all active

installations. As the rehabilitation and reinforcement of harbor defense posts

continued through 1941, units were recruited to full strength and all fixed

guns were manned and put in operating condition. By the fall of 1941 the

strength of harbor defense forces was approximately 45,000, and they were

almost the only troops specifically assigned by the Army to continental defense until the formal entry into war in December.23

War and the establishment of theater-type commands on the Atlantic and

Pacific coasts led to an increase in harbor defense forces. The January 1942

Troop Basis allotted harbor forces a strength of 54,000, and their actual

strength was about 70,000 from the spring of 1942 until mid-1943.24 In the

early months of the war, harbor defense forces manned obsolete as well as

more modern weapons. War Department orders generally ended this practice

before the close of 1942, and most of the coastal defense mortars and disappearing carriage guns were dismantled during 1943.25

22

 OCS Memo for Rcd, 27 Oct 38, WPD 1956-54; Memo, Secy, Army and Navy Munitions

Board, for ASW, 24 Feb 39, AG 381 (2-24-39); Memo, WPD for CofS, Sep 39, WPD 3674-17;

Memo, WPD for CofS, 15 Dec 39, WPD 3674-18. 23

 Hist of EDC, ch. 2, and History of the Northeastern Sector, Eastern Defense Command,

OCMH (hereafter cited as Hist of NE Sector, EDC), pp. 1-2, give a brief survey of Atlantic

coast developments during this period. The latter is filed with retired EDC records. 24

 Memo, G-3 for WPD, 15 Jan 42, WPD 3674-83. The higher actual strength resulted

principally from the temporary use of field artillery units during 1942, and thereafter from the

overstrengths authorized during the transition from general to limited service. 25

 Ltr, SW to CG's Def Comds, 18 Jul 42, OPD 660.2/23; Hist of EDC, p. 25.
PREPARATIONS FOR CONTINENTAL DEFENSE 53

SIX-INCH GUN EMPLACEMENT ON JASPER PARAPET, Charleston, S.C.

The War Department tried to speed up the modernization program after

the outbreak of war, with indifferent success. Though site construction for

the whole program could have been completed within a year or so, manufacture of weapons and their accessories faced competition not only from the

naval building program but also from the production of more urgently

needed Army weapons—tanks, for example.26 By September 1942 the prospect of completing the modernization of heavy seacoast artillery during the

war appeared dim, and even if built it seemed even more unlikely that the

guns would ever be used. With Navy concurrence, the Army cut back the 16-

inch gun program by abandoning ten continental battery projects previously

deferred. On paper this move actually increased the number of currently au26

 Memo, G-4 for TAG, 26 Dec 41, and accompanying OCS Memo for Rcd, OCS 18585-95;

D/F, WPD to SOS, 26 Mar 42, OPD 660. 2/2.
54 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

thorized projects, but subsequent cancellations cut the big-gun program much

further.27 During 1943 and 1944 substantial reductions also occurred in the

6-inch gun program, principally because the Army had a much more pressing

need for field artillery weapons.

When the war ended the future of coast artillery was still uncertain. The

Joint Chiefs of Staff had decided in early 1945, "As to major caliber and

minor caliber fixed seacoast artillery, all that we now have, emplaced in continental and overseas harbor defenses, should be retained and maintained in

serviceable condition, with the recognition that subsequent developments may

demonstrate the desirability of substituting some type of new weapon therefor."

 28

 "Current OPD thought" in October 1945 held that, until new weapons

capable of performing Coast Artillery missions were developed, existing installations ought to be maintained in the best possible condition and provided

with modern fire control instruments. Between 1940 and 1945 the modernization program had cost more than $220,000,000, and it had provided the

continental United States with nearly two hundred modern and modernized

guns—including nineteen 16-inch and forty-eight 6-inch long-range batteries.29

 Though the total number of gun installations had declined by more

than one half since May 1940, the later equipment was far superior to the

earlier in its capacity to resist attack by large ships. In 1945 no attack of this

sort on the continental United States could be foreseen for many years to

come, and when the war ended all seacoast artillery except a few 90-mm.

antiaircraft guns was placed in a strictly caretaking status.

Air Defense Preparations

When the GHQ Air Force was established in March 1935, its principal

mission was the defense of continental coastal frontiers. Two months later

the War Department issued a general directive on air defense to the four

army commanders, designed to stimulate planning and preparations for an

integrated defense by aviation, antiaircraft artillery, and an Army-controlled

aircraft warning service against air attacks that might be launched against the

continental United States, as well as for "passive" measures for the protection

27

 Memo, Chief, S&P Group, for Chief, North American Theater, OPD, 30 Sep 43, OPD

660.2/50; Ltr, OPD to COMINCH, 31 Oct 42, AG 660.2 (9-11-40), sec. 1; Ltr, COMINCH to

CofS, 8 Nov 42; Memo, CG SOS for CofEngrs, CSigO, CofOrd, and CofCWS, 20 Nov 42. Last

two in OPD 660.2/23. 28

 JCS Policy Memo 15, 20 Mar 45. 29

 Memo, Chief, Logistics Group, for ACofS OPD, 24 Oct 45, and accompanying tab A, OPD

660.2/62.
PREPARATIONS FOR CONTINENTAL DEFENSE 55

of the civilian population and industry.30 In accordance with this directive

some preliminary planning was done and test air defense exercises were held

during 1937 and 1938. In the latter year the acceptance in national policy of

a new theory of air defense, which called for major reliance on the projection

of air power outside the United States to interdict the establishment of hostile

air bases elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere, led in the spring and summer

of 1939 to a general reassessment of the nation's aviation policy and its

means for air defense.31

Aircraft

The report of an Army Air Board submitted in June 1939 embodied the

basic policies that guided the development and employment of Army aviation

during World War II. The report designated three basic missions for military

aviation, the air defense of the continental United States, similar defense of

overseas possessions, and "operations outside of the United States and its

possessions as required by the situation." It defined the continental defense

mission in these terms:

To provide in the United States (zone of the interior) the necessary close-in air

defense of our most vulnerable and important areas, to include, where necessary, reasonable protection against off-shore carrier attacks. These forces are not intended to repel

a mass air attack or to afford air protection to our entire coastline, but are designed to

limit the effectiveness of air raids upon our exposed vital areas.32

The Air Board recommended the establishment and maintenance of nine

major air bases, which would ring the continental United States from New

England to the Pacific Northwest. These were to be the main operating bases

for the approximately fourteen tactical groups that were to be maintained by

the GHQ Air Force. This force, which would contain 104 heavy, 84 medium,

and 142 light bombardment airplanes and 324 pursuit planes, was now to

have a mission of performing frontier defense, reinforcing overseas possessions, and furnishing expeditionary striking forces within the Western Hemisphere as required. The board based its estimate of the air strength needed

for continental defense, as well as for the other purposes mentioned, on a

careful assessment of the aviation strength and capabilities of Germany,

Italy, and Japan. Despite their ominous and growing air power, these nations

in 1939 did not have any planes capable of even a one-way transoceanic flight

30

 Ltr, TAG to CG's, 21 May 35, AG 660.2 AA (5-15-35). 31

 See Conn and Fairchild, Framework of Hemisphere Defense, ch. I; Craven and Cate, eds.,

Plans and Early Operations, chs. II and IV. 32

 Tab B, Rpt of Air Bd, 26 Jun 39, WPD 3748-17.
56 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

with a bomb load for a direct attack on the United States, and as late as February 1942 Germany had only a few planes that could have been used for this

purpose. If the United States was successful in preventing the establishment

of hostile air bases in the hemisphere, then only carrier-based or tender-based

planes could pose a real threat of air attack. Japan had six carriers built, and

Germany was constructing two; but, because of American naval strength in

the Pacific, it was assumed that no more than two enemy carriers would be

employed at any one time in hit-and-run raids against either coast of the

United States, and that even raids of this sort would be fairly improbable.

The chief danger, as the planners saw it in 1939 and indeed throughout the

prewar period, was that which, if France and Great Britain were defeated,

would come from the projection of German and Italian air power by stages

across the North Atlantic or from Africa to Brazil in the southern Atlantic.

The continental air bases were therefore to be used not only for home defense

but also as springboards for the projection of American air power to meet

this danger.33

In a reassessment of the air defense situation after the outbreak of war in

Europe, a new Air Defense Board decided that the continental United States

needed only 68 medium bombers and 270 pursuit planes specifically for defense purposes. This estimate was reaffirmed in May 1940, on the eve of Germany's onslaught against the West, because it was believed that a force of

this strength could deal adequately with a two-carrier attack on either coast.34

The German triumph in France produced a quick upward revision of the

Army's over-all aviation goal, but no provision was made during the summer

of 1940 or in the succeeding months of mobilization for allotting more planes

to continental defense. Indeed, in the build-up of air power under the new

54-group program, planes were allotted among the wings and, in 1941,

among the air forces in the continental United States without any particular

reference to continental defense.

Despite its seeming unreadiness for action, not only because of its rapid

expansion but also because of the drain of American aircraft production to

the fighting nations of the Old World, the Air Force Combat Command of

1941 (the successor of the GHQ Air Force) had a good deal of latent combat

strength, which it was to exhibit as soon as the United States plunged into the

33

 Two WPD Aide-mémoires, May 39, WPD 3807-31; tabs X and Y, Rpt of Air Bd, 26 Jun

39, WPD 3748-17; Memo, WPD for CofS, 7 Aug 39, and atchd tab 12, WPD 4078-11; tabs

B and C, Memo, WPD for CofS, 21 Dec 39, WPD 3807-41; Memo, CofAS for WPD, 21 Feb 42,

WPD 1398-11. 34

 Tab C, Memo, WPD for CofS, 21 Dec 39, WPD 3807-41; tab F, Rpt of Comm 2, Air

Def Bd, 3 May 40, OPD Exec 12, item 17.
PREPARATIONS FOR CONTINENTAL DEFENSE 57

war. In June 1941 its 22 bombardment groups contained only about a quarter

of the airplanes they were supposed to have, and its 17 pursuit groups had an

even smaller proportion of their required strength in planes. Between June

and November 1941 the number of combat aircraft fit for action more than

doubled, and the Air Force Combat Command on 30 November had about

480 bombardment and 650 pursuit planes of modern and semimodern types;

but only 4 of its bombardment and 5 of its pursuit groups had anywhere near

their full complement of planes. A state of war brought a quick redistribution

of strength in December 1941 and January 1942, which gave the continental

United States more aviation protection than had been planned for it at any

time before Pearl Harbor.35

Antiaircraft Artillery

The first significant step toward improving continental antiaircraft artillery protection came in June 1937, primarily because of growing tension between the United States and Japan. This was a plan for increasing the Army's

3-inch antiaircraft gun strength from 135 to 472, and it included the procurement of enough guns to equip thirty-four Regular Army and National Guard

mobile antiaircraft regiments. At that time the Army had only five skeletonized regiments of this sort in continental service, and most of its 3-inch weapons were installed as fixed guns in harbor defenses. In effect, the antiaircraft

guns then available could have done little more than help protect the harbor

defenses themselves. The new plan promised to provide enough weapons by

the summer of 1940 to give at least some protection to other military installations and to industrial areas along the coasts.36

The Army also had a long-range plan for augmenting its antiaircraft

strength as a phase of the Protective Mobilization Plan first prepared in 1933.

Under this plan and its four projected augmentations, the number of antiaircraft regiments would be increased progressively to a total of 80 for an Army

of 4,000,000 men, of which 50 were to be assigned to the field forces engaged

in major operations and 30 held in a reserve available for defending vital

installations along the coastal frontiers. This plan provided the base for a

careful survey and recalculation of antiaircraft needs undertaken by the War

Plans Division in the spring and summer of 1939. It was apparent to the

35

 Air Force Combat Comd Status Rpts, 30 Jun and 30 Nov 41, OPD Exec 16, items 27 and 29.

See ch. IV below, for the deployment of aviation in continental defense after Pearl Harbor. 36

 Various papers, WPD 1956-41 and WPD 1956-54; Memo, WPD for CofS, 7 Aug 39,

WPD 4078-11.
58 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

planners at the outset that the National Guard and Organized Reserves

would have to furnish the bulk of antiaircraft forces, since the Regular Army

could not hope to maintain enough units of this sort in peacetime to meet

the needs of a real war emergency. The War Plans Division also acknowledged that the number of regiments projected in the Protective Mobilization

Plan was "grossly inadequate" to meet the requirements of home defense.

Practical considerations would in all probability limit the antiaircraft defense

of vital installations to those within a hundred miles or so of the Atlantic and

Pacific coasts, and within this zone the defense of naval installations would

have a high priority.37

The completed General Staff study on antiaircraft needs contained recommendations based on a number of other assumptions. Accepting the estimate

of the Air Board, it held that any likely air attacks on the United States would

be hit-and-run affairs launched from carriers and would therefore be far less

destructive than those possible within the narrow confines of Europe.38 Since

raids of this sort would incur great risk to the attacker, they would be carefully aimed at objectives vital to an American war effort, most of which were

located in or near metropolitan centers. To the planners it appeared obvious

that ship-based raids would be less likely along the coast where the major

portion of the United States Fleet was located. Since the United States was

keeping most of its naval strength in the Pacific, this study and later plans

gave greater emphasis to the Atlantic than to the Pacific coast, even though

Japan had a number of carriers in operation and Germany and Italy had none.

Along the Atlantic coast, the vital and densely populated area between Boston

and Norfolk was to receive the greatest protection, the study designating

more than two-thirds of all the first-priority allocations of gun battalions for

the defense of that region. Lastly, since in all probability the Army in a war

emergency could not furnish enough antiaircraft artillery to supply even the

most reasonable needs of all localities, antiaircraft units and equipment

would have to be kept mobile so that they could be concentrated where they

would be most needed.39

The antiaircraft study as approved forecast an initial requirement of 87

37

 Memo, WPD for DCofS, 27 Dec 38, WPD 1956-57; Memo, WPD for TAG, 3 Mar 39,

WPD 4078-7; Memo, WPD for CofCA, 21 Mar 39, WPD 4078-8; Memo, WPD for CofS,

7 Aug 39, WPD 4078-11. 38

 The Army during the prewar period never did calculate the needs for aviation and antiaircraft artillery for defending the continental United States against land-based air power, because

until 1942 transoceanic bombardment was impossible and also because it was assumed that American

air power would be successful in preventing the establishment of any hostile air base within the

Western Hemisphere. 39

 Memo and Inds, WPD for CofS, 7 Aug 39, WPD 4078-11.
PREPARATIONS FOR CONTINENTAL DEFENSE 59

battalions of 3-inch or larger antiaircraft guns, and 57 battalions of 37-mrn.

automatic guns, for continental coastal defense under the assumptions outlined above. Under the most unfavorable foreseeable circumstances (that is,

neither the Navy nor the air arm available to protect the coastal approaches),

there would be a need for 157 additional battalions of big guns and 97 more

automatic weapons battalions. The estimate of initial requirements represented the equivalent of 72 antiaircraft regiments for continental defense, in

contrast to the 30 regiments originally allocated under the Protective Mobilization Plan. Objections that the technological improvement of bombardment

aircraft had outmoded existing antiaircraft equipment were countered with

the assumption that there could and would be comparable advance in antiaircraft gun efficiency. The study assumed that most of the big gun battalions

would get the new 90-mm. instead of the existing 3-inch weapon for high

altitude firing, and that the 37-mm. automatic gun would replace the .50-

caliber machine gun then in current use for lower altitude saturation firing.

The planners also rejected the claim of certain air enthusiasts that defensive

aviation could entirely supplant antiaircraft guns in air defense. They argued

that it could not be safely assumed that enough defensive aviation would

be constantly available or that planes would be alerted in time to meet attacking aircraft before they reached their objectives. Furthermore, the use

of combat aviation for purely defensive purposes represented a wasteful diversion from its primary offensive mission, and the provision of antiaircraft

artillery even in a very modest quantity would help free the air arm as well

as the Navy for offensive action.40

The exploration of antiaircraft needs in the spring and summer of 1939

set the pattern for Army thinking and planning on the subject until the summer of 1942. The chief problem was to get the men and equipment needed.

When the war began in Europe there were only 5 Regular Army and 13 National Guard mobile antiaircraft regiments in existence. The Army organized

4 new Regular Army regiments in the fall of 1939, and it planned to increase

the regimental strength of the National Guard from 13 to 28. This expansion,

if carried through, would provide 37 regiments instead of the 34 for which

equipment was to have been procured under the 1937 plan. The 37 regiments

would have to serve all purposes—reinforcement of overseas garrisons, field

force duty, and continental coastal defense.

40

 Ibid. For further details on the organization and development of antiaircraft units and equipment, see Army Ground Forces Study 26, by Lt. Col. Alvin M. Cibula, The Antiaircraft Command

and Center (Washington, 1946); and Constance McLaughlin Green, Harry C. Thomson, and

Peter C. Roots, The Ordnance Department: Planning Munitions for War, UNITED STATES

ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1955), ch. XIV.
60 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

In the spring of 1940 a committee of the Air Defense Board reconsidered

antiaircraft as well as aviation needs for home defense, and reached the conclusion that even the defeat of France and Great Britain would not require

any change in the current Protective Mobilization Plan objective of 37 antiaircraft regiments, of which 25 were now earmarked for the field forces and

only 12 for defense of continental installations. The War Department approved this conclusion, as well as the committee's reaffirmation of the earlier

long-range plan for 30 regiments for continental service in a fully augmented

Army. In doing so it did not reject the August 1939 antiaircraft plan, but

accepted the 37-regiment goal as the most that could be accomplished in the

development of a balanced force of arms before war actually broke out.41

By the autumn of 1941 the Army actually had 37 antiaircraft artillery

regiments and 9 separate gun battalions in service in the continental United

States.42 Most of these units still needed much training, and they were even

shorter in equipment and ammunition than in training. As of September

1941, the War Department considered the equivalent of about 18 antiaircraft

regiments (instead of 12 as planned in 1940) available for continental defense purposes, but because of weapons and ammunition shortages it did not

anticipate that any units earmarked for home defense would be ready until

the summer of 1942.43

Immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Army deployed about

two-thirds of its antiaircraft units and almost all of the antiaircraft weapons

available to guard vital installations on the east and west coasts. In units this

deployment amounted initially to about 29 regiments. From December 1941

until January 1944 the number of regiments engaged in continental defense

remained approximately the same, the total varying between a strength of

24 and 32 regiments.44 Though the number of regiments deployed appeared

to represent a rather exact fulfillment of prewar plans, in fact this probably

happened more by chance (what chanced to be available in December 1941)

than by design.

During the first six months of war the Army actually intended to provide

a much more extensive antiaircraft artillery coverage for the east and west

coasts of the United States. The first wartime Troop Basis of January 1942

provided for the equivalent of 60 prewar regiments for continental defense

41

 Tab F, Rpt of Comm 2, Air Def Bd, 3 May 40, OPD Exec 12, item 17; Memo, WPD for

CofS, 29 Nov 40,WPD 4079-36. 42

 Army Station List, 15 Oct 41, AG 322 (10-8-41). 43

 D/F, WPD to CofAS, 4 Sep 41, WPD 1956-94. 44

 See below, ch. IV. OPD Weekly Status Maps, 5 Feb 1942-20 Jan 1944, AG 061, show

the actual strengths during 1942 and 1943.
PREPARATIONS FOR CONTINENTAL DEFENSE 61

by the end of 1942.45 The Eastern Theater of Operations in February submitted an elaborate antiaircraft artillery defense plan that called for a minimum

of about 100 regiments and a maximum of nearly 300 for the defense of the

east coast area alone—and the maximum would have required a troop

strength of about 458,000.46 A study of the first priority provisions of this

plan, together with a re-examination of the August 1939 plan, led the War

Department to approve a plan for providing the coastal areas with the equivalent of 100 antiaircraft regiments by the end of 1943, and the continental

defense commanders were so notified in May 1942.47 The new War Department plan, like that of 1939, allotted more than two-thirds of the projected

antiaircraft strength to the east coast. But all of these 1942 projects remained

paper plans never to be carried out during World War II. In fact, throughout

1942 and 1943, the west coast had greater antiaircraft artillery strength than

the east coast; and in general the continental defense commanders had to get

along with the unit strength allotted to them when the United States entered

the war.

Aircraft Warning Service

Army preparations for an aircraft warning service, the third major element of an air defense system, began with preliminary test exercises on both

coasts in 1937 and 1938. During those years also, the Signal Corps was

developing the first American radar equipment for detecting the approach

of aircraft, the SCR-268 for use with antiaircraft artillery searchlights and

the long-range SCR-270 for discovering the approach of enemy planes in

time to alert defensive aviation.48 The prospective availability of the SCR-270

led the War Department in May 1940 to direct the army commanders to

select sites for locating detectors along the coasts and also to adjust their

existing aircraft warning service plans to the use of radar. With the commanders' recommendations in hand, the War Department on 2 August 1940

approved a plan to provide the continental coastal frontier with a ring of

45

 Memo, G-3 for WPD, 15 Jan 42, WPD 3674-83. These regiments would have required

about 108,000 troops, twice as many as this Troop Basis provided for manning harbor defenses. 46

 Antiaircraft Artillery Def Project, ETO, 1942, 10 Jan 42, submitted to the General Staff

by Ltr, GHQ to TAG, 4 Feb 42, AG 660.2 AA (1-1-40), sec. 1; various papers, WPD 4627-5,

especially Memo, CofCA for WPD, 21 Feb 42. 47

 Memo, WPD for G-3, 8 Mar 42, WPD 1956-96; Memo, OPD for TAG, 18 May 42,

OPD 660.2 AA/13. Throughout this antiaircraft discussion all figures of regimental strength have

been reduced to the common denominator of the prewar mobile regiment, which contained one

battalion manning twelve large guns and a second battalion manning thirty-two automatic guns. 48

 Terrett, The Emergency, ch. V, and app pp. 318-25 , in which the Army radars of World

War II are identified and described.
62 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

thirty-one mobile detectors. The plan specified that work should begin first

at eleven sites along the northeast Atlantic coast and at ten along the Pacific

coast.49

The Signal Corps' SCR-270 radar (and its fixed version, the SCR-271)

had a range, when competently operated, of between 100 and 150 miles.

When production of the SCR-270 was just beginning in early 1941, the

Chief of the Air Corps described this set as "no good" and asked that it be

replaced by British radar models as soon as possible.50 After the United

States entered the war there was much more widespread criticism of the

SCR-270 and continued demands that it be replaced by British equipment.

Actually, most of the criticism seems to have been misdirected; the lack of

trained manpower to operate the machines, rather than the machines themselves, appears to have been chiefly at fault.51

 In any event the SCR-270 was

the radar that served the Atlantic and Pacific coasts during 1942 and 1943,

the years of active continental defense.

At the end of November 1941 the Army was completing preparations

for installing mobile radars at thirteen locations along the Atlantic coast

and ten locations along the Pacific front. After Pearl Harbor the War Department allocated almost all its available SCR-270's to continental use.

Fortunately, this equipment had the great advantage of mobility, and by

early January 1942 the Army had been able to install 31 of these sets along

the east coast and 27 along the west coast. By mid-July 1942 these numbers

had been increased to 41 and 31, respectively. The antiaircraft forces by

then were also fairly well supplied with SCR-268's to guide their operations.52

 Thereafter the number of long-range radars in continental defense

use declined, as the prospect of air attack faded and the demands of overseas forces mounted.53

Barrage Balloons

A fourth air defense element, the barrage balloon, received considerable attention but only scant development before the United States entered 49

 Ltr, TAG to CG's First, Third, and Fourth Armies, 23 May 40; Memo, WPD for CofS,

31 Jul 40. Both in AG 660.2 AA (5-22-40). Also, various background papers, WPD 3640. 50

 Remarks of Gen Arnold in Conf, 25 Jan 41, OCS Conf, binder 8. 51

 George Raynor Thompson, Dixie R. Harris, Pauline M. Oakes, and Dulany Terrett, The

Signal Corps: The Test, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1957),

pp. 93-97. 52

 Memo, Col Sherrill for ACofS WPD, and atchd tab A, 8 Jan 42, WPD 4187-25; Incl to

Signal Corps Memo, 14 Jul 42, title: Distribution of Ground Radar Sets in Cont U.S., cited in

Thompson et al., The Test, p. 290. 53

 History of the Western Defense Command, vol. III, ch. 10, contains a map of the overwater

coverage of the twenty-five radar installations maintained along the west coast in 1943.
PREPARATIONS FOR CONTINENTAL DEFENSE 63

the war. The Air Corps began work on a barrage balloon in 1938, but more

active preparations did not get under way until the beginning of 1941, after

reports during the summer and fall of 1940 had indicated the effectiveness

of balloons in Great Britain and Germany in interfering with low-level

bombardment. After the Air Corps had developed a large and relatively

high-altitude-type balloon, the Chief of Staff decided to transfer most

barrage balloon activity to the Coast Artillery Corps. When the Coast

Artillery took over at the beginning of June 1941, the Army had three

barrage balloon companies and just three balloons. But it had tentatively

decided to acquire 3,000 more balloons, and plans evolved during the summer and fall of 1941 to expand the barrage balloon force to be used for

continental defense purposes alone to eighty-five batteries, each flying thirtyfive balloons.54

 By 1 November 1941, five battalions of three batteries each

were being organized and trained at the Barrage Balloon Training Center

at Camp Davis, North Carolina. The Army sent three of these battalions to

bolster the air defenses of the west coast soon after the outbreak of war. It

also decided to replace the Air Corps type of balloon with the smaller

British balloon which, although designed to fly at lower levels, was easier

to handle, less expensive to manufacture and operate, and readily procurable.

As one part of the new antiaircraft project approved in the spring of

1942, a maximum of forty balloon battalions of prewar strength for continental defense was to be provided. The number actually employed for this

purpose during the war was a little more than one-tenth of this strength,

and in the United States balloon battalions were used only at a few west

coast locations and at the Sault Ste. Marie Canal.55

The Air Defense System

The experimental Air Defense Command activated in early 1940 provided the model for the four continental interceptor commands established

under the Air Force Combat Command in June 1941.56 The plans of the

new Army Air Forces contemplated that the interceptor commands would

control nineteen air defense regions to be established within the United

States, and that each region would be provided with a pursuit group and a

separate aircraft warning organization. Within the latter there would be a

central information center to receive word of aircraft movements from the

54

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 9 Jun 41, WPD 1098-22; various papers, AG 452.3 (10-5-40) (1). 55

 Directory, Army of the United States, 1 Nov 41; Memos, CofCA for CofS, 15 and 18

Feb 42, AG 452.3 (10-5-40) (1); Memo, OPD for TAG, 18 May 42, OPD 660.2 AA/13. 56

 See ch. II, above.
64 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

coastal radar stations and from a civilian ground observer's organization

through intermediate filter centers. The information center in turn would

alert all air defense elements and issue air raid warnings to the civilian

defense organization. In the fall of 1941 the Army Air Forces assumed that

it would command the whole air defense system in the continental United

States in time of war, by exercising operational control over the ground elements of the system.

In fact, the continental air defense system after Pearl Harbor differed in

several respects from that plotted during 1941. As already noted, the air

forces on the east and west coasts were put under the theater commanders

and remained there for defense purposes until September 1943. The antiaircraft forces, instead of depending upon the aircraft warning service, had

their own separate observation and alert systems and, in general, occupied

a more autonomous position in relation to the interceptor commands than

projected in 1941 plans. The principal combat mission of Army aviation

along the American coasts turned out to be the conduct of antisubmarine

operations under Navy operational control. During the war more than 6,000

ground observer posts supplemented the coastal radar system in the aircraft

warning service, but how effective this system would have been in detecting

and charting the approach of hostile planes is very uncertain. Though the

system was most elaborate in the northeastern United States, early in 1943

the training officer at the Boston filter center guessed that the chances of intercepting hostile planes before they attacked were about one in ten, while

the executive officer at the same station estimated them at one in twenty.57

The Air Forces acknowledged before the end of 1943 that its flight training program in coastal areas had made the aircraft warning service almost

completely ineffective, because it was impossible under the circumstances

to identify aircraft accurately.58 Air defense had been sacrificed to air training for the offensive.59

The Army and Civilian Defense

Civilian defense during World War II comprehended all measures of

"passive" defense necessary to safeguard civilian lives and property to the

57

 Min, WD Gen Council Mtg, 1 Mar 43. 58

 Incl to JPS 333, 1 Dec 43, ABC 384 North America (11-29-42), sec. 2. See ch. IV, below. 59

 For further details on the origins and deployment of the various elements of the continental

air defense system, see Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate, eds., "The Army Air Forces in

World War II," vol. VI, Men and Planes (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1955)

(hereafter cited as Craven and Cate, eds., Men and Planes), ch. I.
PREPARATIONS FOR CONTINENTAL DEFENSE 65

maximum degree possible against enemy action, particularly against air action in the form of high explosive, incendiary, or gas bombardment. In

Army plans and practice before and during the war, it also included the

spotting of aircraft movements by civilians at thousands of ground observer

posts. The effectiveness of both types of activity depended on building an

immense organization of civilian volunteer workers, and the American

civilian defense organization that developed during the war has been called

"the greatest example of mass mobilization . . . ever voluntarily undertaken

by the citizens of the United States."

 60

 The Army played a substantial role

in planning the civilian defense organization and in advising and assisting

it, but, in order to concentrate military energy and forces on active defense

measures, from the summer of 1940 onward the Army resisted efforts to

make civilian defense a direct War Department responsibility.61

As noted earlier, the War Department had included civilian defense

planning in its general directive of May 1935 to army commanders on air

defense preparations. In the following year the Chemical Warfare Service,

which because of its apprehensions of gas attack took the lead in urging

Army civilian defense planning, prepared and published Passive Defense

Against Air Attack, a handbook forecasting a range of protective activities

similar to those actually undertaken during the war.62 At the urging of the

Chief of the Chemical Warfare Service in June 1939 the General Staff

launched a thorough investigation of civilian defense problems, and the

directive initiating this study broadened its scope to include civilian protection against sabotage and internal disturbances as well as all forms of external attack.63

In its initial completed form (October 1939) the civilian defense study

proposed the establishment within the War Department of an agency to be

called the Civilian Defense Bureau and extensive collaboration between

Army officers and civilians in planning the details of civilian defense. The

General Staff dropped the latter idea because it feared the Army might be60

 PMG Study 36-1, 30 Apr 46, title: Defense Against Enemy Action Directed at Civilians,

OCMH (hereafter cited as PMG Study 36-1, 30 Apr 46). 61

 ASF Monograph, War Department Relationships With the Office of Civilian Defense,

completed in May 1943, in OCMH, is an inadequate treatment, but the two volumes of appended

documents are a useful compilation on the organization of civilian defense protective services

during the war. (This work is hereafter cited as WD Relationships with OCD.) 62

 Ltr, TAG to CG's, 21 May 35, AG 660.2 AA (5-15-35); Memo and Inds, WPD for

CofS, 26 May 38, WPD 4078. Leo P. Brophy and George J. B. Fisher, The Chemical Warfare

Service: Organizing for War, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington,

1959). chapter X, describes the work of the Chemical Warfare Service in this field before and

during World War II. 63

 WPD Interoffice Memo, 1 Jun 39, WPD 4078-3.
66 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

come involved in too much expense and too many requests for immediate

assistance.64 It also shied away from a separate civilian defense bureau,

agreeing instead that civilian defense preparations could be combined with

internal security functions in the Provost Marshal General's office provided

for in current mobilization plans.

The Civil Defense Plan as approved on 18 March 1940 stated that the

War Department should:

(1) Exercise general supervision of civil defense planning.

(2) Provide for administrative control of civil defense by appropriate War Department and civil agencies.

(3) Co-ordinate civil defense measures with other War Department activities.

(4) Authorize the use of military personnel to assist local, municipal, and state

authorities.

(5) Prepare essential instruction material for the guidance of civil, military, and

private agencies.65

The plan and accompanying staff study assumed that, as soon as the situation

required, the War Department should and would assume national direction

of civilian defense preparations through a provost marshal general's office;

that this office would work through the corps area commanders with state

civilian defense councils; and that civilian defense organized on a local and

municipal basis would operate under state supervision and (indirectly) under

Army control. The plan included organization for antisabotage and other internal security functions as well as for combating external attacks.66

The Army thus had a civilian defense plan in hand but had done little to

implement it when the events of May and June 1940 brought the United

States face to face with the possibility of an early and ill-prepared entry into

the war. The initiative for immediate action came from the American Legion,

which in early June presented President Roosevelt with a plan, called the

Service of Security Plan, for using the Legion's national and local units as

a semimilitary civilian defense and internal security organization. As a matter of principle the President and his military advisers had to reject this proposal, believing as they did that any civilian defense organization must be

built upon state police powers and public channels of authority.67 On the

assumption that a federal civilian agency rather than the Army itself would

be made generally responsible for civilian defense, the Chief of Staff vetoed

the proposal to activate the office of the Provost Marshal General im64

 Memo, G-3 for WPD, 12 Dec 39, WPD 4078-3. 65

 Tab 8, Memo, WPD for CofS, 20 Feb 40, WPD 4078-3. 66

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 20 Feb 40, and accompanying papers, WPD 4078-3. 67

 Various papers, WPD 4078-21 and WPD 4078-25.
PREPARATIONS FOR CONTINENTAL DEFENSE 67

mediately and, instead, approved the establishment in July 1940 of a Civil

Defense Branch in the G-3 Division to exercise War Department civilian

defense functions. On 2 August the President established the Division of

State and Local Co-operation, primarily as a federal agency for the handling

of civilian defense matters, and later in the same month he asked the

American Legion to index and classify its membership in preparation for

home defense duty.68

After it became apparent that Great Britain was not likely to fall, the

tempo of civilian defense preparation declined. The new G-3 branch nevertheless kept busy on what has been called "the most important basic work

done by the Army in civilian defense" during the war—the preparation, in

collaboration with the appropriate services and service arms, of nine instructional pamphlets on civilian defense organization and procedure for protection against air attack. After the Secretary of War's appointment of the National Technological Advisory Committee in January 1941, its civilian membership helped in the preparation and review of these pamphlets, thus providing the sort of civilian advice that had been rejected for reasons of

economy in December 1939. These War Department manuals were printed

and widely distributed during 1941 and early 1942, and they provided local

civilian defense organizations with much of the technical information that

they needed to guide their operations. After the establishment of the Office

of Civilian Defense in May 1941, the War Department transferred to it the

responsibility of completing the pamphlets and of distributing them.69

In December 1940 General Marshall decided that the Army ought to

take a more active hand in civilian defense preparations, and one result was

the dispatch of a War Department Civil Defense Mission to England in

January 1941 to observe and study the British civilian defense system. A

number of other missions—municipal, state, and American Legion—visited

Great Britain during the winter and early spring of 1940-41, and British

arrangements for civilian defense had a substantial influence on American

68

 Various papers, WPD 4078-23, WPD 4078-40, and WPD 4078-43; Notes on Conf in

OCofS, 29 Jul 40, OCS Conf, binder 3; Elwyn A. Mauck, Bureau of the Budget, MS, Civilian

Defense in the United States, 1940-45, ch. II, p. 3, copy in Bureau of the Budget files. On

American Legion civilian defense activities during 1940 and 1941, see H. Doc. 538, 77th Cong.,

2d sess., Proceedings of the 23rd National Convention of the American Legion, September 1941,

(hereafter referred to as American Legion, Proceedings 1941), pp. 380-82; and, on the Legion's

role during the war generally, Richard Seelye Jones, A History of the American Legion (New

York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1946), ch. VII. 69

 Memo, SGS for G-3, 5 Oct 40, OCS 17967-44; Remarks of CofS and SW at War Council

Mtg, 26 May 41, SW Conf, binder 1; Ltr, SW to Dir OCD, 23 Jun 41, OCS 15491-48; Testimony of Mr. Walter D. Binger (of the National Technological Advisory Comm), 9 Jan 47,

Report of War Department Civil Defense Board (Washington, February 1947), an. 1.
68 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

preparations.70 By early 1941 these preparations were under way all over the

nation, but especially along the east coast. As early as August 1940 twentysix states had established civilian defense councils of one sort or another,

and the American Legion, carrying out the President's suggestion of the

preceding August, in February 1941 registered more than 800,000 World

War I veterans (not all of them Legionnaires) for home defense duty. In

February also, the United States Conference of Mayors urged the need for

establishing an effective federal agency for co-ordinating civilian defense

matters, and the War Department made a similar recommendation on 17

March 1941. In April, before the President acted on these recommendations,

the Army Air Corps arranged with the American Legion for it to take over

the task of organizing and training the tens of thousands of ground observers

who would be needed for the aircraft warning service.71

President Roosevelt established the Office of Civilian Defense on 20

May 1941 and chose Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia of New York as its

Director. The order creating the new office specified that its activities should

be carried out along two more or less separate lines. One line of activity,

under the jurisdiction of the Volunteer Participation Committee, was intended to promote public backing of the defense effort.72

 The other line,

under the supervision of the Board for Civilian Protection, included all

measures directly concerned with the safeguarding of civilian lives and property against the hazards of enemy action. Before Pearl Harbor the activities under the Volunteer Participation Committee—which developed to include such functions as salvage, victory gardens, child welfare, and nutrition

study—occupied the attention of most employees in the Office of Civilian

Defense; even during the war about 60 percent of its employees were

engaged in this sort of work. It was the universal opinion of civilian as

well as military civil defense experts after the war that this diffusion of

activity weakened the Office of Civilian Defense from the outset as an agency

for supervising civilian protection measures. Furthermore, the office was

70

 Memo, CofS for G-3, 5 Dec 40, WPD 3793-115; Memo ASGS for G-3, 9 Dec 40, OCS

17967-50; Memo, G-3 for Maj Gen Stanley D. Embick, 21 May 41, WPD 4078-43; Report of

War Department Civil Defense Board, p. 7. 71

 Notes on Conf in ODCofS, 4 Feb 41, OCS Conf, Binder 10; 1st Ind, TAG for CofCWS,

24 Jul 41, on Memo, CofCWS for TAG, 30 Apr 41, AG 383 (3-6-41) (1); American Legion,

Proceedings, 1941, p. 381. 72

 The President is reported to have characterized it at the time as "sort of a ballyhoo committee." (Memo of Interv with President, 20 May 1941, atchd to 20 May 1941 entry in Stimson

Diary.) Mr. Wayne Coy, in his testimony before the War Department Civil Defense Board on

17 Dec 1946, stated that its establishment was perhaps uppermost in the President's mind in

creating the Office of Civilian Defense. Report of War Department Defense Board, an. 1, pp.

208-09.
PREPARATIONS FOR CONTINENTAL DEFENSE 69

MAYOR LA GUARDIA IN ACTION DURING PRACTICE ALERT in New York City.

never given authority to direct civilian defense but only to enlist the voluntary co-operation of state and local organizations.73

Mayor La Guardia himself had a keen interest in protective activities.

With the President's approval, he obtained the services of Brig. Gen. Lorenzo

D. Gasser, whose distinguished Army career had culminated in duty as Deputy Chief of Staff before his retirement in 1940, not only as Army member

of the Board for Civilian Protection but also as Assistant Director of the

Office of Civilian Defense and head of its Division of Civilian Protection.

In June 1941 the War Department transferred some of the functions of the

G-3 Civil Defense Branch to General Gasser and his small staff, and thereafter worked through General Gasser and (from July 1942 onward) his

successor, Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant 3d, in guiding the lines of civilian

defense activity with which the Army was concerned. In July 1941, when the

Office of Civilian Defense ordered the creation of nine regional offices with

boundaries coterminous with those of the Army's corps areas, the War De73

 Report of War Department Civil Defense Board, an. 1.
70 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

partment arranged to have one full-time and one part-time officer serve in

each regional headquarters; and just before Pearl Harbor the Army authorized a staff of eight officers for each regional headquarters. These arrangements allowed a considerable degree of Army influence over protective

measures without the assumption of any direct Army control over civilian

defense.74

The outbreak of war spurred the American public into a mass mobilization for civilian defense. By the end of January 1942 some 8,500 local community organizations had enrolled more than 5,000,000 volunteers, and the

number of persons engaged in home defense activities of all sorts remained

at about that figure for the succeeding year.75 There was an immediate and

widespread demand in December 1941 that the War Department take over

direct responsibility for civilian protection, and proposals to abolish the

Office of Civilian Defense and turn over its protective duties to the Army

continued to be advanced in Congress and elsewhere during the first half of

1942. The War Department successfully resisted these proposals, and the

creation in April 1942 of the new Civilian Defense Board, which ostensibly

gave the Army a stronger voice in the formulation of civilian defense policy,

helped to still them.76 Nevertheless, in practice the Army exercised a good

deal of indirect control of civilian protective services and made substantial

contributions to them during 1942. This control was most extensive and most

expertly exercised on the west coast, where Mr. James C. Sheppard, the regional civilian defense director from March 1942 onward, worked closely

with the Army commander, General DeWitt, and usually followed his precepts.77

Soon after the establishment of the Office of Civilian Defense Mr. La

Guardia had asked the Secretaries of War and Navy for a statement of what

they considered their proper sphere in civilian defense. Their answer, based

on the Joint Board's consideration of the subject, specified the following

military responsibilities:

(a) Maintenance of contact with Federal, State, and local authorities, through the

Office of Civilian Defense and its appropriate agencies in the field, in order to insure

coordination of War Department and Navy Department activities in relation to civilian

74

 WD Relationships With OCD, pp. 12, 14, 65; Testimony of Gen Gasser, 23 Dec 46,

Report of War Department Civil Defense Board, an. 1. 75

 PMG Study 3B-1, 30 Apr 46, exhibit F, p. 5. 76

 Stimson Diary, entry of 18 Dec 41; Ltr, SW to Chairman, Senate Comm on Military Affairs,

30 Mar 42, OCS 15491-133; Memo, Chief, Admin Services, SOS, for G-1, 30 May 42, AG 383

(5-30-42) (2); WD Relationships With OCD, p. 12. 77

 Testimony of Gen DeWitt, 12 Dec 46, and Mr. Sheppard, 13 Jan 47, Report of War Department Civil Defense Board, an. 1.
PREPARATIONS FOR CONTINENTAL DEFENSE 71

defense where there is an overlap, and to render such assistance as may be feasible

and mutually agreeable.

(b) Operation of all armed forces in combating enemy forces.

(c) Declaration, by the appropriate military authority of a state of alarm during

periods of danger of aerial and other attacks,

(d) Enforcement, in conjunction with the civil authorities, of radio silences, blackouts, and other necessary protective measures in connection with active military defense.

(e) Assistance to the Office of Civilian Defense in the preparation of such legislation as may be necessary to authorize action specifically as indicated in sub-paragraph

(d), above, by the military authorities, prior to the declaration of a national emergency.78

Some confusion in responsibilities for air raid warnings existed after the war

began. In early 1942 it was made clear that the Army was responsible for

detecting the movements of aircraft, for ordering air alarms, and for providing news about past or future air raid alarms. The civilian defense organization had the responsibility of disseminating air raid warnings to the public

after the Army had ordered it to do so.79 Air raid alarms, blackouts, and

dimouts raised problems of law enforcement within the realm of state police

powers. Most states passed appropriate legislation to take care of the situation, and Army officers at regional headquarters frequently had an active

hand in the drafting and enactment of these laws.80

In two other spheres, not specifically mentioned above, the Army contributed very materially to the efficiency of civilian protective activities. One

was in the provision of equipment. Before Pearl Harbor the War Department had agreed to provide gas masks and other equipment needed for civilian protection, and Congress had appropriated $85,000,000 for the purchase

of such equipment. Based on estimates of needs submitted by the Office of

Civilian Defense, the Army planned the production of 50,000,000 gas masks

for civilian use. Five million of them were actually produced, of which only

60,000 were on hand in December 1941. The only extensive distribution of

gas masks was made to the west coast in late May 1942, just before the Battle

of Midway. During the war the Army supplied civilian defense organizations with a number of other types of equipment such as steel helmets and

protective clothing. By controlling the procurement and supply of civilian

defense equipment the War Department could ensure that its production did

not impede supply to the armed forces.81

78

 Ltr, SW and SN to Mr. La Guardia, 29 Sep 41, AG 383 (3-26-41) (1). 79

 Memo, SGS for SW, 27 Feb 42; Memo, SW for Dir OCD, 9 Mar 42. Both in OCS

15758-122. 80

 PMG Study 36-1, 30 Apr 46, exhibit F, p. 6. 81

 The Chief of CWS initiated War Department preparations for supplying civilian defense

equipment by Memo for TAG, 30 Apr 41, AG 383 (3-26-41) (1), and War Department policy

on the subject is delineated in Memo, TAG for Chiefs of Arms, Services, and Bureaus, 18 Sep 41,

in this same file. On post-Pearl Harbor supply see WD Relationships With OCD, pp. 45-48.
72 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

The other contribution was the Army's school system for training civilians, principally municipal firemen and policemen, to handle the various

types of bombs—explosive, incendiary, and gas—that air attack might bring.

The Chemical Warfare Service instituted a school for this purpose at Edgewood Arsenal, Md., in June 1941. After the United States entered the war

regional schools with a similar course were established at six colleges, each

staffed by an Army complement of six officers and twenty-five enlisted

men.82 Special courses in problems of bomb disposal and engineering were

also provided for civilians during 1942 at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.,

and Fort Belvoir, Va. About 8,500 civilians attended these Army schools,

and in turn acted as instructors in local civilian protection schools throughout the nation.83

 The government entrusted the training of aircraft spotters

and air raid wardens to the American Legion, which for the latter purpose

set up and conducted at its own expense fifty-six schools in thirty-one states.

The American Red Cross also participated widely in training civilian defense

workers in first aid.84

The Army's interest and activity in civilian defense rapidly declined after

1942 because of the increasingly remote threat of serious enemy attack. The

Office of Civilian Defense recommended its own abolition in August 1943,

but the President decided to maintain it in order to support civilian morale

during the war effort and to continue a minimum of protective services.

Most of these services came to an end before the Office of Civilian Defense

was formally abolished on 30 June 1945.85

The great weakness in the American civilian defense system during

World War II was its lack of any clear direction by a nationwide authority.

The Army moved into this vacuum partially and informally, and perhaps

adequately, considering the slight threat of serious enemy action against

civilian lives and property in the United States during the war. It is doubtful

whether a system so haphazardly planned and organized could have stood up

under the strain of heavy attack. After the war was over it was generally

recognized that civilian defense must continue to depend on the principle of

self-help among individual civilians in local communities, backed by local

82

 Brophy and Fisher, The Chemical Warfare Service: Organizing for War, Chapter X,

describes the operation of these schools in detail. 83

 WD Relationships With OCD, pp. 39-43; PMG Study 36-1, 30 Apr 46, exhibit F. 84

 H. Doc. 364, 78th Cong., 1st sess., Proceedings of the 25th National Convention of the

American Legion, Sept 1943, p. 229, gives a summary of Legion activity after Pearl Harbor;

Foster Rhea Dulles, The American Red Cross (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1950), pp. 354-55. 85

 Mauck MS, Civilian Defense in the United States, 1940-45, ch. V.
PREPARATIONS FOR CONTINENTAL DEFENSE 73

and state organizations operating under state police powers. But to secure

uniformity in practice and effective mutual aid across state boundaries in a

serious emergency this local foundation and organization needed much

firmer guidance than it had during World War II from either the Army or

the Office of Civilian Defense.

Guarding Nonmilitary Installations

During World War II the United States Army had to assume the major

responsibility for protecting those public works, public utilities, and industrial

plants in the continental United States whose continued operation it

deemed vital to the war effort. In prewar planning the War Department had

sought to limit the responsibility so that troops trained for combat would not

have to be diverted in wartime to guard nonmilitary installations, a task for

which they were not trained and for which they presumably could not be

spared. Theoretically, state and local governments and private industry itself had the basic responsibility for guarding public works and private properties against the hazards of sabotage and open enemy attack. Therefore

the War Department tried to adhere as closely as it could to the policy that

Secretary of War Newton D. Baker had enunciated on 7 November 1919 in

the following terms:

The true rule to be followed is that the public military power of the United States

should in no case be substituted for the ordinary police powers of the States, and should

be called into service only when the state, having summoned its entire police power,

is still unable to deal with the disorder which threatens it. The constitutional obligation

of the government of the United States is a guaranty conditioned upon the primary

exercise by the States of their full power for the preservation of their own domestic

peace. The responsibility for the security of property be it federal, state, municipal, or

private, rests first upon the local government, then upon the state, and only devolves

upon the Federal Government when all other forces of the locality or state have been

exhausted or have been found insufficient to meet the emergency.86

Actually, the Army discovered during World War II, as it had during World

War I, that it could not adhere to this policy. With the induction of the National Guard into federal service the states lost their normal instrument for

large-scale internal security tasks, and the "home" and "state" guards raised

86

 As quoted in Memo, G-3 for Gen Gasser, Bd for Civilian Protection, 14 Jun 41, WD

Relationships With OCD, tab 14; and also in Memo, G-3 for TAG, 13 Sep 41, OCS 21084-20,

an approved basic policy directive for Army-wide distribution on the subject of guarding nonmilitary installations.
74 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

as substitutes proved to be generally unavailable for extended guard duty.

In both wars the states were reluctant to provide guards for federal properties and works. In any event, the vital installations that needed guarding were

very unevenly distributed geographically, and it was too much to expect that

the states at their own expense would assume this responsibility when it

would have required such disproportionate degrees of effort on their part.87

During the first few months of American participation in World War I

the states had employed more than 100,000 National Guardsmen on defense

tasks, principally to guard installations. After the National Guard entered

federal service, many of the states organized home guard units and secured

arms and some other equipment for them from the federal government.

After the war it was estimated that the aggregate strength of these units had

been about 79,000. Generally, the States had been unwilling to call out these

units for extended duty at United States-owned properties or around communication facilities and public works. To guard these the Army organized

a special force, the United States Guards, which had 48 battalions with a

total strength of 26,284 officers and enlisted men on 11 November 1918. In

function, at least, these battalions resembled the military police battalions

(zone of the interior) that the Army hastily organized in World War II.88

To carry out its acknowledged responsibility for protecting the United

States from internal disorder and insurrection, the Army after World War I

had developed a WHITE plan to govern the use of federal troops to quell

domestic disturbances. During the pre-World War II period each corps area

had the responsibility for maintaining a current Emergency Plan—WHITE

for dealing with such disturbances as might foreseeably arise. At the outbreak

of the European war in 1939 the corps areas were ordered to prepare plans

for guarding defense industries and to be ready to execute these plans when

so ordered by the War Department.89 As noted above, the original Civil Defense Plan of early 1940 contained measures for protection against sabotage.

These measures were extracted from it in the summer of 1940 and put into

the counter-fifth column plan, developed by G-2 and approved by the War

Department on 22 October 1940. Since a primary purpose of the fifth column

technique was to divert combat troops from field operations to internal

87

 These conclusions, so far as World War I experience was concerned, were carefully pointed

out in tabs 2 and 3 to the basic civilian defense study of 20 February 1940, WPD 4078-3, but

they seem to have been overlooked in the later prewar planning. 88

 Chief of the Militia Bureau, Annual Report, 1919 (Washington, 1919); tabs 2 and 3, Memo,

WPD for CofS, 20 Feb 40, WPD 4078-3. 89

 Rads, TAG to CG's of Corps Areas, 2 Sep 39, AG 381 (8-24-39), sec. 1.
PREPARATIONS FOR CONTINENTAL DEFENSE 75

security missions, the aim of the plan was Army co-operation through the

corps area commanders with state and local guards and police forces in

order to avoid the use of Army forces in an emergency. The corps area

commanders were instructed on 1 November 1940 to gather information as

discreetly as possible about state and local plans for dealing with fifth

columnists and to transmit it to the War Department.90 By August 1941, all

of the corps areas had completed local counter-fifth column plans, and the

War Department arranged for a peacetime test of the First Corps Area (New

England) plan in October 1941. In the same month, the War Department

transferred the responsibility for supervising this work from G-2 to the

Office of the Provost Marshal General, which had been activated on 31

July.91 But, when large numbers of Army combat troops were assigned by the

corps area commanders to guard duty immediately after Pearl Harbor, they

acted generally under the WHITE plans rather than under the counter-fifth

column plans.

The War Department's prewar plan for mobilizing a 4,000,000-man

Army had been revised in 1939 to include the activation of 56 military police

battalions for duty in the continental United States. Only 3 battalions of this

sort were in existence in September 1941 when the Army constituted the

Corps of Military Police. Two months earlier Director La Guardia of the

Office of Civilian Defense had recommended that the Army activate the

rest of the 56 battalions at an early date; though acknowledging the primary

responsibility of state and local governments and private operators to guard

installations, Mr. La Guardia had pointed out how unprepared they were to

take over the task in a real war emergency. The Secretary of War and the

Chief of Staff rejected his recommendation because they believed that any

move to prepare Army troops for guard duty would discourage state and

local preparations along this line, and also because they hoped that the

newly formed State Guards could provide the extra protection that would be

needed in time of war.92

After Congress approved the induction of the National Guard in September 1940, the War Department sponsored a bill, passed on 21 October 1940,

that permitted a state to raise and maintain substitute forces during peacetime whenever all or a part of its National Guard was in federal service.

The Army accepted the responsibility for supervising the training of these

90

 Various papers, dated Jul-Nov 40, WPD 4357 and OCS 15435. 91

 Memo, G-2 for CofS, 28 Aug 41, OCS 15435-38; Ltr, TAG to CG's, 3 Nov 41, WPD 4357. 92

 Memo, G-3 for CofS, 24 Jul 41; Ltr, SW to Dir OCD, 19 Aug 41. Both in OCS 20615-13.

Memo, OCS for SW, 1 Aug 41, SW file, Cabinet Memoranda.
76 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

forces through the corps area commanders and for providing them with

some items of surplus equipment, including Enfield rifles. Originally, the

War Department had planned to provide enough equipment to supply State

Guard units at half the strength of inducted National Guard units. In November 1941, it doubled the authorized allotment of equipment in order to

permit the states to raise a total force of 222,552 officers and enlisted men.

By the end of October 1941 forces totaling 108,765 officers and enlisted men

had been recruited in thirty-six states, and their equipment included 93,901

Enfield rifles turned over to them by the Army without charge. The Army

was not able to give the State Guards much help in their training, and in

particular it could not supply them with enough training manuals to go

around. Men in the State Guards could be drafted into federal service, but

most of them were older men above draft age. Many of them (four-fifths

of the officers, and one-third of the enlisted men) had had some previous

military experience. Almost all of them were fully employed men who

drilled in their spare time and who could not reasonably be expected to

serve on extended active duty.93

The unsuitability of the State Guards for extended duty, as well as their

general unreadiness for action, helped to inspire new recommendations in

September and October 1941 from Under Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson, from the head of the G-2 Division, and from the corps area commanders on both coasts for the activation of additional military police battalions or, alternately, the earmarking of infantry battalions for use as guards

if the United States went to war.94 With reluctance General Marshall finally

approved a compromise scheme for giving military police training to one

infantry regiment in each of eight National Guard divisions scheduled to

be triangularized. The Chief of Staff explained his reluctance on the following grounds:

There can be no argument as to the importance of protecting our plants against

sabotage, but I am convinced that the use of soldier guards is an expensive and not

particularly efficient expedient. In effect, we recognize this when we use civilian guards

to protect War Department buildings which offer a problem in protection somewhat

similar to that of industrial plants. Soldiers are not trained as watchmen and are gen93

 Memo, CofS for USW, 21 Apr 41, OCS 21169-26; Memo, G-3 for CofS, 5 Aug 41,

OCS 20475-35; Ltr, Chief of Natl Guard Bur to SW, 31 Oct 41, OCS 21169-72; Ltr, CofS to

Mr. Thomas H. Beck, 26 Nov 41, OCS 15491-91. For further details on the organization and

activities of State Guards before and during the war, see the Annual Report of the Chief of

National Guard Bureau, 1941, 1942, and 1946; also Natl Guard Bur, WDSS, MS, State Guard

Training, OCMH. 94

 Memo, CG Ninth Corps Area for CG Fourth Army, 18 Sep 41, GHQ 381 Preparedness for

War, binder 2; Memo, G-2 for CofS, 16 Oct 41, OCS 20615-26.
PREPARATIONS FOR CONTINENTAL DEFENSE 77

erally younger and more impulsive than is desirable for men on such special duty. It is

possible that a service of civilian guards may become necessary for plant protection,

but I am sure that military units should be kept as an emergency reserve under the

Corps Area commanders. We are planning to increase our Military Police force for

this particular purpose.

If the War Department were to accept responsibility for guarding plants and installations, I anticipate an endless stream of requests from owners to obtain a detail of

troops for their plants. Plainly, we could not afford such a diversion of our military

effort. ... It would be a mistake for the War Department to recede from the policy that

the protection of plants and installations is the primary responsibility of operators,

owners, and local and state governments. If these agencies prove ineffective they are

backed up by the field forces which are available as a final reserve.95

The military police training of the National Guard regiments had just

begun when the United States plunged into the war. The corps area commanders immediately requisitioned thousands of field force troops from

the army commanders to guard vital installations all over the nation, but

especially along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. Requests for protection

poured in to the War Department, not only from private sources and from

local and state governments but also from other federal departments; the

Secretary of the Interior, for instance, wanted a much stronger Army guard

at Hoover, Grand Coulee, and Shasta Dams.96 Special instructions went out

on 8 December to relieve Air Corps forces from guard duty, but none of the

ground arms and services were immune. As an example, the Third Corps

Area commander drafted 16 officers and 400 enlisted men for protective

duty from the training cadre of the Quartermaster Replacement Center at

Camp Lee, Va., and thus brought the training of about 9,000 troops to a

virtual standstill.97 As of 17 December 48,107 Army troops and 13,556

State Guards were reported on guard duty throughout the nation, and in

addition thousands of "irregular" state and local forces were called into

action along the Pacific coast.98 Maj. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell, temporarily

commanding the Southern California Sector of the Western Defense Command, neatly summarized the situation when he noted in his journal on 20

December:

Requests for Army Guards: Terminal Island, shipbuilding plants, commercial radio

stations, railroad bridges and tunnels, railroad crossovers, dams, water supply, power

plants, oil wells, tanks, and refineries. Aircraft manufacturing plants, hospitals, aqueducts, harbor defenses, airfields, offices of Interceptor Command, etc., etc. Everybody

95

 Memo, CofS for USW, 27 Oct 41, OCS 20615-26. 96

 Memo, G-3 for CofS, 9 Dec 41, OCS 14561-27. 97

 Memo for Rcd on Memo, G-3 for TAG, 29 Dec 41, OCS 17529-136. 98

 Memo, SW for President Roosevelt, 24 Dec 41, OCS 20615-33; Annual Report of the

Chief of National Guard Bureau, 1942, p. 79.
78 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

makes a case for his own installation, and nobody gives a damn if the Army bogs down

and quits training. Right now (December 20) we have seven regiments of infantry in

the area, four of which are on guard duty.99

The day after Pearl Harbor, Director of Civil Defense La Guardia stressed

to the President the immediate need for additional Army military police

battalions to guard "bridges, power plants, water works," and so forth.

"No city has enough police for emergency," wrote Mr. La Guardia. "States

can't help much. Home Guard not constituted or prepared for such duty

day-in and day-out." President Roosevelt sent his letter to Secretary of War

Henry L. Stimson with a penned note that read: "Harry Stimson—How

about this. We ought to do something. FDR."

 100

 On 16 December Presidential Executive Order 8972 appeared, "authorizing the Secretary of War

and the Secretary of the Navy to establish and maintain military guards and

patrols, and to take other appropriate measures, to protect certain national

defense material, premises, and utilities from injury or destruction." By the

third week in December the War Department had capitulated and planned

to activate fifty-one additional military police battalions for continental duty

as soon as possible.101 This would provide a total of fifty-four such battalions,

with a strength of about 30,000 officers and men. The War Department

planned to command them with officers over age for combat duty and fill

them with limited service and overage enlisted men.102

Though new military police battalions could not be ready to replace

field force units for several months, the Army after December 1941 rapidly

withdrew combat troops from guard duty except along the Pacific coast.

In mid-February 1942 a total of 31,123 Army troops and 3,742 State Guards

were still performing guard duty, but more than three-fourths of these were

on duty in the Ninth Corps Area.103 Pressure for more rather than fewer

Army guards remained strong, and General Marshall during February and

March had to put on a veritable campaign to impress Congress and the

public with the necessity of concentrating on offensive preparations.104 By

May 1942 the Army had the quota of ZI military police battalions that had

been planned the preceding December, and subsequent authorizations in99

 Joseph W. Stilwell, The Stilwell Papers, Theodore H. White, ed. (New York: William

Sloane Associates, Inc., 1948), p. 10. 100

 Roosevelt Papers, FDRL. 101

 Ltr, SW to Dir OCD, 24 Dec 41, OCS 20615-33. 102

 Ltr, Admin Asst to SW to Chairman, Senate Comm on Military Affairs, 21 Jan 42, OCS

21169-72. 103

 Notes on Conf in ODCofS, 17 Feb 42, OCS Conf, binder 32. 104

 See, for examples, Memo, CofS for ASW John J. McCloy, 24 Feb 42, OCS 15450-15;

Ltr, CofS to Hon. Warren R. Austin, U.S. Senate, 28 Feb 42, WDCSA 381 Nat Def (2-28-42).
PREPARATIONS FOR CONTINENTAL DEFENSE 79

creased the number available for continental duty to a maximum of eightynine in late 1942.105

During early 1942 the War Department was under considerable pressure

also to support a "federalization" of the State Guards in order to make them

a more efficient and available force for home defense. Such a move would

have made the State Guards a force analogous to the British Home Guard

and would, of course, have given it greater prestige and also a greater claim

on federal military supplies. The War Department resisted these approaches,

insisting that the allocation of police powers under the American constitutional system required that the states themselves keep an emergency force

in being. Soon after American entry into the war the State Guard system as

a device for protecting installations received one body blow when federal

government agencies decided that they could not grant "administrative

leave" to their own employees for active duty with the state forces. Another

came in early 1942 when the Army because of its own acute shortages called

in all of the Enfield rifles that had been loaned to the State Guards before

the outbreak of war. In the later war years the Army provided a good deal of

equipment and training direction to the State Guards, but it could not spare

much of either during 1942 when the need for guarding installations was

felt most acutely.106

To meet this need, particularly to guard government-owned and privately owned industries engaged in vital war production, the Army hit upon

a new expedient. In practice during 1942 and 1943 it used military police

battalions primarily to guard public works and large installations such as

ports of embarkation. From the beginning of the war the Army had

depended wherever possible on the civilian guards employed by private

industries to protect them, internally and externally, against any sabotage

the enemy might attempt. In the summer of 1942 the Army began to organize these guards as "auxiliary military police," in a manner that in effect

put them under Army rule and regulation. The auxiliary military police,

whose strength reached a maximum of about 200,000 during 1943, never

became soldiers, but they did become an Army-controlled force that satisfactorily answered World War II requirements for plant protection in the

continental United States.107

105

 Directory, Army of the United States, 15 May 42; Office of the PMG, MS, World War II:

A Brief History, OCMH, p. 11. 106

 Ltr (WD draft), President Roosevelt to Governor Culbert L. Olson of California, 29

Apr 42, WDCSA 381 Nat Def (5-7-42); Annual Report of the Chief of National Guard

Bureau, 1946; Natl Guard Bur, WDSS, MS, State Guard Training, OCMH. 107

 PMG, MS, Auxiliary Military Police Program, OCMH.
CHAPTER IV

The Continental Defense Commands

After Pearl Harbor

Essentially, the external defense problem of the continental defense

commands after Pearl Harbor was one of preparing to fend off relatively

minor surface attacks and, along the Pacific front, air attacks that might be

launched from a carrier striking force. But even minor attacks could have

caused extensive damage to vital installations and areas, and successful

"nuisance" attacks might have had an almost calamitous effect on preparations for offensive operations overseas. After the Pearl Harbor experience

the War and Navy Departments were also peculiarly sensitive to the

prospect of the criticism that would certainly follow any sort of surprise

attack that they had not prepared to meet as best they could.

Only the west coast was alerted before the enemy attacked. The war

alert that was flashed on 27 November 1941 to the Philippine, Hawaiian,

and Caribbean commanders had gone also to General DeWitt in his capacity

of Commanding General, Western Defense Command. On the following

day, a separate antisabotage alert was sent to him as Fourth Army commander. General DeWitt promptly communicated these alerts to his Army

Air and Navy colleagues and to his subordinate commanders in the western

United States and Alaska. His reply to Washington on 28 November described the defensive dispositions he had ordered and contained the assurance that "should hostilities occur this command [is] now ready to carry

out tasks assigned in Rainbow 5 so far as they pertain to Japan except for

woeful shortage of ammunition and pursuit and bombardment planes which

should be made available without delay."

 l In fact General DeWitt had

already started intensive defensive preparations before he received the alert,

and on 25 November he had asked the War Department to approve his new

measures and the method of co-ordination that he was pursuing with Air

and Navy commanders, so that the RAINBOW 5 plan would be executed at

1

 Telg Hq WDC to CofS, 28 Nov 41, WDC 381 RAINBOW 5/28. This file also contains the

27 November warning. The 28 November antisabotage alert is in WDC 381 EPW/25.
CONTINENTAL DEF. COMMANDS AFTER PEARL HARBOR 81

once if war started. On 29 November the War Department expressed its

formal disapproval of any measures beyond those required by the 27 November alert, for a reason most clearly expressed in an Army Air Forces

memorandum of 29 November: "The President has issued very definite

instructions that he wishes Japan to take first action if such action is to be

taken."

 2 The disapproval did not change General DeWitt's course, and a

conference on 1 December among Army, Army Air, and Navy commanders

produced a joint Pacific coast defense plan that they were able to invoke

as soon as hostilities began.3

The final warning that General Marshall sent about noon on 7 December also went to General DeWitt, and three hours later he and the other

continental defense commanders were informed that hostilities with Japan

had commenced.4 The second message announced that the War Department

RAINBOW 5 plan was to be placed in effect at once against Japan, and on

8 December the defense commanders were told to prepare as well for war

with Germany and Italy. The formal announcement of a general state of

war between the United States and the Axis Powers followed on 11 December.5

The Army's RAINBOW 5 plan as revised through November 1941 specified

that the continental defense commands should operate in wartime under Defense Category B, which under current definitions meant that they might be

subjected to minor attacks. Army activity under this category would have been

limited to a partial manning of harbor defense installations. As soon as accurate news of the extent of the Pearl Harbor damage reached General DeWitt

he decided that the Pacific coast must operate under the higher Category C.

On 11 December he directed all Army (including Army Air) commanders in

his area to operate under Category C, and three days later the War Depart2

 Memo, CofAS for CG Air Force Combat Comd, 29 Nov 41, copy in WDC 381 WPR/4O.

This copy did not reach Headquarters, Western Defense Command, until 7 December 1941.

Copies of the other documents referred to are in this file and in WPD 4544-13 and WPD 4544-18. 3

 WDC 370.26/13 contains the record of this conference and the joint defense plan. 4

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 7 Dec 41, WPD 4544-30, contains the message transmitted to WDC

at 12:11 p.m., and Memo, WPD for TAG, 7 Dec 41, WPD 4544-20, the message sent at 3:00

p.m. The second message, actually composed before the news of Pearl Harbor reached Washington,

contained the instruction that "antiaircraft artillery and other mobile ground forces in the United

States will continue their present training missions until otherwise directed by the War Department." Since General Marshall considered that this instruction was inconsistent with the actual

situation as it became known in the afternoon and evening of 7 December, the continental

commanders were told on 8 December to disregard it. Entry of 8 Dec 41, GHQ 314.81 Diary;

Memo, WPD for TAG, 8 Dec 41, WPD 4544-21. 5

 Memos, WPD for TAG, 8 and 11 Dec 41, WPD 4175-18, embodying messages to be sent

to the commanding generals of GHQ, the defense commands, and overseas commands.
82 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

ment authorized this category for all of the continental coastal frontiers.

Category C areas were those in which minor attacks were anticipated "in all

probability," and required a full installation and manning of harbor defenses and the provision of other ground and of air defense forces in accordance with strengths available and the immediate outlook along the particular

frontier. The continental frontiers remained under Category C until April

1943, but during December 1941 both east and west coasts and during the

first half of 1942 the west coast in particular received attention well beyond

what Category C specifications required.6

Defense Measures on the West Coast, 1941-42

Until the Japanese attacked in the Pacific, the United States had counted

on its Hawaiian bastion and on the Pacific fleet to provide a secure barrier

against any serious attack on the continental west coast. After Pearl Harbor

it seemed, at the outset, that this barrier had been broken and that the

1,300-mile length of the west coast could be attacked by the Japanese in

strength and almost at will. The most vital installations along this coast

were military aircraft factories that had sprung up during the prewar years

at Los Angeles and San Diego in the south and at Seattle in the north. In

December 1941 nearly half of the American military aircraft production

(and almost all of the heavy bomber output) was coming from eight plants

in the Los Angeles area. The naval yards and ship terminals in the Puget

Sound, Portland, San Francisco Bay, Los Angeles, and San Diego areas, and

the California oil industry were of only slightly less importance to the

future conduct of the war. In the first two weeks of war it seemed more than

conceivable that the Japanese could invade the coast in strength, and until

June 1942 there appeared to be a really serious threat of attack by a Japanese

carrier striking force. These calculated apprehensions were fanned in the

first few days of war by a series of false reports of Japanese ships and planes

on the very doorsteps of the Pacific states.7

6

 Ltr, Hq WDC to CG's, 11 Dec 41, WDC 381 WPR/37; Memo, WPD for TAG, 14 Dec

41, WPD 4175-18. Joint Action, par. 31, prescribed the five categories of defense, A, B, C, D,

and E. The manuscript History of the New York-Philadelphia Sector, Eastern Defense Command,

in OCMH (hereafter cited as Hist of NY-Phila Sector, EDC), 198-202, contains a good description of them as they existed in the continental United States during World War II. 7

 Min, JB Mtg, 8 Dec 41; Tel Conv, Gen Marshall with Gen DeWitt, 8 Dec 41, WDC 381

WPR/48; Stimson Diary, entry of 9 Dec 41; WPD estimates of situation, 12 and 18 Dec 41,

WPD 4622-37. On the problems of air defense after Pearl Harbor, see also the excellent Chapter

VIII in Craven and Cate, eds., Plans and Early Operations. The Stilwell Papers, pp. 2-7, reflects

one west coast commander's initial concern and subsequent exasperation in the days immediately
CONTINENTAL DEF. COMMANDS AFTER PEARL HARBOR 83

This was the outlook that persuaded the War Department to establish

the Western Defense Command as a theater of operations on 11 December

and that led it to concentrate its first attention after Pearl Harbor on the

rapid reinforcement of the Army's ground and air garrisons along the west

coast. When the war started, the Fourth Army had available fairly adequate

harbor defense forces, 11 of the 12 infantry regiments allotted to it under

the current RAINBOW 5 plan, and about 5 antiaircraft artillery regiments

which lacked two-thirds of their equipment. The Second and Fourth Air

Forces had only a fraction of their assigned strength in planes, and they were

critically short of bombs and ammunition. During November and early December General DeWitt had requested more ground troops for defense

purposes, but these were denied until the Japanese struck.8

On and after 7 December General Marshall and his staff worked feverishly to strengthen the west coast defenses as rapidly as they could. A pursuit

group from Michigan began to arrive in the Los Angeles area on 8 December, but it was the reinforcement of antiaircraft artillery defenses that

received the most attention during the week after Pearl Harbor. By 17 December nine additional antiaircraft regiments had been rushed from various

parts of the United States to the west coast, and, with some assistance from

Marine Corps units, the vital installations in the Seattle, Portland, San

Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego areas were thereby provided with at

least some antiaircraft artillery protection. The Army also moved two additional divisions and many lesser types of ground combat and service units to

the west coast before the end of December and made the 3d Division, already there, available for defense use. As a result of these moves the Western theater's major Army combat units in January and February 1942 included six infantry divisions, a brigade of cavalry, about fourteen antiaircraft regiments, and the equivalent of three pursuit and three bombardment groups. The troop strength of the Western Defense Command numbered about 250,000 at the beginning of February, and of these nine-tenths

were ground troops. Approximately 100,000 of the ground forces were

actively engaged in manning harbor antiaircraft defense equipment, in maintaining a beach and forward patrol along the coast line, in patrolling the

following Pearl Harbor. Some of the material in this and succeeding paragraphs of this section

has been drawn from the five-volume manuscript, History of the Western Defense Command,

17 March 1941-30 September 1945, in OCMH, and from the manuscript histories of subordinate

Western Defense Command commands. 8

 Memo, Gen DeWitt for CG GHQ, 14 Nov 41, and subsequent exchanges, GHQ 381

Preparedness for War, binder 2; various papers, WPD 4175-18.
84 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Southern Land Frontier, and in performing antisabotage duties at vital

installations.9

By the third week in December, as the pattern of Japanese operations

and the disposition of Japanese naval forces became known, apprehensions

about an imminent and serious attack on the west coast subsided. The

Western theater continued to have a high priority for equipping its air and

antiaircraft units, but the flow of material for its other forces suddenly

dropped off. General DeWitt was told that these forces would have to await

the fulfillment of more pressing needs, and he was also denied the additional

infantry division and cavalry regiment that he had requested.10 His equipment shortages were further aggravated by orders that required him to make

up shortages of units being shipped through the Western Defense Command

to overseas destinations and to supply antiaircraft guns for arming merchant

ships in Pacific coast ports. The general assured GHQ that he would not

let troops go overseas without equipment "if it takes every gun I have," but

naturally he wanted the items replaced and his own shortages made up as

soon as possible.11 In instructions to his subordinate commanders issued on

the last day of 1941, General DeWitt himself recognized that there was no

longer any immediate danger of an invasion in force. By then the principal

external threat to the Western theater appeared to be from the air, and

"maximum air defense [was] therefore most important."

 12

The Second and Fourth Air Forces, located in the Western Defense

Command when the war began, were there primarily for the training of

units, and they had only a secondary and very subordinate mission of providing an air defense and an attacking force along the Pacific front. At the

end of November 1941 the two air forces had a combined strength of 100

bombardment and 140 pursuit planes, many of them obsolete and obsolescent types.13

 During December the Army Air Forces went through a rapid

expansion that enabled it by mid-January to assign the Fourth Air Force

(which by then had taken over the air defense responsibility for the entire

west coast) 461 pursuit and 219 bombardment planes. Except for heavy

9

 Memo, WPD for ASW, 12 Dec 41, WPD 4622-43; Hist of WDC, IV, app 3. GHQ Interoffice Memo, 16 Feb 42, GHQ file, WDC: Protection of Vital Installations; Memo, ASGS for

SGS, 21 Feb 42, OCS 21084-73. 10

 Tel Conv, Gen DeWitt with SGS, 23 Dec 41; Memo, Gen Clark for Gen McNair, GHQ,

23 Dec 41. Both in GHQ 320.2 WDC Strength, binder 1. Memo, CofS GHQ for CG FF, 23

Dec 41, WPD 4612-5. 11

 Memo, DCofS GHQ for WPD, 30 Dec 41, WPD 4612-8. 12

 Ltr, CG WDC to CG's, 31 Dec 41, WDC 381 EPW/38. 13

 Air Force Combat Command Status Rpt, 30 Nov 41, OPD Exec 16, item 27. This strength

in planes was about the same as that of the Hawaiian Air Force at the beginning of the war.
CONTINENTAL DEF. COMMANDS AFTER PEARL HARBOR 85

bombers, the Fourth Air Force was thereby provided with more planes than

had been allotted to the continental west coast in December planning.14

While the early 1942 west coast air strength looked impressive on paper,

it was actually subject to many qualifications, the most important of which

was that only 39 of the bombers and 239 of the pursuit planes were ready for

combat action.15 Rather acute bomb and ammunition shortages continued,

and the deficiencies in personnel qualified to operate the planes were even

more serious. On 12 March the Fourth Air Force commander noted that his

bombardment squadrons were "all dangerously short of experienced pilots

and navigators, and almost totally lacking in bombardiers and trained gunners."

 16

 On 24 May the IV Interceptor Command reported that nearly half

of its assigned pilots were not qualified to fly the planes with which its four

groups were equipped—one of the four having more planes than qualified

pilots. This report concluded with the observation, "Considering the handicaps imposed by lack of sufficient suitable airdromes, inadequate housing

facilities, unsuitable aircraft radio equipment, [and] mass replacement of

fighter units by new units with less than two weeks training, the efficiency

of the Command is excellent."

 17

 The continued preoccupation of the Fourth

Air Force with training was both inevitable and proper under the circumstances, but it certainly reduced its efficiency as a defense force.

As in the cases of Hawaii and Panama, one of the most puzzling problems in air defense along the west coast was how to provide enough forces

to detect an enemy carrier force many hundred miles from the coast and to

attack it before it could launch its planes. The problem on the Pacific coast

was complicated by much fog, and by the prospect of a Japanese carrier

force sailing in behind one of the normal succession of storm fronts that

moved from the northern Pacific toward the west coast. The best defense

against carriers was to find and strike at them within a belt 700 to 1,100

miles offshore. The only planes that could do this were Army heavy bombers

and Navy patrol bombers. The Fourth Air Force in January estimated that

it would require 162 Army and 180 Navy planes of these types to perform

this mission, but usually in the first five months of 1942 neither service had

more than a tenth of these strengths available.18 The improvement of air14

 Memo, DCofS for Air for CofS, 20 Dec 41, OPD Exec 8, bk. 1; Incl 1 to Memo, CG Fourth

Air Force for CG WDC, 15 Jan 42, WDC 381 RAINBOW 5/54. 15

 Incl 1 to Memo, CG Fourth Air Force for CG WDC, 15 Jan 42, WDC 381 RAINBOW 5/54. 16

 Ltr, CG Fourth Air Force to Comdr Western Sea Frontier, 12 Mar 42, WDC 370.26/35. 17

 ad Ind, Hq IV Interceptor Comd to CG Fourth Air Force, 24 May 42, OPD 381 WDC/45. 18

 Memo, CG Fourth Air Force for CG WDC, 15 Jan 42, and Incl 3 to this Memo, WDC 381

RAINBOW 5/54 Pers Ltr, Gen DeWitt to Gen Marshall, 16 Jan 42, AG 452.1 (7-24-41).
86 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

borne radar eventually helped to solve the problem, but not during the

period in which a Japanese strike remained a serious potential threat. In the

first half of 1942 the protection of the Pacific coast against carrier action

had to depend very largely upon the capabilities of the interceptor and antiaircraft commands for close-in detecting and defense.

How effective the close-in air defense of the west coast would have been

against a determined attack such as the Japanese had launched against Oahu

remained very doubtful during early 1942. The Army Air Forces was inclined to accept the wholesale strictures that the British radar expert, Mr.

Robert A. Watson-Watt, leveled against the west coast's radar defenses in

January 1942.19 Antiaircraft units along the coast continued to be short of

guns and ammunition until summer, and they were filled with new men

who had had a minimum of training.20 The Army Air Forces admitted in

April that "even a light enemy force should be successful in pressing home

an attack on our two big bomber plants if our air defenses were the only

security provided," and pointed out that the best assurance against attack

was Japan's continued preoccupation with expansion in Southeast Asia and

the Southwest Pacific.21

The only combat activity in which the Japanese actually engaged along

the west coast during the months immediately succeeding Pearl Harbor was

submarine operations. In its prewar basic operations order of 5 November

1941, the Japanese Navy had directed its 6th Fleet of submarines to "make

reconnaissance of [the] American Fleet in Hawaii and West Coast area,

and, by surprise attacks on shipping, destroy lines of communication."

 22

After its participation in the Hawaiian operations, the 6th Fleet organized

a detachment of nine modern submarines to attack shipping along the west

coast of the United States. Seven of them were equipped to carry patrol

planes, but there is no evidence that they launched planes during their December operations off the Pacific coast. These submarines, arriving off the

coast about 17 December, were dispersed to nine stations from Cape

Flattery in the north to San Diego in the south. They remained for about

one week. Only four of the nine engaged in any known attacks on coastal

shipping, and in eight or nine attacks, these four sank two tankers and

damaged one freighter. All of the attacks took place along the California

19

 Craven and Cate, eds., Plans and Early Operations, pp. 292-93. 20

 MS, History of the 4th Antiaircraft Command, 9 January 1942 to 1 July 1945, copy in

OCMH, (hereafter cited as Hist of 4th AA Comd), I, ch. IV. 21

 D/F, AAF to OPD, 21 Apr 42, OPD 319.1 (Rpts—Visits). 22

 Japanese Monograph 97, Pearl Harbor Operations: General Outline of Orders and Plans,

app. 1.
CONTINENTAL DEF. COMMANDS AFTER PEARL HARBOR 87

coast. Claims were made at the time that an Army B-24 bomber sank an

enemy submarine on 24 December at a point fifty miles off the mouth of the

Columbia River, but the Japanese submarine then assigned to this station

(the I-25) was the one that returned eight months later to wind up enemy

submarine operations off the Pacific coast. The submarine detachment had

planned to engage in a simultaneous shelling of coastal cities on Christmas

Eve, 24 December 1941, but at the last moment Japanese Fleet headquarters

ordered the force to abandon the plan and to withdraw immediately to its

base at Kwajalein.23

Two Japanese submarines reached the west coast during February 1942.

The first to arrive, the I-8, patrolled northward from off San Francisco to

the Washington coast "without encountering any enemy vessels," and then

returned to Japan.24 The second was the I-17, which had accounted for one

of the tankers sunk during December, and which also was one of the planecarrying submarines. The I-17 arrived off San Diego about 19 February. On

23 February, just as President Roosevelt was beginning one of his "fireside"

radio addresses, it surfaced off the California coast near Santa Barbara and

from a range of 2,500 yards fired thirteen rounds of 51⁄2-inch shells at oil

installations. The damage was negligible. The I-17 reported that after this

attack it sailed northward and sank two vessels off Cape Mendocino in northern California before returning to Japan, but there is no record of any such

sinkings.25

The night after the I-17 engaged in its haphazard shelling of oil installations there occurred what became known as the "Battle of Los Angeles."

A month of mounting agitation for the removal of the resident Japanese

population from coastal California had preceded this event, and by the night

of 24-25 February both the military defenders and the civilian population of

the Los Angeles area were expecting the worst to happen at any time.26

About two o'clock in the morning a series of reports of suspicious activities

was capped by word that coastal radars had picked up an unidentified plane

winging its way in from the ocean toward Los Angeles. Within the next half

hour a blackout was ordered and all antiaircraft guns were alerted for in23

 Japanese Monographs 102, Submarine Operations, Dec 1941-Apr 1942, pp. 13-16 and charts

opp. p. 36; 108, Submarine Operations in First Phase Operations, Dec 1941-Apr 1942; and 110,

Submarine Operations in Second Phase Operations, pt. I, April-August 1942, pp. 21, 23. Hist of

WDC, IV, app. 5, G-2 Chronology of Enemy Operations on Pacific Coast of Cont U.S., pp. 4-12,

23-25. 24

 Japanese Monograph 102, p. 16. 25

 Japanese Monograph 102, p. 17; Hist of WDC, IV, app. 5, pp. 16-18; Hist of 4th AA

Comd, I, 113-15; Craven and Cate, eds., Plans and Early Operations, pp. 282-83. 26

 For the military aspects of the Japanese evacuation, see ch. V, below.
88 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

stant fire. The guns began to fire shortly after three o'clock, the first shot

being aimed at a balloon (probably a meteorological balloon) over Santa

Monica on the coast. During the next hour they expended some 1,400 rounds

of 3-inch antiaircraft ammunition against a variety of "targets" in the Los

Angeles area. Exhaustive inquiries on 25 February accumulated a mass of

conflicting evidence as to what these targets were. The Army finally concluded that there had been from one to five unidentified planes that touched

off the "battle" whereas the Navy decided that there had been no excuse for

the firing. It is at least possible that the I-17 launched the plane it carried to

spark the confusion, although it is very unlikely that this plane flew inland

over the coast line. In any event, the episode gave the military defenders of

Los Angeles a realistic practice session and showed how much remained to

be done to make the air defense system adequate against a serious attack.27

After the Halsey-Doolittle raid on Tokyo in April 1942, a more ambitious

Japanese attack on the west coast appeared much more probable to authorities in Washington. G-2 pointed out that eight Japanese carriers had returned from their operations around southeastern Asia and that the Japanese

could release at least three of the eight for a retaliatory attack on the west

coast without jeopardizing successes already achieved.28 Secretary Stimson

"called in General Marshall and had a few earnest words with him about

the danger of a Jap attack on the West Coast," and confessed to himself that

he was "very much impressed with the danger that the Japanese, having

terribly lost face by this recent attack on them . . . , will make a counterattack

on us with carriers."

 29

 General DeWitt was warned to be on his guard against

a carrier attack at any time after 10 May and was told that two more antiaircraft regiments were being sent to bolster the Los Angeles and San

Francisco defenses.30

The Japanese had decided upon an offensive in the north Pacific two days

before the Tokyo raid, and the raid strengthened their resolve rather than

determined it. Although they did not plan to attack either the west coast or

Hawaii proper, both might have been put in a perilous situation if the stated

objectives of the offensive had been attained.31 On 16 May the Army learned

27

 Memo, CofS for President Roosevelt, 26 Feb 42, OCS 21347-86; Craven and Cate, eds.,

Plans and Early Operations, pp. 283-86. History of the 4th Antiaircraft Command, I, 115-25, and

IV, Docs 28 and 29, has the greatest detail on the episode. 28

 Memo, Lt Col Kenneth N. Walker for Brig Gen St. Clair Streett, OPD, 19 Apr 42; Memo,

G-2 for OPD, 20 Apr 42. Both in OPD 381 Japan/6. 29

 Stimson Diary, entry of 21 Apr 42. 30

 Memo, OPD for WDCMC, 23 Apr 42, OPD 381 WDC/5. 31

 Samuel Eliot Morison, "History of United States Naval Operations in World War II,"
CONTINENTAL DEF. COMMANDS AFTER PEARL HARBOR 89

from its Hawaiian commander that the Navy, on the basis of deciphered

Japanese messages, had concluded that the Japanese would attack Midway

and Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians, probably on the last two days of May.32

On 16 May, also, General Marshall informed General DeWitt that a Japanese attack using gas might be expected in the eastern Pacific in the near

future. During the next two days 350,000 gas masks (all that were available), protective clothing, and decontamination supplies were hurriedly

shipped to the west coast.33 The Army's Intelligence Division on 17 May

concurred in the Navy estimate that a strong Japanese attack on American

territory was in the offing before the end of the month, but it forecast that

the "first priority" target of the attack would be "hit and run raids on West

Coast cities of the continental United States supported by heavy naval forces."

Army intelligence held that such action was entirely within Japanese capabilities, considering the weakness of American naval power, and urged the

concentration on the west coast of all available continental air power to meet

the threat.34 Further interceptions enabled the Navy by 21 May to forecast

with almost exact precision the timing of the Japanese attacks on Midway

and Dutch Harbor, but until after the Midway naval battle the Army continued to be apprehensive of at least a raid on the west coast.35

The known Japanese threat led the War Department to do everything it

could during the last two weeks of May to strengthen the west coast defenses.

General Marshall himself paid a hurried visit to California on the weekend

of 23-24 May and personally directed the adoption of additional air defense

measures and the reinforcement of defense forces in the Los Angeles-San

Diego area. On his orders, for example, finished aircraft that he found lined

up in rows around the various factories were either moved inland or dispersed so that a bomb could not damage more than one.36

 While the numerical

increase in west coast Army ground force strength during these weeks was

small (about 20,000), the means for air attack as well as for air defense

were greatly strengthened. By flying two full groups to the coast, the Army

vol. IV, Coral Sea, Midway and Submarine Actions: May 1942-August 1942 (Boston: Little,

Brown and Company, 1950) (hereafter cited as Morison, Coral Sea), p. 6. 32

 Matloff and Snell, Strategic Planning, 1941-42, pp. 224-26; Memo, Brig Gen Thomas T.

Handy, OPD, for Gen Marshall, 17 May 42, OPD Exec 8, bk. 5. 33

 Two Rads, CofS to DeWitt, 16 May 42, OPD Exec 14; Min, War Council Mtg, 18 May 42,

SW Conf, binder 2. 34

 Memo, G-2 for CofS, 17 May 42, OPD 381 WDC/42. 35

 Rad, COMINCH to CINCPAC (Info copy to CofS), 21 May 42, OPD Exec 8, bk. 5; Telg,

CofS to CG WDC, 29 May 42, OPD 381 WDC/10; Min, WD Gen Council Mtg, 2 Jun 42. 36

 Min, War Council Mtg, 25 May and 1 Jun 42, SW Conf, Binder 2; Memos, Col John R.

Deane for DCofS and CofS, 24 and 31 May 42, OCS file, Notes on War Council; Testimony of

Gen DeWitt, 12 Dec 46, Report of War Department Civil Defense Board, an. 1, p. 110.
CAMOUFLAGED AIRPLANE FACTORY. Section of Boeing Aircraft Plant 2, Seattle

(top). Aerial view of the 26-acre camouflage town on the factory roof (bottom).
CONTINENTAL DEF. COMMANDS AFTER PEARL HARBOR 91

increased heavy bomber strength from 13 to 60, and it held another group

of 28 planes ready as a reserve. In addition, it flew three pursuit groups and

one medium bombardment group into the area, so that the total Army pursuit and bomber strength actually present rose from about 290 to about 550

planes. Another antiaircraft regiment was added to the defenses, raising the

total in position to the equivalent of seventeen almost completely equipped

regiments. Three new barrage balloon battalions were added to the three

that had been employed in the Seattle and San Francisco areas since January,

in order to provide additional air defense protection to the Los Angeles and

San Diego aircraft factories. By the end of May, too, the Army Engineers

had nearly completed a thorough camouflaging of aircraft factories as well

as military installations.37

At the beginning of this emergency period the Western Defense Command had a strength of about 172,000 officers and enlisted men, of whom

121,000 were in its ground combat forces. The Navy, Marine Corps, and

Coast Guard added about 75,000 men to the armed forces' strength present

along the west coast.38 On 25 May the Chief of Staff ordered the Army

Ground Forces to make all of its troops within the territorial limits of the

Western Defense Command available for emergency use and specifically

directed that four additional combat teams be made ready to supplement

Western Defense Command forces on receipt of orders from General

DeWitt. This gave his command two infantry divisions and seven infantry

regimental combat teams ready for immediate use.39 The War Department

made every effort to cover ammunition shortages reported by General DeWitt,

and by 1 June the Operations Division judged his ammunition situation "in

general, good."

 40

 On 27 May General DeWitt placed the Western Defense

Command on special alert, and three days later the Operations Division

notified him "of War Department conviction that surprise attacks on the

West Coast are a possibility from now on."

 41

 Despite the continued paucity

of means for an adequate long-range patrol, at the end of May there was

little likelihood of a carrier or other serious attack being launched without

37

 Memo, OPD for TAG, 22 May 42, and other papers, OPD 370.5 WDC/18; Memo, OPD

for CofS, 3 Jun 42, OPD 320.2 WDC/in. On camouflage: Hist of WDC, vol. III, ch. XIV; and

Min, War Council Mtg, 11 May 42, SW Conf, binder 2. On barrage balloons, see Hist of 4th AA

Comd, ch. VI. 38

 Memo, OPD for OASW, 28 Apr 42, OPD 320.2 WDC/64. 39

 Memo, OPD for CG AGF, 25 May 42, OPD 320.2 WDC/69; Memo, OPD for CofS,

3 Jun 42, OPD 320.2 WDC/111. 40

 OPD Diary, entries of 24 and 25 May 42; Memo, OPD for SOS, 1 Jun 42, OPD 471

WDC/18. 41

 OPD Diary, entries of 27 and 30 May 42; OPD Routing Form, 7 Jun 42, OPD 381

WDC/38.
92 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

warning, in view of the accurate and detailed information being obtained

about the movements of the Japanese Fleet.

The United States Navy virtually ended the threat of a serious attack on

the west coast when it knocked out the Japanese advance carrier force north

of Midway on 4 June 1942. Thereupon, the Japanese main fleet and the Midway occupation force withdrew, although the northern wing of the Japanese

forces, after bombing Dutch Harbor, proceeded to occupy Kiska and Attu in

the Aleutians.42 In effect, the Battle of Midway restored the balance of naval

power in the Pacific. Although it continued for many months to be possible

for the Japanese to make a carrier raid in the eastern Pacific, they could no

longer do so without taking the grave risk of losing the naval strength they

needed to defend their earlier conquests.43

The Japanese occupation of outer Aleutian islands nevertheless introduced apprehensions of a renewed Japanese offensive toward the Alaskan

mainland and continental west coast, and Japanese submarine operations

helped to keep these apprehensions alive. The first of the latter operations

was a by-product of the Aleutian invasion. The Japanese had given two of

their plane-carrying submarines, the I-25 and the I-26, the mission of conducting an advanced reconnaissance of the southern Alaskan coast. At the

end of May the I-26 left the vicinity of Kodiak Island and sailed toward the

"Washington coast. One Japanese source claims that the reconnaissance plane

of the I-26 "scouted Seattle Harbor and reported no heavy men-of-war,

particularly carriers, there."

 44

 If true, this probably happened some time after

the Midway and Dutch Harbor actions; and the flight was not detected. The

Japanese made their presence definitely known on 20 June, first by torpedoing a Canadian lumber schooner southwest of Cape Flattery and then by

shelling the Canadian radio compass station at Estevan Point on Vancouver

Island. The next night (21-22 June), a submarine fired six to nine 51⁄2-inch

shells at the Fort Stevens military reservation in Oregon at the mouth of the

Columbia River, doing no damage. This shelling, insignificant in itself, is

notable as the first foreign attack on a continental military installation since

the War of 1812. Finally, on 23 June, two torpedoes missed a tanker off the

southern coast of Oregon.45

42

 Morison, Coral Sea, and Craven and Cate, eds., Plans and Early Operations, pp. 451-70,

describe these operations in detail. 43

 Ltr, SW to President Roosevelt, 19 Jun 42, SW file, War Plans; Admiral Ernest J. King,

Report on Combat Operations up to 1 March 1944 (Washington: U.S. News, 1944), p. 31. 44

 United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS), Interrogations of Japanese Officials,

2 vols. (Washington, 1946), Interv 97, Comdr Masatake Okumiya, 10 Oct 45. 45

 Idem; Japanese Monograph 110, pp. 21-23; Hist of WDC, IV, app. 5. It is not clear from
CONTINENTAL DEF. COMMANDS AFTER PEARL HARBOR 93

The final Japanese submarine operation off the west coast during the

war was undertaken expressly as a reprisal for the American bombardment

of Tokyo in April. The I-25, with its plane fitted for bombing, reached the

Oregon coast late in August 1942. On 9 September, this plane dropped an

incendiary bomb on a forested mountain slope near the coast at Brookings,

Ore. The bomb started a small forest fire, but this was quickly extinguished.

Attempts to locate and destroy the I-25 failed. After nearly a month of

discreet hiding, the I-25 on 4 and 6 October torpedoed and sank two tankers

off the southern coast of Oregon. These attacks marked an end to direct

enemy activity off the west coast of the continental United States, although

the Japanese were to plague it with their "free balloon" operations before

the end of the war.46

In the meantime, as soon as the extent and significance of the Japanese

defeat at Midway became clear, the Army had begun to reduce its defense

forces on the west coast. General DeWitt ended the special alert along the

coast on the morning of 8 June, and by that date the War Department had

started to recall the air reinforcements that it had rushed to the Western

Defense Command during the pre-Midway period.47 By 24 June the bomber

strength of the Fourth Air Force had been reduced to 3 heavy and 60 medium

bombardment planes, far fewer than it had had before the May emergency.

Both the local naval command and General DeWitt continued to urge the

allocation of more heavy bombers for long-range offshore patrols, but the

War Department turned them down.48 The combat teams of the Army

Ground Forces' divisions within the Western Defense Command remained

on an "on-call" status for emergency defense use, but under a new arrangement that did not seriously interfere with their training.49

 During the summer of 1942 the Western Defense Command lost two of its antiaircraft

regiments, but otherwise its assigned ground combat strength was not materially changed until the end of the year.

The west coast theater had a final touch of excitement toward the end

of 1942 when, on the evening of 2 December, a Navy patrol yacht reported

the Japanese accounts cited whether both the I-25 and I-26, or only the latter, participated in this

June operation off the northwest coast. 46

 Japanese Monograph 110, pp. 32-33; Hist of WDC, IV, app. 5; Tel Conv, Gen DeWitt

with Col Robert N. Young, OCS, 13 Sep 42, OCS Tel Convs, binder 2; Min, War Council Mtg,

16 Sep 42, SW Conf, binder 2. For the balloon operations, see the last section of this chapter. 47

 OPD Diary, entry of 8 Jun 42; various papers, OPD 370.5 WDC/42; Min, War Council

Mtg, 8 Jun 42, SW Conf, binder 2. 48

 Memos, COMINCH for CofS, 17 Jun 42; CG AAF for CofS, 17 Jun 42; and CofS for

COMINCH, 24 Jun 42. All in WDCSA 42-43 WDC. OPD Diary, entries of 18 Jun and 3 Jul 42;

OPD Routing Form, 23 Jun 42, OPD 320.2 WDC/134. 49

 Min, WD Gen Council Mtg, 21 Jul 42.
94 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

an unidentified group of ten to twenty vessels about 500 miles off California

and between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The War Department immediately reinforced the Fourth Air Force with two heavy bombardment groups

containing 61 planes, and alerted a third group to act as a reserve. By the

time the two bomber groups reached their California bases and were readied

for action—early afternoon, 3 December—the vessels had been identified as

those of an American convoy. Although the Air Forces carried out this

reinforcement with utmost dispatch, it was recognized at the time that if

this had been a Japanese carrier force as suspected it could have executed its

mission and been out of bombardment range before any of the reinforcing

planes were ready to attack it. It is therefore evident that from June 1942 on,

the west coast lacked the air power to forestall a carrier raid, although its

close-in air defenses for combating one were in good shape. In practice, the

Army had already begun to apply the policy of "calculated risk" that it

was presently to extend more generally to the continental defenses.50

Defense Measures on the East and Gulf Coasts, 1941-42

The Eastern Theater of Operations, activated on 24 December 1941

under the command of General Drum, contained at the outset a far larger

strength in Army forces than was ever assigned to the Western Theater.

During the last week of December its ground units included four army

corps, eleven infantry and two armored divisions, fifteen antiaircraft regiments, numerous harbor defense forces along the northeast coast, and a

large miscellany of other forces. Yet this strength was deceptive, not only

because a large proportion of the units were unready for action but also and

more significantly because the War Department never intended to bottle up

such large forces in defense of the Atlantic front.

Before the activation of the Eastern theater, the War Department General Staff and GHQ had concluded that the most the Germans could do

against the coast would be to launch nuisance air or naval attacks against

exposed objectives, and even these were considered improbable. A land

invasion in any strength they believed impossible as long as the American

and British navies controlled the North Atlantic.51

50

 On the December 1942 alert, various papers, dated 3-8 December 1942, OPD 381 WDC/45,

57, and 58; and Min, WD Gen Council Mtg, 7 Dec 42. See the last section of this chapter for the

reduction of continental defenses. 51

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 13 Dec 41, WPD 3774-37; Memo, GHQ for CofS, 18 Dec 41,

WPD 4627.
CONTINENTAL DEF. COMMANDS AFTER PEARL HARBOR 95

The Army Air Forces nevertheless planned during December to allocate

as much air strength to the Eastern theater as it did to the Western.52 In

practice, the War Department stripped the eastern air defenses in favor of

the more exposed west coast and of overseas bases. As examples, the Army

temporarily closed down eight of its eleven long-range radar stations along

the east coast in order to provide personnel to operate similar stations along

the Pacific front; and General Drum estimated that the effective strength of

the Eastern theater's combat air forces declined by three-fourths during the

month following the activation of his new command. During this same

period the Eastern theater also lost one-third of its antiaircraft regiments and

half of its antiaircraft gun strength.53

The above examples illustrate that what the War Department had

actually done in December had been to assign units to the Eastern Theater

on a "tentative, tactical loan basis, pending the development and shaking

down of the war situation."

 54

 During January and February units were

removed from the Eastern theater's command with increasing rapidity,

either for shipment overseas or for further training in the zone of the

interior. Finally, when the Eastern Theater of Operations became the Eastern

Defense Command on 20 March 1942, it lost not only its theater status but

most of its larger field force units as well. The Eastern Defense Command

kept only the 26th Division during 1942. This division, with two additional

regimental combat teams, provided the means for supplying each of the four

coastal sectors with a regimental combat team for defense against external

attack, one regiment being held in reserve. The First Air Force also remained

under the Eastern Defense Command, although its principal activity—overwater operations against German submarines—came under Navy command

on 25 March. In actual numbers the Eastern Defense Command after March

1942 had about one fourth of the strength originally assigned to the

Eastern theater in December 1941.55

The defense of the Gulf coast from Florida westward came under the

tactical direction of the Southern Defense Command on 24 December 1941.

On that date the commander of the Third Army and Southern Defense

Command, Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger, established a small separate defense

52

 Memo, AAF for CofS, 20 Dec 41, OPD Exec 8, bk. 1; Memo, DCofS for Air for CofS,

26 Dec 41, WPD 3807-107. 53

 Rpt of Air Officer at GHQ Staff Conf, 15 Jan 42, GHQ 337 Staff Confs, binder 2; Ltr and

Inds, CG ETO to CG FF, 2 Feb 42, AG 320.2 (2-2-42) (5). 54

 Hist of EDC, p. 38. 55

 Hist of EDC, ch. IV; Memo, OPD for TAG, 29 Apr 42, OPD 320.2 EDC/26, listing the

units assigned to the EDC after the March "shakedown."
96 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

command staff, and through it controlled the Army forces specifically allocated to the defense of the Gulf coast and Southern Land Frontier.56

 The

strength of the forces allocated to coastal defense remained nominal from

the beginning and did not include any combat air forces. As was the case in

the other defense commands, General Krueger could use his Third Army

troops to reinforce the coastal forces in an emergency.57 But the Southern

Defense Command was virtually helpless to deal with the only real enemy

threat that developed in its area—the German submarines that began to

operate off the Gulf coast during May 1942.58

It was America's good fortune that Germany did not know when or how

the Japanese were going to attack in the Pacific, and therefore that the

Germans did not plan the extension of their submarine operations against

commerce into the hitherto restricted areas of the western Atlantic until

after Pearl Harbor. Futhermore, even after the Japanese attack, Adolf Hitler

and the German Naval Staff directed most of the German submarine fleet

to operate during the winter of 1941-42 in the Mediterranean area and off

the coast of Norway, and therefore the German U-boat command could

spare only 3 submarines for the initial foray off the coast of the United States

in mid-January 1942, and only 6 for its February operations there. Even so,

these forays began to wreak tremendous havoc. With an average of 5 and

a total of never more than 9 or 10 German submarines operating along the

east and Gulf coasts, the Germans in six months managed to sink some 185

ships, totaling about 965,000 gross tons, in these waters alone.59

The German slaughter of merchant shipping off the east coast continued

almost unchecked from mid-January until the latter part of April 1942.

During this period German submarines sank about 80 ships off this coast,

and, according to their commanders, bad weather offered the chief obstacle

to operations. From the beginning of April onward they noted a marked

56

 See the MS History of the Southern Defense Command, OCMH (hereafter cited as Hist of

SDC), especially for the Army's activities in land frontier defense, not treated in this chapter. 57

 Ltr and Inds, SW to SN, 11 Apr 42, OCS 21078-70. 58

 See exchanges in WPD 4647, reference the alleged appearance of a German submarine off

Corpus Christi, Tex., on 28 January 1942, and the futile efforts of General Krueger to obtain any

effective means for attack. According to the German records, none of their submarines approached

the Gulf coast until May 1942. 59

 Notes and Inds, Confs of 12 and 29 Dec 41, United States Department of the Navy, Office

of Naval Intelligence, Fuehrer Conferences on Matters Dealing With the German Navy, 1941,

2 vols. (Washington, 1947) (hereafter cited as ONI, Fuehrer Conferences), II, 80, 92-96. For

the number of submarines operating, see United States Navy Department translation of Befehlshaber

der Unterseeboote War Logs for Period 1 January 1941 to 31 December 1943 (the German U-boat

command, and hereafter cited as B.d.U. War Logs), Jan-Jul 42. For shipping losses, see

Morison, Battle of the Atlantic, app. I, p. 413.
CONTINENTAL DEF. COMMANDS AFTER PEARL HARBOR 97

increase in American antisubmarine activities, but they reported that at

first these activities were almost wholly ineffective. The Germans lost their

first submarine off the American coast on the night of 13 April; then, about

21 April, enemy submarine commanders began to report a sudden dropping

off of favorable targets, and after that date the easy pickings off the east

coast came to an end.60

The armed forces of the United States had in fact been almost wholly

unprepared for submarine attacks off the coasts. Ignoring World War I

experience and World War II practice, before Pearl Harbor they had not

even planned on how they might check a submarine offensive off the American coast line.61

 The defenses set up in January along the east coast were

scanty and improvised. Until the end of the month, I Bomber Command and

the I Air Support Command of the Army's First Air Force conducted all of

the oversea air patrols along the coast. By 15 January these Army commands

were managing to cover the offshore area from Hatteras northward with

fifteen patrols daily, but their personnel and equipment were woefully

untrained and inadequate for effective antisubmarine operations.62 Army

planes continued to provide most of the regular offshore patrols throughout

the period of intense enemy activity off the East Coast, operating at first

informally and then (after 25 March) formally under Navy command. From

the outset these Army operations stripped the east coast air forces of all

offensive striking power against any other form of enemy attack, although

an enemy surface attack during this period was admittedly a remote possibility. Beginning on 5 March the civilian Civil Air Patrol began to fly

patrols under the auspices of the I Air Support Command, and its operations

helped to frighten submarines away from shallow waters near the coast.

Beginning in April the installation of airborne radar on Army bombers

greatly increased their effectiveness and made it possible to patrol and to

escort vessels at night.63

60

 B.d.U War Logs, entries for various dates, especially the Situation Summaries of 13 Mar and

12, 15, and 30 Apr 42; Rpt of Commanding Admiral, Submarines, to Hitler, 14 May 42, ONI,

Fuehrer Conferences, 1942, pp. 82-85. 61

 Morison, Battle of the Atlantic, pp. 200-201; Craven and Cate, eds., Plans and Early Operations, pp. 518-19. 62

 Rpt of Air Officer, GHQ Staff Conf, 15 Jan 42, GHQ 337 Staff Confs, binder 2; Hist of

EDC, p. 41; Craven and Cate, eds., Plans and Early Operations, pp. 522ff. 63

 Rpt to OPD on Visit to First Bomber and Interceptor Comd, 17-18 Mar 42, OPD 319.1

(Rpts—Visits). On Civil Air Patrol, Memo, WPD for SW, 10 Mar 42, and other papers in AG

381 (3-5-42); Min, WD Gen Council Mtg, 21 Jul 42. On radar equipment, Memo, AAF for

CofS, 10 Apr 42, WDCSA 452.1; Min, War Council Mtg, 11 and 18 May 42, SW Conf, binder 2;

and Min, WD Gen Council Mtg, 19 May 42. Craven and Cate, eds., Plans and Early Operations,

chapter XV, describes the Army's antisubmarine operations of 1942 in some detail.
98 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

In the early days of the German submarine offensive, the most effective

antisubmarine measures had been movements by night and insistence that

ships hug the shore line by day. After some initial misgivings, the Army

finally ordered a stringent coastal blackout to prevent submarines from

attacking ships silhouetted by lights on shore.64 But, as the Navy insisted,

the best defense against the sort of commerce raiding the Germans were

undertaking off the American coast was the organization of all coastal

shipping into convoys escorted by surface vessels and aircraft. By mid-May

the Navy was able to convoy most east coast shipping. Within two months

this system, abetted by the enlarged activity and improved techniques and

equipment of the Army's I Bomber Command, brought an end to sinkings

off this coast for the rest of 1942.65 Within these two months also the Germans lost six more submarines along the east coast, a factor that helped them

to decide on 19 July to withdraw their two remaining submarines, which had

been operating in the Hatteras area.66

After launching an attack in the Caribbean in February, German submarines in May 1942 began striking at traffic along the Gulf coast of the

United States. The first U-boat to appear off this coast, on 6 May, met a

warm reception from United States naval craft and had to limp back to its

base in France after slim success. But the next two, arriving off the Mississippi

Delta on 12 May, found rich and easy pickings. Thereafter, during May, the

losses in the Gulf Sea Frontier (which included the Florida east coast)

exceeded any single month's loss along the Atlantic front to the north. Late

in May the Army shifted twenty-five planes of the I Bomber Command

to the Gulf coast area to combat this new menace. Within the next two

months the Navy and these Army bombers put a virtual end to German

submarine operations in the Gulf, but not before the Germans had destroyed

almost as many ships there as they had sunk in the preceding three months

along the east coast.67

Except for a few mine-laying operations, German submarines avoided

the American coastal areas from September 1942 until the following spring,

and their operations thereafter were of nuisance proportions only.68 But in

64

 D/F, G-3 to TAG, 20 Feb 42, OCS 21349-17; Min, War Council Mtg, 2 and 16 Mar 42,

SW Conf, binder 2; Morison, Battle of the Atlantic, pp. 129-30. 65

 Memo, Adm King for Gen Marshall, 21 Jun 42, WDCSA 560, presents a comprehensive

statement of the Navy's position on antisubmarine warfare; the same file also contains many of

the basic papers on the Army-Navy controversy of 1942-43 on antisubmarine operations. 66

 B.d.U. War Logs, entry of 19 Jul 42. 67

 For the Caribbean operations, see ch. XVI below; B.d.U. War Logs, various entries, MayJul 42; Morison, Battle of the Atlantic, pp. 135-44; Min, WD Gen Council Mtg, 27 May 42. 68

 Check of daily submarine positions as given in B.d.U. War Logs, Sep 42-Dec 43.
CONTINENTAL DEF. COMMANDS AFTER PEARL HARBOR 99

the Caribbean and in the wide stretches of the Atlantic, a steadily mounting

number of German submarines continued their devastating war on shipping.

To combat them the Army put its east coast bomber strength into a new

Army Air Forces Antisubmarine Command, activated on 15 October 1942.

The story of this command, and of the issue between the Army and Navy

over how the submarine menace might best be curbed, has already been

related elsewhere.69

As soon as the number of ship sinkings off the east coast slackened, the

Germans decided to use some of their submarines to plant mines off the

entrances of New York Harbor, Delaware Bay, and Chesapeake Bay. Three

submarines planted mines about 12 June 1942, Boston being substituted for

New York at the last moment. Only the Chesapeake operation proved

profitable. There three ships were sunk and two damaged before the mines

could be swept. The mine laying off Boston, and a similar operation at the

mouth of the Mississippi on 25 July, went undetected until the opening of

German records after the war disclosed these actions. Five more mine-laying

operations along the east coast during 1942 did no harm except to bring brief

halts to shipping while the Navy disposed of the mines.70

A third type of enemy submarine activity created much excitement at the

time and had much to do with keeping some Army mobile combat forces

deployed along the coast during 1942 and 1943. On 13 June 1942 the German submarine U-202 landed four enemy agents on a beach at Amagansett,

Long Island; and on 17 June the U-584. landed four more on Ponte Vedra

Beach near Jacksonville, Fla. The plans for this operation stated that the

principal objectives were to engage in "sabotage attacks on targets of economic

importance for the war" and "to stir up discontent and lower fighting

resistance."

 71

 Both groups carried ashore small quantities of TNT and

incendiary bomb material; in addition, the agents had $150,000 in cash when

arrested. A Coast Guardsman on beach patrol intercepted the Amagansett

group as it landed, but faulty transmission of his report permitted both the

submarine (which was grounded for several hours) and the saboteurs to

escape. The Florida landing was disclosed the following day by fishermen

who found the cache of sabotage materials. The Federal Bureau of Investi69

 Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate, eds., "The Army Air Forces in World War II,"

vol. II, Europe: TORCH to POINTBLANK—August 1942 to December 1943 (Chicago: The

University of Chicago Press, 1949) (hereafter cited as Craven and Cate, eds., Europe: TORCH to

POINTBLANK), ch. XII; Morison, Battle of the Atlantic, pp. 202ff. 70

 E.d.U. War Logs, entry of 19 May 42 and various entries thereafter; Morison, Battle of the

Atlantic, pp. 136-37 and app. IV, p. 417. 71

 B.d.U. War Logs, entry of 26 May 42, and accompanying directives for operation, dated

23 May 42.
100 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

INFANTRYMEN ON BEACH PATROL study

incoming vessel.

gation rounded up the eight agents

between 20 and 27 June before they

had done any harm, and six were

executed on 8 August after trial by

court martial.72

Although these landings were

the only proven instances of contacts

between German submarines and

the shores of the United States before 1944, they stimulated both the

Army and the United States Coast

Guard to undertake a much more

active "beach defense" during 1942

and 1943.73 The Coast Guard, which

was under Navy command from 1

November 1941 onward, had begun

to augment its water and beach

patrols immediately after the United

States entered the war.74 An Army

intelligence report that German submarines had already landed agents on

American shores led President Roosevelt on 6 April 1942 to order the Coast

Guard to expand its beach patrol activities. As a result of the June landings,

the Coast Guard on 25 July directed the establishment of an organized beach

patrol system to cover the entire ocean coast line of the United States.

It directed that the beach patrols be well armed and have as one duty,

among others, the prevention of enemy landings from submarines or surface vessels.75

The directive of 25 July started a rather heated jurisdictional conflict

between the Army and the Coast Guard. Beach defense against invasion,

72

 History of the Eatern Defense Command, pages 53-55, and History of the New YorkPhiladelphia Sector, Eastern Defense Command, 67-73, describe the Amagansett landing and its

accompanying snarl in Army-Navy communications and co-operation. 73

 J. Edgar Hoover, "New Tricks of Nazi Spies," American (October 1943), p. 110. A submarine landed two German spies at Hancock Point, Me., on 29 November 1944. They were quickly

caught by the FBI (Facts on File, 1945, p. 4). 74

 Memo, CNO for CofS, 7 Feb 42, AG 381 (1-27-42). 75

 Min, War Council Mtg, 6 and 13 Apr 42, SW Conf, binder 2; Memo, Capt John L. McCrea,

USN, Naval Aide to the President, for Adm King, 6 Apr 42, and subsequent corresp on Eastern

Defense Command, EDC 008/555. (This Eastern Defense Command file contains most of the

basic correspondence with respect to the Army-Navy-Coast Guard argument over beach defense

responsibilities, April-December 1942.)
CONTINENTAL DEF. COMMANDS AFTER PEARL HARBOR 101

however minute, was a recognized Army mission, and it appeared to General

Drum in particular that if not challenged the new Coast Guard mission might

be an opening wedge for the Navy to take over "the whole coast defense."

 76

After much argument among subordinates, General Marshall and Admiral

King issued a joint directive on 29 December 1942 recognizing beach defense

as a primary mission of the Army, but also allowing the Coast Guard to

continue its beach patrol activities in close collaboration with the Army—

although not under Army command, as General Drum had wanted.77

The Army's means for beach defense in the summer of 1942 consisted

of scattered detachments of the infantry regimental combat teams assigned

to the sectors. After the Amagansett incident Army units engaged more

actively in beach patrol, in some instances duplicating the Coast Guard's

efforts. The joint directive of 29 December 1942 helped to eliminate local

instances of friction and overlapping activity, and during late 1942 and 1943

Army units and Coast Guard stations divided up the task of coastal surveillance. The Army generally patrolled the more open stretches of beach, while

the Coast Guard handled the more difficult ones that needed the support of its

inshore picket patrol vessels. The Army retained small mobile forces behind

the coast line that could be rushed to any threatened point. This system

continued until late 1943, when both Army and Coast Guard began a rapid

reduction of their beach defense forces.78

Even as this system of beach defense was being substantially improved in

the winter of 1942-43, the chances of any sort of enemy attack on the coast

line were growing increasingly slimmer. An Army intelligence estimate of

8 December 1942, although acknowledging the possibility of submarine, surface, and air attacks on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, nevertheless held that

such attacks were highly improbable and in any event incapable of doing any

great harm unless the course of the war underwent a significant change.79

Actually, the Germans still had some schemes for attacking the east coast by

air, but after the invasion of North Africa it looked to the War Department

as if it could safely begin a steady reduction of the Army's forces guarding

the Atlantic front of the continental United States.

76

 Memo, Gen Drum for Brig Gen Kenneth P. Lord, 29 Jul 42, EDC 008/555. 77

 Memo, COMINCH for CofS, 9 Dec 42, WDCSA 660.2; Jt Ltr, Acting CofS and COMINCH

to CG's and Commandants, 29 Dec 42, EDC 008/555. 78

 Hist of NE Sector, EDC, pp. 9, 12-13; Hist of EDC, p. 53; "The Coast Guard at War,"

XVII, Beach Patrol (1945). 79

 Memo, G-2 for OPD, 8 Dec 42, OPD 660.2/33.
102 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Guarding the Sault Ste. Marie Canal

The only activity in the Central Defense Command during World War II

that involved the use of Army combat units was the protection of the Sault

Ste. Marie Canal and the St. Marys River waterway, which connect Lakes

Superior and Huron. On the eve of the war nearly nine-tenths of the iron

ore consumed in the United States passed through the Sault locks during the

eight months' navigation season between March and November, and all of

this traffic moved through the American locks of the Sault Canal system,

located between the American and Canadian cities of Sault Ste. Marie. Since

there was no other way in which most of the iron ore could be moved, the

success of the American war effort was vitally dependent on continuing its

flow through the Sault locks (See Map I.)

At the outbreak of the European war the War Department ordered the

commander of the Sixth Corps Area to take all necessary steps to safeguard

the Sault waterway. Fort Brady, an old Army post located on a hill overlooking the St. Marys River valley about half a mile south of the Sault locks, had

a garrison at this time of four companies of the 2d Infantry; troops were

therefore readily available for carrying out the War Department's directive.

On 7 September 1939 the Sixth Corps Area commander reported that the

Coast Guard was patrolling the canal approaches under Army direction, that

machine guns and searchlights were being emplaced above the locks, that

Army guards were patrolling the lock area and the river channel below, and

that military guards were being placed on all passenger and pleasure craft

transiting the canal.80

These were the only protective measures in effect at the Sault until 1942.

The War Department studied the possibility of an external attack by air as

early as the summer of 1940 but decided that the chance of it was too remote to justify any form of antiaircraft defense. In fact, during that summer the Army reduced the Fort Brady force to one infantry company, since

that was all that was needed for guard purposes.81

A Federal Bureau of Investigation survey in the fall of 1940 led to a

re-examination of the Sault's defense needs during the following winter

and spring. In January 1941 the Army presented the problem of co-ordinating American and Canadian defense measures to the Permanent Joint

80

 Telg, TAG to CG Sixth Corps Area, 2 Sep 39, Ltr, CG Sixth Corps Area to TAG, 7 Sep 39,

and other papers, AG 821 (9-1-39). 81

 Memo, ACofS WPD for DCofS, 22 Aug 40, WPD 4078-30; Ltr, CG Sixth Corps Area to

TAG, 17 Jul 40, and Inds, AG 821 (9-1-39); Notes on Conf in OCofS, 22 May 41, OCS Conf,

binder 15.
CONTINENTAL DEF. COMMANDS AFTER PEARL HARBOR 103

Board on Defense, and the board recommended that each country establish

a central authority over the local defenses. The Sixth Corps Area commander had submitted a similar recommendation. In consequence, the War

Department obtained President Roosevelt's approval to an Executive order

that established the Military District of Sault Ste. Marie, effective 15 March

1941. To command the district the Army chose Col. Fred T. Cruse, who

previously had been in charge of the security guard for the Panama Canal.

In April Colonel Cruse met with the officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted

Police who had been appointed as his opposite number, and this visit began

a close collaboration between local Canadian and American military authorities that continued until 1944. In May 1941 the Army replaced the remaining infantry company with the 702d Battalion, Military Police.82

After the United States entered the war the Army was urged from many

directions to provide the Sault area with troops and equipment that could

defend it against external attack. As a result of this agitation, the War Department during January and February 1942 instituted a thorough restudy

of the problem among its own staff agencies, and again put the subject

before the Permanent Joint Board on Defense.83 The Army's Intelligence

Division and the Army Air Forces agreed that, while no form of external

attack seemed likely, several forms of German operations against the Sault

installations were possible: the Germans might send submarines or surface

ships into Hudson Bay and from its nearest arm—four hundred miles

away—launch a bombing attack, or they might fly long-range bombers all

the way from Norway along the Great Circle route, or they might attempt

a parachute attack from planes flown from Norway, the paratroops carrying out sabotage after they landed.84

In response, therefore, both to outside pressures and to its own conviction that it was at least possible for the Germans to make a suicidal attack

against the canal, the Army decided to add sizable increments to the Sault

defenses. It planned to provide the area with an aircraft warning system, a

regiment of antiaircraft artillery, and a barrage balloon battalion, and,

finally, to replace the military police battalion with an infantry regiment

that would be equipped and qualified to fight parachutists as well as to

82

 Ltr, CG Sixth Corps Area to TAG, 6 Jan 41, Memo, ACofS G-2 for CofS, 12 Feb 41, and

other papers, AG 821 (9-1-39); various papers, dated Feb-Apr 41, in WPD 1398-4, 5, 6, and 7;

Notes on Conf in OCofS, 22 May 41, OCS Conf, binder 15; Dziuban, Military Relations Between

the United States and Canada, pp. 193-98. 83

 Various papers, dated Dec 41-Feb 42, AG 821 (9-1-39) and WPD 1398-8, 11, and 13. 84

 Memo, G-2 for CofS, 11 Feb 42; Memo, AAF for WPD, 12 Feb 42. Both in WPD 1398-12.
104 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

perform routine antisabotage duties. By April 1942 elements of the 131st

Infantry, the 100th Coast Artillery (AA), and the 39th Barrage Balloon

Battalion were at the Sault, and by midsummer the Sault Military District

contained a mixed combat force of about 7,000 officers and men.85

In the meantime the Permanent Joint Board had recommended that

Canada as well as the United States undertake a more extensive system of

defenses in the Sault area. The Canadians supplied an antiaircraft battalion

for their side of the locks area and put it under the operational control of

the Sault District commander. This Canadian battalion used American guns

until the fall of 1942. In May Canada agreed to organize a ground observer

aircraft warning system to cover the region between Sault Ste. Marie and

Hudson Bay, and 266 observation posts were functioning in the Ontario

wilderness by 1 September 1942. Canada also allowed United States Army

troops to install and operate a string of five radar stations across northern

Ontario, and it provided housing facilities and defense sites on its side of

the Sault for about 2,000 of the American antiaircraft and barrage balloon

troops.86

The one defense element that the War Department did not feel it

could afford to provide for the Sault area was a squadron or more of pursuit planes. In May 1942 it ordered the preparation of three emergency

landing fields in the vicinity of the canal, and it subsequently directed that

local defense plans provide for planes of the First Air Force to use these

fields in an emergency. Actually, the planners themselves appear to have

realized that it was very unlikely that planes could reach these fields in time

to participate in fighting; off an air attack.87

To enhance the effectiveness of the ground defenses against hostile aircraft, the War Department in April 1942 authorized the establishment of a

Vital Defense Area that included most of Chippewa County, Mich. On 29

September this area was enlarged into a Central Air Defense Zone which

extended to a depth of up to 150 miles on the American side of the waterway. Canada established a similar zone to the north of the Sault Canal in

early 1943. Only controlled flights approved in advance were permitted

within these zones. Finally, to facilitate security measures on the ground,

85

 Memos, WPD for CofS, 18 Feb and 2 Mar 42, WPD 1398-8; Memo, TIG for CofS, 6 Mar

42, Memo, WPD for CofS, 9 Mar 42, and other papers, WDCSA 821; Memo, SGS for ASW,

6 Apr 42, and subsequent corresp, AG 821 (3-1-42). 86

 Dziuban, Military Relations Between the United States and Canada, p. 196. 87

 Ltr, CG CDC to CofS, 29 Mar 42, and subsequent corresp, AG 821 (3-1-42); OPD Interoffice Memos, 23 Dec 42, ABC 381 Sault Ste. Marie (12-23-42).
CONTINENTAL DEF. COMMANDS AFTER PEARL HARBOR 105

the Secretary of War authorized the establishment of the Sault Ste. Marie

Military Area on 22 March 1943.88

By the end of 1942 the Operations Division acknowledged that the

7,300-man garrison guarding the Sault Canal area was excessive, particularly

in view of other measures taken during the year—such as the sandbagging

of installations and provision of spare lock gates and other parts—that

made any extended interruption of canal traffic unlikely even if the installations were successfully attacked. But it doubted that a contemplated

2,000-man saving would be worth the political repercussions that would

probably follow any reduction, and therefore postponed a decision until

the following summer. Then, as an aspect of the general reduction of continental defenses, the War Department ordered that the Sault garrison be

cut to about 2,500 officers and men by 1 September 1943.89 Four months

later the United States and Canada abandoned all of their aircraft warning

installations and services and removed all of the local antiaircraft equipment. After January 1944 the United States Army garrison consisted, as it

had before the United States entered the war, of a single battalion of military police, and even this was reduced to a single company before the end of

1944.90

The Period of Reduction, 1942-45

The Army made its first moves toward a significant reduction in the

strength of ground forces assigned to continental defense in the fall of

1942. At the beginning of September, the Army Ground Forces urged that

the three divisions remaining with the Eastern and Western Defense Commands be removed from them, as a step toward making available as many

combat units as possible for overseas duty. The War Department merged

this proposal with a plan to fix the permanent requirements of the defense

commands for combat ground forces, and to fill these permanent forces with

limited-service and overage men and officers—the course already followed

during 1942 in mobilizing military police battalions for use in the zone of

the interior. General DeWitt readily agreed to return his two divisions to

88

 Memo, OPD for TAG, 16 Apr 42, WDCSA 821; Dziuban, Military Relations Between the

United States and Canada, p. 197. 89

 Memo, OPD for CofS, 2 Jan 43, and subsequent papers, WDCSA 42-43, Central Def Comd. 90

 Ltr, CG EDC to CofS (Attn: OPD), 21 Jan 44, OPD 384 EDC/io; OPD Memo for Rcd,

24 Oct 44, OPD 320 Def of Cont U.S./39.
106 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

the control of Army Ground Forces and to rely thereafter on infantry regimental combat teams, cavalry, and coast artillery 155-mm. gun regiments

for his mobile force requirements. But when he learned about the War Department's proposal to substitute limited-service for general-service troops

in these remaining mobile forces, he protested most vigorously. Subsequently, the War Department decided to confine limited-service conversions

in the defense commands to harbor defense and antiaircraft units. Then it

ordered the Eastern and Western Defense Commands to release their infantry divisions, less one regimental combat team from each. With other

remaining forces this change left each coast with four regimental combat

teams as the principal elements of its mobile force. The War Department

also directed the Army Ground Forces to maintain a reserve for the Eastern

and Western Commands by keeping one regimental combat ream of each

division stationed within the confines of these commands ready for prompt

movement and tactical employment on receipt of orders from the defense

commander.91

The application of these measures during the first half of 1943 made

a large proportion of the general-service men and younger officers in the

defense commands available for immediate or eventual overseas employment. But the troop strength of the Eastern and Western Defense Commands actually grew instead of contracting in the first few months of the

year, primarily because the War Department allowed large overstrengths in

units being transformed from general to limited service, and these units

made up nearly three-fourths of the ground combat strength of the continental commands.92

Before it could cut continental combat-unit strength much further, the

Army had to change the missions of the commands as prescribed under

Category C, which, it will be recalled, had been assigned to the east and

west coast forces soon after Pearl Harbor. Estimates of Japanese capabilities made from December 1942 onward indicated that, while the enemy

still had the means to launch a carrier-based air raid against the west coast,

such a raid was unlikely, and serious attacks against the east coast were

91

 Memo, OPD for WDCMC, 8 Sep 42, OPD 320.2 WDC/186; OPD Diary, entries of 11,

13, 16 Sep and 18 Oct 42; Ltrs, CG WDC to CofS, 1 and 20 Oct 42, OPD 320.2 WDC/194;

Min, WD Gen Council Mtg, 19 Oct, 30 Nov, and 14 Dec 42; Min, War Council Mtg, 21 Oct and

4 Nov 42, SW Conf, binder 2; Memo, OPD for AGF, 7 Dec 42; Ltr, TAG to CG's, 15 Dec 42.

Last two in OPD 320.2 WDC/69. 92

 Remarks about strengths are based here and elsewhere, unless otherwise indicated, on the

monthly report, STM-30 (Strength of the Army), and the authorized ground force strengths given

in the OPD Weekly Status Maps, AG 061 (9-4-45).
CONTINENTAL DEF. COMMANDS AFTER PEARL HARBOR 107

even less likely.93 It was also evident by early 1943 that the United States

had passed from the defensive to the offensive stage of the war and that

the Army must concentrate everything it could on the offensive.94 The Deputy Chief of Staff voiced a growing opinion about the continental defenses

in rather blunt terms when he remarked:

The basic factors in the defense of the Atlantic and Caribbean are adequate air

bases linked together by an efficient communications system. The Loran navigation

system, radar, direction finding stations, and intercept units are needed. . . . These

installations, plus medium and heavy bombardment, will constitute all the defense that

is needed and should replace to a large extent our present outmoded system of coast

artillery defense and large ground force installations. Unless the Army realizes this and

organizes accordingly, the Navy will gradually take over all responsibilities except

interior guard.95

The Navy agreed with the Army that reductions were in order, but it did

not feel the existing description of Category B in Joint Action adequately

covered the current situation. Therefore, after two months of joint consideration, the service chiefs, meeting on 13 April 1943 as the Joint Board, approved a new definition of Category B and directed a reduction in the continental defense Category from C to the new B.96

Two months later the Army asked President Roosevelt to approve a

policy of calculated risk that would permit a more general reduction of the

continental forces. The Army Air Forces, in sponsoring this policy, contended:

The greatest danger we have to face from air attack under the present strategic situation is that moderately successful nuisance raids might influence an uninformed Congress and an uninformed press to divert a substantial portion of our offensive force to

the protection of the continental United States.97

The Air Forces and G-2 both acknowledged that the Germans could launch

a transatlantic air attack against objectives along the east coast, but the

small number of planes they could spare and the light bomb loads these

planes could carry would make such an attack no more than a token effort

that ought not to justify a continued diversion of American strength from

93

 Various papers, dated 30 Nov 42-22 Jan 43, in relation to CCS 127 and CCS 127/1, and

Memo, G-2 for OPD, 16 Dec 42, all in ABC 384 North America (11-29-42); G-2 Estimate of

Enemy Capabilities Against the Cont U.S., 30 Apr 43, OPD 320 Def of Cont U.S./38. 94

 Memo, Chief, S&P Group, for Chief, North American Theater, OPD, 9 Feb 43, OPD 381

EDC/17; statement of Gen McNarney at WD Gen Council Mtg, 22 Feb 43; D/F, OPD to TAG,

25 Feb 43, OPD 320.2 WDC/241. 95

 Min, WD Gen Council Mtg, 29 Mar 43. 96

 Various papers, dated Feb-Apr 43, ABC 384 North America (11-29-42). 97

 Memo, CG AAF for CofS (Through: OPD), 10 Jun 43, WDCSA 381 Nat Def.
108 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

offensive preparations.98 In late June President Roosevelt approved the

statement of policy submitted to him by Secretary of War Stimson, but he

let Mr. Stimson announce it to the public.99

In mid-1943 the numerical strength of the forces assigned to the continental defense commands still amounted to about 379,000 officers and

men. This figure—almost the peak strength of these forces after March

1942—was actually very deceptive as an index of their combat effectiveness. The First and Fourth Air Forces contained almost one-third of this

strength, and their activity had long since been devoted principally to training units for overseas service. Ground combat troops within the commands

numbered about 185,000 officers and men, of whom about 140,000 were in

antiaircraft and coast defense units. These units and their higher headquarters had a large proportion of overage and limited -service officers and men.

Thus, when the War Department began its further reductions of continental

strengths in July 1943, the number of ground combat units and men within

the defense commands that could be sent overseas was actually much smaller

than a glance at their paper strengths might have indicated.

The impetus for new reductions came not only from the President's approval of a policy of calculated risk but also from the War Manpower

Board, which in a report of 12 June 1943 recommended the abolition of the

defense commands and the transfer of their functions to -the Army Ground

Forces. It recommended also that only harbor defense forces and military

police battalions remain specifically assigned to defense missions; all other

responsibility for ground defense should be allotted to the combat units

being trained by the Army Ground Forces. The Operations Division rejected

these recommendations, but as an alternative it proposed various measures

that, when approved, were to cut the continental ground strength by about

70,000 men between July and November.100 During June, also, a report of

the Special Army Committee of the Operations Division, which had been

chosen to consider a revision of the whole military program, recommended

a more searching examination of the defensive needs of the continental

United States and its outposts. Approving this report, the Chief of Staff on

3 July directed the Operations Division to base its calculations in the new

examination on the assumption that the only remaining dangers to North

98

 D/F, AAF to OPD, 15 Jul 43; D/F, G-2 to OPD, 17 Jul 43. Both in OPD 381 EDC/22. 99

 Ltr, SW to President Roosevelt, 22 Jun 43, SW file, White House. This copy bears the notation: "HLS—Okay, you do it, FDR." Mr. Stimson announced the new policy at his press conference on 1 July 1943. 100

 Memo, OPD for CofS, 3 Jul 43; Memo, Chief, North American Theater, OPD, for ACofS

OPD, 4 Nov 43. Both in OPD 320 Def of Cont U.S./38.
CONTINENTAL DEF. COMMANDS AFTER PEARL HARBOR 109

American land areas besides the Aleutians were sporadic shell fire from

submarines, the landing of small raiding parties or saboteurs from submarines, and token air raids. Although the Operations Division thought a

further reduction amply justified by the military situation under these assumptions, it concluded that there were already so many combat units in the

United States which could not be moved overseas for another year that for the

time being there was no point in removing any more from the defense commands than already authorized.101

Another step toward a demobilization of the continental defense commands stemmed from a new estimate of capabilities originating with the

Combined Chiefs of Staff and approved by them on 16 September 1943.

This estimate, essentially similar to the one stipulated in the Chief of Staff's

directive of 3 July, became the basis for putting the continental frontiers in

defense Category A, a change approved by the Joint Board on 27 October.

As previously defined in Joint Action, Category A applied to "coastal

frontiers that probably will be free from attack, but for which a nominal

defense must be provided for political reasons." Before making the new

change in category, the Joint Board approved a redefinition that added to

this the phrase, "in sufficient strength to repel raids by submarines, by surface vessels operating by stealth or stratagem, or isolated raids by aircraft

operating chiefly for morale effect."102

In November both The Inspector General and G-3 recommended a

more rapid and radical change in the continental defense structure. G-3's

comment was very much to the point:

The provisions under which the defense commands are now established are un- sound. The capabilities of our enemies to strike against the Continental United States

are limited, at most, to nuisance raids. To withhold from offensive action a sufficient

force to prevent such raids would render far greater assistance to the enemy than he

could expect from the most effective raids. The existing instructions to the defense

commanders place on those officers a responsibility without providing definitely defined

missions or adequate means. The existence of the defense commands creates in the

public mind a false sense of security. If nuisance raids are undertaken, they will, in all

probability, succeed to approximately the maximum extent of their capabilities. The

people of the Nation will believe that the enemy's successes were made possible by

military inefficiency. The Army will lose highly valuable public confidence. The meas- ures which we are about to put into effect for political reasons are thus likely to prove

unsound politically. . . . The hostile situation and our own critical personnel situation

101

 Memo, ADCofS for ACofS OPD, 3 Jul 43; Memo, OPD for DCofS, 18 Aug 43. Both in

OPD 320.2/930. 102

 CCS 127/3, 16 Aug 43, copy in OPD 380 Axis/51; Memo, DCofS for Secy JB, 30 Aug 43,

OPD 320.2/930; various papers, dated Aug-Oct 43, in ABC 384 North America (11-29-42);

Change 6, 28 Jan 42, and Change 13, 1 Nov 43, Joint Action.
110 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

no longer justify the retention in the defense commands of any units that are not continuously prepared and available for employment in our overseas offensive effort.103

G-3 also repeated the earlier recommendation that the Army Ground Forces

take over the ground defense mission in the continental United States, but

both the Army Ground Forces and the Operations Division rejected this

idea and instead agreed on a much more rapid reduction of defense command forces. On 3 December the Chief of Staff approved a reduction from

the current actual strength of about 165,000 to an over-all strength of

65,000, to be attained by 30 June 1944. The actual strength remaining on

that date was even less; in fact, the continental defense commands by mid1944 had been put on a strictly "nominal" defense basis.104

The disintegration of the air defense system in the continental United

States during 1943 and early 1944 was more a product of the extent and

character of the air training program than of a revised estimate of enemy

capabilities. From mid-1943 onward, the First and Fourth Air Forces had

far more pursuit strength than they ever had earlier in the war, but the

planes were being used for training and they had to share the training

areas along the coasts with Navy and Marine units. The result was that by

August and September 1943 the coastal areas were so saturated by training

flights that the aircraft warning system could not function.105 An Air Forces

memorandum of November 1943 pointed out this truth and the consequences when it stated:

The amount of flying training being conducted in vital defense areas makes accurate identification of aircraft, a prerequisite to any effective air defense system, an impossibility, particularly with respect to single or small formations of aircraft.

From the political viewpoint it does not appear sound to maintain an air system

which is costly in manpower and money and which, in the event of a sporadic raid,

would be ineffective. Certainly the public, in such an event, would want to know why

we were maintaining the system when we knew or should have known that it was

ineffective. A statement that we assume the risk of sporadic raids to release manpower

and materials for offensive operations would be far better than explanations as to why

expensive preparations to repel such raids did not work.106

After some discussion the Joint Staff Planners also concluded that "an

103

 Memo, G-3 for CofS, 14 Nov 43, OPD 320 Def of Cont U.S./39. 104

 Memo, CG AGF for CofS, 27 Nov 43; Memo, ACofS OPD for CofS, 1 Dec 43; Memo,

Chief, North American Theater, OPD, for ACofS OPD, 6 Jan 44. All in OPD 320 Def of Cont

U.S./39. This reduction was completed by May 1944. It left the two remaining defense commands

with about 25,000 harbor defense troops, about 24,000 troops in twelve antiaircraft groups, and

about 11,000 in mechanized cavalry regiments. 105

 Ltr, CG WDC to CofS, 30 Aug 43; D/F, AAF to OPD, 23 Sep 43; Memo, Col James K.

Tully for Chief, North American Theater, OPD, 29 Sep 43. All in OPD 384 WDC/23. 106 Incl to JPS 333, 1 Dec 43, ABC 384 North America (11-29-42).
CONTINENTAL DEF. COMMANDS AFTER PEARL HARBOR 111

effective aircraft warning service cannot be maintained in coastal areas of

the Continental United States (even if personnel were available) because

of the volume of essential flight training in such areas."

 107

 In April 1944 the

Joint Chiefs of Staff finally adopted a new statement of policy that in effect made the War and Navy Departments rather than the regional commanders responsible for the success or failure of the remnants of the air

defense system.108

During the war the Germans actually engaged in preparations for a

token air raid against the east coast of the United States such as American

intelligence had contemplated since the summer of 1943.109 Long before

the United States became a belligerent, the German Air Force had undertaken to develop a long-range bomber that could make a two-way flight

across the ocean. In May 1942 the Germans settled upon a model that they

hoped to be able to fly from the Brittany Peninsula to New York City and

back. Technical difficulties and the distractions of the Russian campaign

frustrated this hope, and in June 1944 they abandoned work on a roundtrip bomber. The possibility of a one-way flight, with submarines to be used

to pick up the crews after the bombing, offered a better prospect of success,

and the Germans were working on a plan of this sort in August 1944.110

In September German technical experts termed practicable a scheme that

would have had even more startling results if successful. They had installed

a launching device on a barge so that a V-2 rocket bomb could be fired

from 100 miles offshore, apparently with the thought of having a submarine tow one or more barges across the ocean.111

This last scheme was probably the basis for an intelligence report that

reached Washington on 1 November 1944 to the effect that the Germans

were fitting out submarines to be used for a robot bombing of New York

City. Both Army and Navy intelligence officers evaluated this report as "a

possibility," but Navy headquarters in Washington took it more seriously.

On 3 November the Eastern Sea Frontier commander was directed to institute an immediate saturation air search against submarines within a 250-

mile arc to the seaward from New York and to secure the help of Army

planes in doing so. Coincidentally the War Department advised its defense

107

 JPS 333/3, 3 Feb 44, ABC 384 North America (11-29-42). 108

 JCS 807, 5 Apr 44. 109

 For example, Memo, ACofAS (Intelligence) for CofAS, 4 Aug 43, copy in AG 381

(3-2-42). 110

 Werner Baumbach, Zu Spaet? (Muenchen: Richard Pflaum Verlag, 1949), pp. 157-61;

MS # P-069, The Kreipe Diary (Werner Kreipe), entry of 21 Aug 44. 111

 Walter Dornberger, V2: Der Schuss ins Weltall (Esslingen: Bechtle Verlag, 1952),

pp. 263-65.
112 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

JAPANESE FREE BALLOON approaching the

Pacific Coast.

and air commanders that the Army's

evaluation of the report did not

warrant any positive action. The

Navy put its search into effect with

its own planes as best it could on 4

November, but it took three more

days to straighten out the tangle of

conflicting instructions from Washington so that an alert with full

Army participation could be put

into effect. The alert and search operations continued until 10 November, when they were called off.

Nothing that the air defense system

of 1944 could have done would

have stopped this kind of bomb, but

the episode illustrated the existing

paucity of defense means and inability of the local service commanders to take rapid co-ordinated action.112

Although the Army rejected a Navy proposal for a new over-all command

arrangement to be applied in emergencies of this sort, General Marshall did

correct the Army's command system by issuing a new prescription: "In the

event of imminent emergency as determined by the Commanding General

of the Defense Command [he is authorized] to assume command of all

U.S. Army Forces physically located within the boundaries of the Defense

Command and to notify the War Department of measures which have been

taken."

 113

 One alarm in December received prompt and efficient handling.

On the other hand, the service chiefs were not deterred from their offensive

course by these reports, and a joint memorandum to the President on 11

December stated that the "diversion of troops or effort from present

missions to meet the air defense aspect of the robot bomb threat is altogether

unjustified."

 114

112

 A large sheaf of papers in OPD 384/82 deals with this episode; the account in History of

the Eastern Defense Command, pages 61-62, is somewhat garbled; Lt. Gen. George Grunert, Commanding General, Eastern Defense Command, in 1944, recalled the incident in testimony given

on 15 December 1946, in Report of War Department Civil Defense Board, An. 1, p. 222. 113

 OPD Memo for Rcd, 3 Dec 44, OPD 320 Def of Cont U.S./49. 114

 OPD Summary Sheet, 16 Dec 44, OPD 384/82.
CONTINENTAL DEF. COMMANDS AFTER PEARL HARBOR 113

Three days after Washington received its initial warning of a robot

bomb attack, the first of the Japanese "free balloons" was recovered from

the sea off San Pedro, California. About ninety of these balloons—almost

all of them having bags constructed of paper—were recovered in the continental United States between November 1944 and August 1945. None is

known to have arrived after mid-April. The Japanese launched the balloons

from the Sendai area of northern Honshu Island. The bags of the balloons

were 331⁄2 feet in diameter and lifted various mechanisms and a load of

from 25 to 65 pounds of incendiary and antipersonnel bombs. The balloons

were carried across the north Pacific by high air currents in as little as four

days. About 9,300 were launched, and some drifted as far east as Michigan

and south into Mexico. Many landed in Alaska and Canada, and a few in

Hawaii.115 They did almost no damage, and there is no proven instance of

a balloon igniting a forest fire. The only casualties traceable to them occurred at Bly, Ore., on 5 May 1945, when a woman and five children on a

Sunday School picnic were killed when they tried to take a bomb apart. The

press co-operated in keeping balloon sightings and recoveries a secret, and

the lack of news about them may have helped persuade the Japanese to discontinue the operation in the spring of 1945.116

Why the Japanese undertook the free balloon operation is not known.

A press story from Tokyo after the war stated that "the balloon bomb was

Japan's V-1 weapon in efforts to get revenge for the Doolittle raid on

Tokyo in April 1942."

 117

 Japanese preparations for the operation actually

began in 1942, but they may have been undertaken more as an encouragement to Japanese war morale than as a method of undermining American

morale or of inflicting damage. This seems to be the import of the following

bit of testimony given by a captured Japanese officer: "The bag part of the

balloons which were being sent to America consisted of hundreds of small

pieces of paper. . . . These pieces were made by school children all over

Japan, gathered up village by village, and shipped to a central assembly

place for reshipment to the factory where the balloons were finally completed."

 118

 In practice, the free balloon operation was so innocuous that

115

 The number that actually reached American shores is indeterminable, since the balloons

carried a timed self-destroying mechanism and recoveries occurred only when this mechanism

failed to work. 116

 MID Rpts, especially Rpt 8, 1 Sep 45, sub: Japanese Free Balloons and Related Incidents,

ABC 452.4 Japan (1-29-45); Hist of WDC, vol. I, ch. 5, and vol. V (which contains the detailed WDC Intelligence Studies 1 and 2, and the Jt WSF-WDC Plan BD-1, 15 Aug 45, for

dealing with Japanese balloon operations); Craven and Cate, eds., Men and Planes, pp. 116-18. 117

 Quoted in Hist of WDC, vol. I, ch. 5, p. 6. 118

 Quoted in MID Rpt 8, 1 Sep 45, ABC 452.4 Japan (1-29-45).
114 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

American military and civilian officials naturally suspected a more sinister

ultimate purpose. The Army and Navy collaborated with civilian agencies

in taking such immediate protective measures as were possible and drafted

plans for combating any kind of warfare that the balloon operations might

presage.

The enemy threats of the last year of the war had no real influence on

the reduction and virtual disbandment of the continental defenses begun in

1942. Very few Army aircraft were actually used for defense purposes after

the summer of 1942 except in the war against the submarine. The ground

defenses reached their peak strength in effectiveness about a year after

Pearl Harbor, and thereafter their actual strength declined much more

rapidly than their numerical strength. After June 1943 the ground defenses

were reduced as rapidly as possible under the policy of calculated risk. Hindsight may judge that this reduction should have begun much earlier, but the

services had always to take political considerations into account as well as

their own considered estimates of enemy capabilities. After January 1944

the continental United States had only token Army forces assigned to its

defense, and even these forces underwent nearly a tenfold decrease in

strength between then and the end of the war. In August 1945 the Eastern

and Western Defense Commands still had a complement of about 17,000

officers and men on duty, but their active defense function had all but

vanished.
CHAPTER V

Japanese Evacuation

From the West Coast

One of the Army's largest undertakings in the name of defense during

World War II was the evacuation of almost all persons of Japanese ancestry from California, from the western halves of Oregon and Washington,

and from southern Arizona. The Army also removed persons of Japanese

descent from Alaska and began what was initially intended to be a substantial transfer of such persons from Hawaii to the mainland.1

 Many facets of

the story of the Japanese evacuation from the west coast have already been

related in published works.2 Here the discussion is limited to the plans and

decisions for evacuation and to the nature of the military necessity that lay

behind them.3

Initial plans for evacuation of suspected persons from strategic areas

along the Pacific front concerned enemy aliens of all three Axis nations—

Germany, Italy, and Japan—rather than persons of Japanese ancestry alone.

Of the latter, the census of 1940 showed that, out of a total of 126,947 in

the continental United States, 112,353 were living in the three Pacific

states. California alone had 93,717 Japanese, or nearly three-fourths of the

national total. Of the west coast Japanese, 40,869 were aliens ineligible for

1

 On Hawaii, see ch. VIII, below. 2

 During the war the Army itself published a detailed report of the origins and execution of

the evacuation program: United States War Department, Final Report: Japanese Evacuation From

the West Coast, 1942 (Washington, 1943) (hereafter cited as War Department, Final Report).

The principal works published since the war are: Mortin Grodzins, Americans Betrayed: Politics

and the Japanese Evacuation (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1949) (hereafter cited

as Grodzins, Japanese Evacuation); Dorothy S. Thomas and Richard S. Nishimoto, The Spoilage

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1946) and The Salvage (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1952); Jacobus tenBrock, Edward N. Barnhart, and Floyd W. Watson, Prejudice,

War and the Constitution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954); and the United States

Department of the Interior, War Relocation Authority, WRA: A Story of Human Conservation

(Washington, 1946) (hereafter cited as WRA). 3

 A substantially similar account of the decision to evacuate the Japanese appeared as study 4

in the collection of studies prepared by the Office of the Chief of Military History, Command

Decisions (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1959), and as study 5 in the publicly

printed edition of this work (Washington, 1960).
116 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

citizenship, and 71,484 were American-born citizens. In early 1942 there

were about 58,000 Italian and 22,000 German aliens in the Pacific states.

Most of the Germans, and a large proportion of the Japanese and Italians,

lived in or near the principal cities and adjacent strategic areas. A good many

of the German aliens were recent refugees from Nazi Germany. In contrast

to the Germans and Italians, the Japanese in the Pacific states, and especially

in California, had been the target of hostility and restrictive action for

several decades, a factor that unquestionably colored the measures taken

against these people after Pearl Harbor.4

The Background of Evacuation Planning

A prewar agreement made the Department of Justice responsible for

controlling enemy aliens in the continental United States in the event of

war. During 1941 this department (primarily, through its Federal Bureau

of Investigation) scrutinized the records of prospective enemy aliens and

compiled lists of those against whom there were grounds for suspicion of

disloyalty. Presidential proclamations of 7 and 8 December 1941, dealing

with the control of Japanese and of German and Italian aliens, respectively,

provided the basis for immediate action against those so suspected. On 7

December President Roosevelt authorized the Army to co-operate with the

FBI in rounding up individual enemy aliens considered actually or potentially

dangerous. By 13 December the Department of Justice had interned a total

of 831 alien residents of the Pacific states, including 595 Japanese and 187

Germans, and by 16 February 1942 the number of alien Japanese apprehended

had increased to 1,266. By specifically authorizing the exclusion of enemy

aliens "from any locality in which residence by an alien enemy shall be

found to constitute a danger to the public peace and safety of the United

States," the Presidential proclamations also provided a basis for evacuation

on a larger scale.5

During the first few days after the Pearl Harbor attack the west coast

was greatly alarmed by a number of reports—all false—of enemy ships offshore, and it was in this atmosphere that the first proposal for a mass

4

 The background of attitudes and action toward the Japanese is described in detail in tenBrock

et al., Prejudice, War and the Constitution, ch. I. 5

 Ltr, TAG to CG's, 29 Jul 41, AG 014.311 (1-13-41), sec. 1; Proclamations of 7 and 8 Dec

41, copies in PMG 014.311 WDC and PMG 383.01 Hawaii; Tel Conv, SGS with Gen DeWitt,

7 Dec 41, WDC 381 RAINBOW 4; Memo, Special Asst to SW for PMG, 13 Dec 41, PMG 014.311

WDC; Grodzins, Japanese Evacuation, p. 232; J. Edgar Hoover, "Alien Enemy Control," Iowa

Law Review, XXIX (March 1944), 396-408.
JAPANESE EVACUATION FROM THE WEST COAST 117

evacuation of the Japanese developed. On 10 December an agent of the

Treasury Department reported to Army authorities that "an estimated

20,000 Japanese in the San Francisco metropolitan area were ready for

organized action." Without checking the authenticity of the report, the

Ninth Corps Area staff hurriedly completed a plan for their evacuation

that was approved by the corps area commander. The next morning the

Army called the local FBI chief, who "scoffed at the whole affair as the

wild imaginings of a discharged former FBI man." This stopped any

further local action for the moment, but the corps area commander duly

reported the incident to Washington and expressed the hope that "it may

have the effect of arousing the War Department to some action looking to

the establishment of an area or areas for the detention of aliens."

 6

 His

recommendation that "plans be made for large-scale internment" was forwarded by the Chief of Staff's office to G-2 and to the Provost Marshal

General.7 On 19 December, and apparently as one consequence of this initial flurry, General DeWitt, as commander of the Western Defense Command, recommended to GHQ "that action be initiated at the earliest practicable date to collect all alien subjects fourteen years of age and over, of

enemy nations and remove them to the Zone of the Interior."

 8

However General DeWitt may have felt during December about the

treatment of enemy aliens, he was then firmly opposed to any evacuation of

citizens. In a telephone conversation he had on 26 December with Maj. Gen.

Allen W. Gullion, the Provost Marshal General, the latter remarked that

he had just been visited by a representative of the Los Angeles Chamber of

Commerce, who had asked for a roundup of all Japanese in the Los Angeles

area. In response, General DeWitt said (and General Gullion expressed

agreement with what he said):

I thought that thing out to my satisfaction. . . . if we go ahead and arrest the 93,000

Japanese, native born and foreign born, we are going to have an awful job on our

hands and are very liable to alienate the loyal Japanese from disloyal. . . . I'm ver

doubtful that it would be common sense procedure to try and intern or to intern 117,000

Japanese in this theater. . . . I told the governors of all the states that those people

should be watched better if they were watched by the police and people of the community in which they live and have been living for years. . . . and then inform the

F.B.I. or the military authorities of any suspicious action so we could take necessary

steps to handle it . . . rather than try to intern all those people, men, women and children, and hold them under military control and under guard. I don't think it's a sensible

6

 Memo, G-2 Fourth Army for CofS Fourth Army, 11 Dec 41, WDC-CAD 014.31 Enemy

Aliens. 7

 OCS Index, 11 Dec 41, Tally Card info re OCS 21227-38 and 39. 8

 Ltr, CG WDC to CG GHQ, 19 Dec 41, WDC-CAD 014.31.
118 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

thing to do. . . . I'd rather go along the way we are now . . . rather than 

such wholesale internment. . . . An American citizen, after all, is an American citizen.

And while they all may not be loyal, I think we can weed the disloyal out of the loyal

and lock them up if necessary.9

What General DeWitt wanted at this time was the prompt issuance of

clear instructions to FBI agents on the west coast that would enable them

to take more positive steps to prevent sabotage and espionage. At his urging

Secretary of War Stimson had conferred with Attorney General Francis

Biddle, and thereafter Mr. Biddle speeded up the preparation of regulations

to implement the Presidential proclamations of 7 and 8 December. Late in

the month the Department of Justice announced regulations requiring enemy

aliens in the Western Defense Command to surrender radio transmitters,

short-wave radio receivers, and certain types of cameras, by 5 January 1942.

On 30 December General DeWitt was informed that the Attorney General

had also authorized the issuance of warrants for search and arrest in any

house where an enemy alien lived upon representation by an FBI agent that

there was reasonable cause to believe that there was contraband on the

premises.10 In addition, the Department of Justice and the Provost Marshal

General had arranged to send representatives to San Francisco to confer with

General DeWitt in order to work out more specific arrangements for controlling enemy aliens. To centralize and expedite Army action in Washington, General Gullion also arranged for General DeWitt to deal directly

with the Provost Marshal General's office on west coast alien problems, and

for the latter to keep GHQ informed of developments.11

The San Francisco conference took place on 4 and 5 January 1942.

Before the meetings the War Department's representative, Maj. Karl R.

Bendetsen, Chief of the Aliens Division, Provost Marshal General's office,

recommended that General DeWitt insist on several measures beyond those

already ordered by the Attorney General. In particular he urged the definition of strategic areas from which all enemy aliens were to be excluded and

that authority to prescribe such areas be vested in the Army. He also insisted

that there must be a new and complete registration of enemy aliens and a

"pass and permit" system similar to the one prevalent in prewar Europe.

The Justice representative, Assistant Attorney General James Rowe, Jr., also

9

 Tel Conv, Gen DeWitt with Gen Gullion, 26 Dec 41, WDC-CAD 311.3 Tel Convs

(DeWitt, 42-43). 10

 tenBrock et al., Prejudice, War and the Constitution, p. 102; Memo, Col Archer L. Lerch

for TAG, 30 Dec 41, PMG 014.311 WDC. 11

 Memo, PMG for ACofS G-1 GHQ, 1 Jan 42, and inclosed copy of Ltr, PMG to Gen

DeWitt, 1 Jan 42, GHQ G-1 file, Subversive Activities, WDC.
JAPANESE EVACUATION FROM THE WEST COAST 119

presented broader plans for action than the Attorney General had hitherto

approved. In opening the conference, General DeWitt emphatically

declared his serious concern over the alien situation and his distrust in particular of the Japanese population—both aliens and citizens. But, according

to the later recollections of Mr. Rowe, the general during the meetings

opposed a mass evacuation of the Japanese. What he wanted was a full

implementation of the President's proclamations. The conference ended

with agreement on a plan of action providing for an alien registration with

the least practicable delay, for FBI searches of suspected premises under

regulations that subsequently proved satisfactory to General DeWitt, and

for the designation of strategic areas from which enemy aliens could be

barred by the Attorney General, who would "entertain" Army recommendations on this score if they were accompanied by an exact description of each

area.12

The arrangements agreed upon at San Francisco took longer to put into

effect than either General DeWitt or the Justice representatives had anticipated. The registration of enemy aliens was finally undertaken between

2 and 9 February, and the large-scale "spot" raids that General DeWitt was

especially anxious to have launched did not get under way until the same

week, so that both operations took place in the period when agitation against

the Japanese was rapidly mounting. General DeWitt had anticipated that

he could fix the boundaries of restricted areas by 9 January, but it was 21

January before he sent the first of his lists to Washington for transmission

to the Attorney General. One of his principal difficulties was to reconcile

the recommendations of the Navy, which by agreement were to be made

through him, with the position of the Department of Justice. Navy commanders wanted to exclude not only enemy aliens but also all Americanborn Japanese who could not show "actual severance of all allegiance to

the Japanese Government."

 13

General DeWitt's recommendation of 21 January, for California, called

for the exclusion of enemy aliens from eighty-six Category A zones and

12

 Memo, Maj Bendetsen for Gen DeWitt, 3 Jan 42; Notes on Conf in Office of Gen DeWitt,

4 Jan 42. Both in WDC-CAD 014.31 Aliens. War Department, Final Report, pp. 4-6, 19-24.

Tel Conv, Gen DeWitt with Col Raymond R. Tourtillott, 5 Jan 42, WDC-CAD 311.3 Tel Convs

(DeWitt, 42-43). tenBrock et al., Prejudice, War and the Constitution, pp. 104-05, citing notes

on interv with Mr. Rowe, 15 Oct 42. 13

 The Twelfth and Thirteenth Naval District commanders made recommendations in identical

language on this score. Memo, Adm John W. Greenslade, Commandant Twelfth Naval District,

for CG Northern California Sector, 8 Jan 42; Ltr, CG IX Army Corps to CG WDC, 8 Jan 42.

Both in WDC-CAD 014.31 Aliens. Tel Conv, Gen DeWitt with Maj Gen Kenyon A. Joyce,

8 Jan 42, WDC-CAD 311.3 Tel Convs (DeWitt, 42-43).
120 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

their close control by a pass and permit system in eight Category B zones.

Many of the Category A areas were uninhabited or had no alien population,

but the execution of this recommendation nevertheless would have required

the evacuation of more than 7,000 persons. Only 40 percent of these would

have been Japanese aliens, and the majority would have been Italians.14 The

Secretary of War's letter (drafted in the Provost Marshal General's office)

forwarding this recommendation to Mr. Biddle added the following comments:

In recent conferences with General DeWitt, he has expressed great apprehension

because of the presence on the Pacific coast of many thousand alien enemies. As late

as yesterday, 24 January, he stated over the telephone that shore-to-ship and ship-toshore radio communications, undoubtedly coordinated by intelligent enemy control

were continually operating. A few days ago it was reported by military observers on

the Pacific coast that not a single ship had sailed from our Pacific ports without being

subsequently attacked. General DeWitt's apprehensions have been confirmed by recent

visits of military observers from the War Department to the Pacific coast.

The alarming and dangerous situation just described, in my opinion, calls for

immediate and stringent action.15

Actually there had been no Japanese submarine or surface vessels anywhere

near the west coast during the preceding month, and careful investigation

subsequently indicated that all claims of hostile shore-to-ship and ship-toshore communication lacked any foundation whatsoever.16

 Similar recommendations for restricted areas in Arizona, Oregon, and Washington followed, and were forwarded to Justice by 3 February.17

 By then the position

of the Japanese population was under heavy attack, and in consequence the

alien exclusion program was being eclipsed by a drive to evacuate all people

of Japanese descent from the west coast states.

Agitation for a mass evacuation of the Japanese did not reach significant dimensions until more than a month after the outbreak of war. Then,

14

 Ltr and Incls, CG WDC to Atty Gen (through PMG), 21 Jan 42, PMG 384.4 (California)

General. The initial Category B recommendation would have affected an estimated 28,672 Italian,

13,305 Japanese, and 8,404 German aliens. 15

 Ltr, SW to Atty Gen, 25 Jan 42, PMG 384.4 (California) General. The transcript of General

DeWitt's telephone remarks reads ". . . we know there are radios along the coast; and we know

they are communicating at sea. They may be communicating with each other. . . ." Tel Conv, Gen

DeWitt with Gen Gullion, 24 Jan 42, WDC-CAD 311.3 Tel Convs (DeWitt 42-43). 16

 On Japanese operations, see ch. IV, above; on communications, Ltr, James L. Fly, Chairman,

Federal Communications Commission, to Atty Gen Biddle, 4 Apr 44, quoted in WRA monograph

by Ruth E. McKee, Wartime Exile: The Exclusion of Japanese-Americans From the West Coast

(Washington, 1946) (hereafter cited as McKee, Wartime Exile), pp. 154-58. 17

 Ltr, SW to Atty Gen, 3 Feb 42, AG 014.311 (1-13-41), sec. 1, forwarded the OregonWashington recommendation and reviewed the earlier ones. General DeWitt's final recommendation in this series, with respect to Utah, dated 16 February 1942 (copy in PMG 384.4 WDC),

lists and describes the seven preceding ones.
JAPANESE EVACUATION FROM THE WEST COAST 121

beginning in mid-January 1942, public and private demands for federal and

state action increased rapidly in tempo and volume.18 Among the first of

these were letters of 16 January addressed by Representative Leland M. Ford

of Santa Monica, California, to the Secretary of War and to other members

of the Cabinet, urging that all Japanese—citizens as well as aliens—be

moved inland from the coast and put in concentration camps for the duration of the war.19

 Behind this and similar suggestions lay a profound suspicion of the Japanese population, fanned, of course, by the nature and scope

of Japan's early military successes in the Pacific. A GHQ intelligence

bulletin of 21 January, for example, concluded that there was an "espionage

net containing Japanese aliens, first and second generation Japanese and

other nations . . . thoroughly organized and working underground."

 20

 In

conversations with General Clark of GHQ on 20 and 21 January, General

DeWitt expressed his apprehension that any enemy raid on the west coast

would probably be accompanied by "a violent outburst of coordinated and

controlled sabotage" among the Japanese population.21 In talking with

General Gullion on 24 January, General DeWitt stated what was to become one of the principal arguments for mass evacuation. "The fact that

nothing has happened so far is more or less . . . ominous," he said, "in that

I feel that in view of the fact that we have had no sporadic attempts at

sabotage that there is a control being exercised and when we have it it will

be on a mass basis."

 22

The publication of the report of the Roberts Commission, which had

investigated the Pearl Harbor attack, on 25 January had a large and immediate effect both on public opinion and on government action. The report concluded that there had been widespread espionage in Hawaii before Pearl

Harbor, both by Japanese consular agents and by Japanese residents of Oahu

who had "no open relations with the Japanese foreign service."

 23

 The latter

18

 Grodzins, Japanese Evacuation, contains the most detailed analysis of the pressures that

developed during January and February for Japanese evacuation. Most of the large number of

communications addressed to the War Department on this subject, and its responses, are in AG

014.311 files. The first written communication of this sort received by the War Department was

dated 6 January 1942. 19

 Ltr, Representative Ford to SW, 16 Jan 42; Ltr, SW to Representative Ford, 26 Jan 42. Both

in AG 014.311 (1-16-42). 20

 GHQ G-2 Infor Bull 6, 21 Jan 42, copy in ASW 014.311 WDC Gen. 21

 Memo, Gen Clark for Judge Advocate GHQ, 24 Jan 42, GHQ file, WDC: Enemy Aliens. 22

 Tel Conv, Gen DeWitt with Gen Gullion, 24 Jan 42, WDC-CAD 311.3 Tel Convs

(DeWitt, 42-43). 23

 The Roberts Report is published in Pearl Harbor Attack: Hearings Before the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack (39 parts) (Washington, 1946) (hereafter cited as Pearl Harbor Attack), pt. 39, pp. 1-21.
122 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

charge, though proven false after the war was over, was especially inflammatory at the time it was made. On 27 January General DeWitt had a long

talk with Governor Culbert L. Olson of California and afterward reported:

There's a tremendous volume of public opinion now developing against the Japanese of all classes, that is aliens and non-aliens, to get them off the land, and in

Southern California around Los Angeles—in that area too—they want and they are

bringing pressure on the government to move all the Japanese out. As a matter of fact,

it's not being instigated or developed by people who are not thinking but by the best

people of California. Since the publication of the Roberts Report they feel that they

are Jiving in the midst of a lot of enemies. They don't trust the Japanese, none of

them.24

After another talk two days later with the Attorney General of California,

Mr. Earl Warren, General DeWitt reported that Mr. Warren was in

thorough agreement with Governor Olson that the Japanese population

should be removed from the state of California, and the Army commander

now expressed his own unqualified concurrence in this proposal and also his

willingness to accept responsibility for the enemy alien program if it were

transferred to him.25

In Washington, as Major Bendetsen told General DeWitt on the same

day, 29 January, the California Congressional delegation was "beginning

to get up in arms" and its representatives had scheduled an informal meeting

for the following afternoon to formulate recommendations for action. Some

Washington state Congressmen also attended this meeting, to which representatives of the Justice and War Departments were invited. Major Bendetsen reported General DeWitt's views to the assembled Congressmen and,

though denying that he was authorized to speak for the War Department,

nevertheless expressed the opinion that the Army would be entirely willing

to take over from Justice, "provided they accorded the Army, and the Secretary of War, and the military commander under him, full authority to require

the services of any other federal agency, and provided that federal agency

was required to respond."

 26

 The Congressmen unanimously approved a suggested program for action, which called for an evacuation of enemy aliens

and "dual" citizens from critical areas, but which made no specific mention

of the Japanese. In presenting the Congressional program to his chief, Major

24

 Tel Conv, Gen DeWitt with Maj Bendetsen, 28 Jan 42, WDC-CAD 311.3 Tel Convs

(DeWitt, 42-43). 25

 Tel Conv, Gen DeWitt with Maj Bendetsen, 29 Jan 42, as recorded both in WDC-CAD

311.3 Tel Convs (DeWitt, 42-43) and in PMG 384.4 WDC; PMG daily Rcd of Operations,

29 Jan 42, PMG 384.4 WDC. 26

 Tel Conv, Gen DeWitt with Maj Bendetsen, 30 Jan 42; PMG Daily Rcd of Operations,

29 and 30 Jan 42. Both in PMG 384.4 WDC.
JAPANESE EVACUATION FROM THE WEST COAST 123

Bendetsen described it as actually "calling for the immediate evacuation of

all Japanese from the Pacific coastal strip including Japanese citizens of the

age of 21 and under, and calling for an Executive order of the President, imposing full responsibility and authority (with power to requisition the

services of other Federal agencies) upon the War Department."

 27

 He also

reported the recommendations as adopted to General DeWitt, who expressed general approval of them despite some technical objections. After

the Congressional meeting its chairman, Representative Clarence F. Lea,

formally presented the recommendations to the War Department.28

The next day, in reflecting on these recommendations, General DeWitt

recorded this opinion:

As a matter of fact, the steps now being taken by the Attorney General through

the F.B.I. will do nothing more than exercise a controlling influence and preventive

action against sabotage; it will not, in my opinion, be able to stop it. The only positive

answer to this question is evacuation of all enemy aliens from the West Coast and

resettlement or internment under positive control, military or otherwise.29

What he wanted, he told Major Bendetsen, was the removal of German and

Italian aliens as well as all Japanese residents and he wanted all evacuees

from any one particular area to be moved at the same time.30

The Department of Justice in the meantime had agreed informally to

accept General DeWitt's initial recommendation for restricted areas in

California, and it was preparing to carry out this and other aspects of the

alien control program. On 28 January it announced the appointment of

Thomas C. Clark as Co-ordinator of the Alien Enemy Control Program

within the Western Defense Command, and Mr. Clark arrived on the scene

of action on the following day. On 29 January Justice made its first public

announcement about the restricted Category A areas that were to be cleared

of enemy aliens by 24 February.31

As a result of the Congressional recommendations and other developments, Attorney General Biddle asked War Department representatives to

attend a meeting in his office on Saturday afternoon, 1 February. There he

presented them with the draft of a press release to be issued jointly by the

Justice and War Departments, indicating agreement on all alien control

27

 Memo, Maj Bendetsen for PMG, 31 Jan 42, PMG 384.4 WDC. The Congressional recommendations were a verbatim copy of a draft submitted by a representative of the Los Angeles

Chamber of Commerce. See Grodzins, Japanese Evacuation, pages 67-69. 28

 Ltr, Representative Lea to SW, 30 Jan 42, AG 014.311 (1-30-42). 29

 Memo for Rcd, 31 Jan 42, dictated but not signed by Gen DeWitt, WDC-CAD 014.31. 30

 Tel Conv, Gen DeWitt with Maj Bendetsen, 31 Jan 42, AG 014.311 (1-13-41), sec. 10. 31

 Dept of Justice press releases, printed as Appendix, pp. 302-14, to H. Doc. 2124, 77th

Cong., 2d sess.
124 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

measures taken to date and including the statement: "The Department of

War and the Department of Justice are in agreement that the present military situation does not at this time require the removal of American citizens

of the Japanese race." In opening the meeting Mr. Biddle stated that Justice

would have nothing whatever to do with any interference with citizens or

with a suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. The War Department representatives—Assistant Secretary of War McCloy, General Gullion, and

Major Bendetsen—agreed to the wording of the press release except for the

sentence quoted. The meeting then adjourned, the War Department representatives withholding approval of any press release until General DeWitt's

views could be obtained, and until they learned the outcome of a conference

at Sacramento that had been arranged for 2 February between General

DeWitt, Mr. Clark, Governor Olsen, and other federal and state officials.

Major Bendetsen informed the Chief of Staff's office that the Justice Department's proposal had been held up also because General DeWitt in telephone

conversations had been provisionally recommending the evacuation of the

whole Japanese population from the Pacific coastal frontier. In the meantime

the Provost Marshal General's office had been formulating plans for mass

evacuation and had already located sufficient nontroop shelter for substantially all of the west coast Japanese. In a telephone conversation immediately

after the meeting with Justice representatives, Major Bendetsen reported,

General DeWitt agreed to submit a recommendation for mass evacuation

in writing.32

Before General DeWitt could report the outcome of the Sacramento

meeting, Secretary Stimson met on 3 February with Mr. McCloy, General

Gullion, and Major Bendetsen to confer about the proposed press release

and the Japanese problem in general. They discussed a proposal under which

military reservations would be established around the big aircraft factories

and some port and harbor installations, and from which everyone could be

excluded at the outset and until they were licensed to return. In practice

licenses would not be issued to Japanese residents or to other groups or

individuals under suspicion. It appeared that under this plan citizens as well

as aliens could be excluded legally without obvious discrimination.33

32

 Tel Conv, Gen DeWitt with Maj Bendetsen, 1 Feb 42; Tel Conv, Gen Gullion with Gen

Clark, 4 Feb 42. Both in PMG 384.4 WDC. Tel Conv, Gen DeWitt with Gen Gullion, 1 Feb 42,

GHQ G-1 file, Subversive Activities, WDC: Enemy Aliens; Memo, Maj Bendetsen for SGS;

2 Feb 42, AG 014.311 (1-13-41), sec. 10. 33

 Stimson Diary, entry of 3 Feb 42. Mr. Stimson jotted down some rough notes of this meeting

in an undated pencil memorandum, in SW file, Aliens. The press release as issued on 5 February

1942 is quoted in Grodzins, Japanese Evacuation, 258.
JAPANESE EVACUATION FROM THE WEST COAST 125

During the discussion, Mr. Stimson was handed a record of a telephone

conversation between General Marshall and General DeWitt, who had

called just as the Secretary of War's meeting was getting under way. In it,

General DeWitt said:

I had a conference yesterday with the Governor and several representatives from

the Department of Justice and Department of Agriculture, with a view to removal of

the Japanese from where they are now living to other portions of the state. And the

Governor thinks it can be satisfactorily handled without having a resettlement somewhere in the central part of the United States and removing them entirely from the

state of California. As you know the people out here are very much disturbed over

these aliens, the Japanese being among them, and want to get them out of the several

communities. And I've agreed that if they can solve the problem by getting them out

of the areas limited as the combat zone, that it would be satisfactory. That would take

them 100 to 150 miles from the coast, and they're working on it. The Department of

Justice has a representative here and the Department of Agriculture, and they think

the plan is an excellent one. I'm only concerned with getting them away from around

these aircraft factories and other places.34

In other exchanges on this and succeeding days General DeWitt explained

that what the California authorities proposed to do was to move both

citizen and alien Japanese (voluntarily if possible, and in collaboration with

American-born Japanese leaders) from urban areas and from along the

coast to agricultural areas within the state. They wanted to do this in particular in order to avoid having to replace the Japanese with Mexican and

Negro laborers who might otherwise have to be brought into California in

considerable numbers. The California officials felt they needed about ten

days to study the problem and come up with a workable plan. By 4 February

it appeared to General DeWitt that they could produce a plan that would

be satisfactory from a defense standpoint.35

After the meeting with Secretary Stimson, Mr. McCloy called General

DeWitt to tell him about the licensing plan and to caution him against

taking any position in favor of mass Japanese evacuation.36 The next day

General Gullion told General Clark that Mr. Stimson and Mr. McCloy

were against any mass evacuation of the Japanese. "They are pretty much

against it," he said, "and they are also pretty much against interfering with

citizens unless it can be done legally." While agreeing that the StimsonMcCloy point of view represented the War Department position for the

34

 Tel Conv, Gen Marshall with Gen DeWitt and accompanying notes of Col Deane, 3 Feb 42,

in OCS Tel Convs, binder 2. 35

 Memo, Gen DeWitt for ASW McCloy, 3 Feb 42, PMG 384.4 WDC; Tel Convs, Gen

DeWitt with Gen Joyce, 3 Feb 42, Gen DeWitt with Col Bendetsen, 4 Feb 42, and Gen DeWitt

with Gen Gullion 5 Feb 42, WDC-CAD 311.3 Tel Convs (DeWitt, 42-43). 36

 Tel Conv, Gen DeWitt with Mr. McCloy, 3 Feb 42, GHQ file, WDC: Enemy Aliens.
126 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

moment, General Gullion also said that personally he did not think the

licensing action proposed was going to cure the situation.37 On this same

day, 4 February, Lieutenant Colonel Bendetsen (just promoted to that rank)

in talking with General DeWitt remarked that he was sure that American

citizens of Japanese extraction would have to be excluded from some areas

at least. General DeWitt made no direct comment on this remark, but later

said:

You see, the situation is this: I have never on my own initiative recommended a

mass evacuation, or the removal of any man, any Jap, other than an alien. In other

words, I have made no distinction between an alien as to whether he is Jap, Italian, or

German—that they must all get out of Area A, that is the Category A area. The agitation to move all the Japanese away from the coast, and some suggestions, out of California entirely—is within the State, the population of the State, which has been

espoused by the Governor. I have never been a body [sic] to that, but I have said, if

you do that, and can solve that problem, it will be a positive step toward the protection

of the coast . . . But I have never said, "You've got to do it, in order to protect th

coast"; . . . I can take such measures as are necessary from a military standpoint to

control the American Jap if he is going to cause trouble within those restricted areas.38

Two days earlier, on 2 February, members of Congress from the Pacific

states had organized informally under the leadership of their senior Senator,

Hiram Johnson. He had appointed two subcommittees, one headed by Senator Rufus C. Holman of Oregon to consider plans for increased military

strength along the Pacific coast, and the other by Senator Mon C. Wallgren

of Washington to deal with the questions of enemy aliens and the prevention

of sabotage. On 4 February General Clark of GHQ and Admiral Harold R.

Stark, the Chief of Naval Operations, offered testimony on the west coast

military outlook at a meeting of the first of these subcommittees. Before

they spoke, Senator Holman summed up the situation by saying that the

people there were alarmed and horrified as to their persons, their employment, and their homes. General Clark said that he thought the Pacific states

were unduly alarmed. While both he and Admiral Stark agreed the west

coast defenses were not adequate to prevent the enemy from attacking, they

also agreed that the chance of any sustained attack or of an invasion was—

as General Clark put it—nil. They recognized that sporadic air raids on key

installations were a distinct possibility, but they also held that the west coast

military defenses were considerable and in fairly good shape; and, as Admiral Stark said, from the military point of view the Pacific coast necessarily had a low priority as compared with Hawaii and the far Pacific. These

37

 Tel Conv, Gen Gullion with Gen Clark, 4 Feb 42, PMG 384.4 WDC. 38

 Tel Conv, Gen DeWitt with Col Bendetsen, 4 Feb 42, WDC-CAD 311.3 Tel Convs

(DeWitt, 42-43).
JAPANESE EVACUATION FROM THE WEST COAST 127

authoritative Army and Navy views were passed on to the Wallgren subcommittee, but they do not seem to have made much impression.39

On this same day, 4 February, the federal government's Office of Facts

and Figures completed an analysis of a hasty survey of public opinion in

California and concluded: "Even with such a small sample,...one can

infer the situation in California is serious; that it is loaded with potential

dynamite; but that it is not as desperate as some people believe."

 40

 A contemporary Navy report described what was happening to the Japanese population in the Los Angeles area in these words: "...loss of employment and

income due to anti-Japanese agitation by and among Caucasian Americans,

continued personal attacks by Filipinos and other racial groups, denial of

relief funds to desperately needy cases, cancellation of licenses for markets,

produce houses, stores, etc., by California State authorities, discharges from

jobs by the wholesale, [and] unnecessarily harsh restrictions on travel including discriminatory regulations against all Nisei preventing them from

engaging in commercial fishing." While expressing opposition to any mass

evacuation of the Japanese, the report concluded that if practices such as

those described continued there would "most certainly be outbreaks of

sabotage, riots, and other civil strife in the not too distant future."

 41

The Decision for Mass Evacuation

It was within this setting that Colonel Bendetsen on 4 February addressed a long memorandum to General Gullion which concluded that an

enemy alien evacuation "would accomplish little as a measure of safety,"

since the alien Japanese were mostly elderly people who could do little harm

if they would. Furthermore, their removal would inevitably antagonize

large numbers of their relatives among the American-born Japanese. After

considering the various alternatives that had been suggested for dealing with

citizens, Colonel Bendetsen recommended the designation of military areas

39

 Memo for Rcd, Chief, WD Liaison Br, 6 Feb 42, GHQ file, WDC: Protection of Vital

Installations; Grodzins, Japanese Evacuation, pp. 71-73; H. Doc. 1911, 77th Cong., 2d sess.,

pp. 2-3. 40

 Memo, Bur of Intelligence for Dir OFF, 4 Feb 42, copy in ASW 014.311 Enemy Aliens on

the West Coast (EAWC). 41

 Rpt, Lt Comdr K.D. Ringle, Eleventh Naval District, through Commandant to CNO, no date,

copy in ASW 014.311 EAWC. From the contents of this report, the author concludes that it was

written about 1 February 1942, rather than ten days later as indicated in Grodzins, Japanese

Evacuation, p. 146, note 46. The substance of this report, the most detailed and sympathetic military

analysis of the Japanese problem in early 1942, was anonymously published in Harper's Magazine,

October 1942, pp. 489-97.
128 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

from which all persons who did not have permission to enter and remain

would be excluded as a measure of military necessity. In his opinion, this

plan was clearly legal and he recommended that it be executed by three

steps: first, the issuance of an Executive order by the President authorizing

the Secretary of War to designate military areas; second, the designation of

military areas upon the recommendation of General DeWitt; and, third, the

immediate evacuation from areas so designated of all persons to whom it

was not proposed to issue licenses to re-enter or remain. Colonel Bendetsen

assumed that, if military areas were established on the west coast in place

of all Category A areas thus far recommended by General DeWitt, about

30,000 people would have to be evacuated. On the same day, Colonel

Bendetsen's division drafted a proposal for applying the military area

scheme to the entire nation.42

The Deputy Provost Marshal General, Col. Archer L. Lerch, indorsed

Colonel Bendetsen's proposals, and in doing so commented on what he

called the "deciding weakening of General DeWitt" on the question of

Japanese evacuation, which he considered "most unfortunate." He also

thought the plan for resettlement within California being worked out between General DeWitt and the state authorities savored "too much of the

spirit of Rotary" and overlooked "the necessary cold-bloodedness of war."

 43

General Gullion presented a condensed version of Colonel Bendetsen's observations and recommendations to Mr. McCloy on 5 February. He also

noted that General DeWitt had changed his position and now appeared to

favor a more lenient treatment of the American-born Japanese to be worked

out in co-operation with their leaders; in General Gullion's opinion, such

co-operation was dangerous and the delay involved was "extremely dangerous."

 44

 A revision of his memorandum, with all reference to General DeWitt

deleted, became the Provost Marshal General's recommendation of 6 February to Mr. McCloy that steps be taken immediately to eliminate what

General Gullion described as the great danger of Japanese-inspired sabotage

on the west coast. He advised that these steps should include the internment

by the Army of all alien Japanese east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains,

together with as many citizen members of their families as would voluntarily

42

 Memo, Col Bendetsen for PMG, 4 Feb 42, PMG 014.311 Gen P/W; Memo, PMG for

CofS, 4 Feb 42, and inclosed draft of TAG letter to corps area commanders, submitted to CCS at

3:00 p.m., 11 Feb 42, PMG 384.4 Gen. On the outcome of the proposal to extend the military

area scheme throughout the continental United States, see Chapter II, above, and this chapter,

pp. 144-46, below. 43

 Memo, Deputy PMG for PMG, 4 Feb 42, PMG 384.4 WDC. 44

 Memo, PMG for ASW, 5 Feb 42, ASW 014.311 EAWC.
JAPANESE EVACUATION FROM THE WEST COAST 129

accompany them, and the exclusion of all citizen Japanese from restricted

zones and their resettlement with the assistance of various federal agencies.45

On the following day, 7 February, Colonel Bendetsen read General Gullion's memorandum to General DeWitt, who expressed some enthusiasm

for its recommendations but who did not want to indorse them without

further study.46 On the same day Colonel Bendetsen drafted an acknowledgement to the Congressional letter of 30 January, which affirmed that "an

adequate solution" for the west coast situation would be "formulated and

recommended in the very near future."

 47

 By 7 February, also, Mr. McCloy

had decided to send Colonel Bendetsen to the west coast "to confer with

General DeWitt in connection with mass evacuation of all Japanese,"

 48

 a

mission that was presently to produce new and detailed recommendations

from the west coast commander.49

In the meantime, the War and Justice Departments had been approaching an impasse over the area evacuations contemplated under the enemy

alien control program. After agreeing informally to accept General DeWitt's

initial California recommendation, Justice officials balked at accepting the

very large Category A areas he recommended for Washington and Oregon,

since they included the entire cities of Seattle, Tacoma, and Portland. The

45

 Memo, PMG for ASW, 6 Feb 42, ASW 014.311 EAWC. After Secretary Stimson's conversation with President Roosevelt on 11 February (see below), General Gullion sent a copy of

this memorandum to General Marshall, who initialed it and circulated it to the War Plans Division

and GHQ (copy in AG 014.311 (1-13-41), sec. 1). The author has been unable to find evidence

that General Marshall took any part in or was informed of developments in the planning of Japanese evacuation between 3 and 11 February. 46

 Two Tel Convs, Gen DeWitt with Col Bendetsen, 7 Feb 42, WDC-CAD 311.3 Tel Convs

(DeWitt, 42-43). 47

 Sent as Ltr, SW to Representative Lea, 10 Feb 42, AG 014.311 (1-30-42). 48

 This quotation is from an OCS condensation (on Tally Card 31 in re OCS 21227-88) of

information in the PMG daily Record of Operations of 7 February 1942 (an item that General

Marshall did not see). The file of this daily PMG compilation, if it could be found, would be

a valuable additional source for the story of Japanese evacuation planning but it was probably

destroyed. 49

 During the midst of their drafting, on 11 February, General DeWitt referred to them collectively as "the plan that Mr. McCloy wanted me to submit." Tel Conv, Gen DeWitt and Col

Bendetsen with Gen Gullion, 11 Feb 42, WDC-CAD 311.3 Tel Convs (DeWitt, 42-43). No

direct evidence of the nature of the Assistant Secretary's instructions to Colonel Bendetsen has

been found, but in ASW 014.311 EAWC there is a Memo for Record, 8 February 1942, unsigned

and with no indication of authorship, that reads in part as follows:

Japanese Evacuation, West Coast

Prepare definite instructions for DeWitt on following basis:

Select key points where danger is great and size not too large.

Put them in order of importance.

Evacuate everybody, aliens and citizens.

Institute system of permits.

Whole matter to be handled by Army authorities.

Then, as matter progresses, we will soon find out how far we can go.
130 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

execution of this recommendation would have required the evacuation of

about 10,700 additional enemy aliens and, as in the case of California, only

about 40 percent of these would have been Japanese. As a practical matter

the Department of Justice would have found it extremely difficult to supply

either the manpower or the internment facilities that a compulsory evacuation of 17,000 or 18,000 enemy aliens would have required, and by 4 February its representatives were intimating that, if there were any further

Category A recommendations or if the evacuation of any citizens were to be

involved, Justice would have to bow out and turn its evacuation responsibilities over to the War Department. General DeWitt on 4 February was

considering putting the whole Los Angeles area into Category A, because

his Air commander had recommended Category A zones around 220 different installations that, when plotted on the map, almost blanketed the area

anyway. For the same reason, General DeWitt believed he might have to

put all of San Diego in Category A also.50 He finally recommended the

blanket Category A coverage of these two cities on 7 February, and five days

later he recommended that almost all of the San Francisco Bay area be put

in Category A. If all of General DeWitt's recommendations for Category A

areas through 12 February had been accepted, it would have made necessary

the evacuation of nearly 89,000 enemy aliens from areas along the Pacific

coast—only 25,000 of whom would have been Japanese.51 Additionally, of

course, General DeWitt was counting upon the California state authorities

to persuade the citizen Japanese to evacuate California's urban areas and

other sensitive points along the coast.

On 9 February Attorney General Biddle formally agreed to announce

the Category A areas initially recommended for Arizona, California, Oregon,

50

 Tel Conv, Gen DeWitt with Col Bendetsen, 4 Feb 42; Tel Conv, Gen DeWitt with Gen

Gullion and Col Bendetsen, 4 Feb 42. Both in GHQ G-1 file, Subversive Activities, WDC. Memo,

CG WDC for PMG, 5 Feb 42, PMG 384.4 WDC. The memo also contained General DeWitt's

detailed justification for the Washington-Oregon recommendation, which Justice had requested

and this information was transmitted to Justice by Ltr, SW to Atty Gen, 11 Feb 42, PMG

384.4 WDC. 51

 The statistics in this paragraph have been compiled from General DeWitt's several recommendations and supplementary communications that he wrote in justification of them, which are

located in various PMG files. None of the enemy alien program recommendations submitted by

General DeWitt through 16 February included any American citizens of Japanese or other

extraction. The concentration of the Japanese population near strategic points seemed in itself to

be sinister in 1942 and was advanced in the War Department, Final Report (p. 9) as one of

the reasons that made their evacuation necessary. Actually, there was a greater proportionate

concentration of German and Italian aliens near strategic points than there was of Japanese.

General DeWitt's Category A recommendations would have affected nine-tenths of the west coast

German alien population and nearly three-fourths of the Italian aliens, but less than two-thirds of

the Japanese aliens.
JAPANESE EVACUATION FROM THE WEST COAST 131

and Washington as prohibited to enemy aliens by 15 or 24 February—with

the latter date applicable to those areas that had a considerable alien population. But Mr. Biddle questioned the necessity of forcibly excluding German

and Italian aliens from all of these areas and wondered why whole cities

had been included in Washington and Oregon and none in California. He

added that if, as he had been informally advised, all of Los Angeles County

was going to be recommended as a Category A area, the Department of

Justice would have to step out of the picture because it did not have the

physical means to carry out a mass evacuation of this scope. In conclusion, he

stated that the Department of Justice was not authorized under any circumstances to evacuate American citizens; if the Army for reasons of military

necessity wanted that done in particular areas, the Army itself would have

to do it.52

The Attorney General's stand led naturally to the drafting of a War

Department memorandum summarizing the "questions to be determined re

Japanese exclusion" that needed to be presented to President Roosevelt for

decision. These questions were:

(1) Is the President willing to authorize us to move Japanese citizens as well as

aliens from restricted areas?

(2) Should we undertake withdrawal from the entire strip DeWitt originally

recommended, which involves a number of over 100,000 people, if we included both

aliens and Japanese citizens?

(3) Should we undertake the intermediate step involving, say, 70,000, which includes large communities such as Los Angeles, San Diego, and Seattle?

(4) Should we take any lesser step such as the establishment of restricted areas

around airplane plants and critical installations, even though General DeWitt states

that in several, at least, of the large communities this would be wasteful, involve

difficult administrative problems, and might be a source of more continuous irritation

and trouble than 100 percent withdrawal from the area?

 53

After a morning conference with Mr. McCloy and General Clark about

the alternative courses proposed, Mr. Stimson tried to see the President to

discuss them with him. Mr. Roosevelt was too busy for an interview, but

in a telephone call at 1:30 p.m. the Secretary after describing the situation

to the President "fortunately found that he was very vigorous about it and

52

 Ltr, Atty Gen to SW, 9 Feb 42, quoted verbatim in Tel Conv, Col Bryan with Col

Bendetsen, 11 Feb 42, WDC-CAD 311.3 Tel Convs (Bendetsen, Feb-Mar 42). 53

 Memo for Rcd (unsigned), 11 Feb 42, ASW 014.311 EASC. The figures given in (2)

and (3) are about equal to the population of Japanese descent that these steps would affect.

It is also evident from Mr. Stimson's diary entries of 10 and 11 February that these proposals

did not contemplate any mass evacuation of German or Italian aliens. A re-examination of the

diary has resulted in a significant alteration in the account previously published in Command

Decisions about what happened on 11 February.
132 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

[he] told me to go ahead on the line that I had myself thought the best."

 54

What Mr. Stimson thought best at this time, according to his Diary, was

to begin as quickly as possible with the evacuation of both citizen and alien

Japanese from the vicinity of "the most vital places of army and navy

production."

 55

In reporting Mr. Stimson's conversation with the President to San

Francisco, Mr. McCloy told Colonel Bendetsen that "we have carte blanche

to do what we want to as far as the President's concerned," and that Mr.

Roosevelt had specifically authorized the evacuation of citizens. Mr. McCloy

said that the President had recognized that there probably would be some

repercussions to the evacuation of citizens, but that what was to be done

had to be dictated by the military necessity of the situation, subject only to

the qualification, "Be as reasonable as you can." The Assistant Secretary also

told Colonel Bendetsen that he thought the President was prepared to sign

an Executive order giving the War Department the authority to carry out

whatever action it decided upon.56

The President's decisions as reported by Mr. McCloy gave an understandable impetus to the preparation of new written recommendations by

General DeWitt, which with the assistance of Colonel Bendetsen he had

begun to draft on the evening of 10 February. These were embodied in a

formal memorandum for the Secretary of War of 13 February, which was

forwarded with a covering memorandum for GHQ via air mail.57 General

DeWitt's new recommendations differed from those he had already submitted under the enemy alien control program in only one important particular: he recommended the enforced evacuation by federal authority of the

American-born Japanese from the Category A areas already recommended

by him in previous letters to the Secretary of War.58 His memorandum

54

 Stimson Diary, entry of 11 Feb 42. 55

 Ibid. 56

 Tel Conv, Mr. McCloy with Col Bendetsen, 11 Feb 42, 11:15 a.m. Pacific Time, WDC-CAD

311.3 Tel Convs (Bendetsen, Feb-Mar 42). 57

 Memo, CG WDC for SW (through CG FF), 13 Feb 42, and covering Memo, CG WDC

for CG FF GHQ, 14 Feb 42, originals in PMG 014.311 WDC. The basic memorandum is published in War Department, Final Report, pages 33-38, where it is erroneously dated 14 February.

As of 11 February, General DeWitt was planning to have Colonel Bendetsen carry his recommendations back to Washington, but on 12 February, because of the general's doubt that GHQ and

General Marshall had been "thoroughly informed" of developments, he decided to submit them

through the normal channels of communication. Tel Conv, Gen DeWitt with Gen Clark, 12 Feb

42; Tel Conv, Gen Gullion with Col Bendetsen, 14 Feb 42. Both in WDC-CAD 311.3 Tel

Convs (DeWitt, 42-43). 58

 The recommendations of the 13 February memorandum are described below at greater

length in connection with the discussion of the War Department's directives of 20 February.
JAPANESE EVACUATION FROM THE WEST COAST 133

reached GHQ at 5:00 p.m., 18 February. On 19 February it was decided at

a GHQ staff conference not to concur in General DeWitt's recommendations, and instead to recommend to General Clark that only enemy alien

leaders be arrested and interned. General Clark, being aware of developments in the War Department, must have realized the futility of a GHQ

nonconcurrence.59 On 20 February GHQ sent General DeWitt's memoranda

to the War Department through normal channels, with an indorsement that

they were being "transmitted in view of the proposed action already decided

upon by the War Department."

 60

 They finally reached the Provost Marshal

General's office "for remark and recommendation" on 24 February, the day

after General DeWitt received new instructions from the War Department

that differed in many particulars from the recommendations he had submitted.61

In the meantime, on 13 February, the Pacific coast Congressional subcommittee on aliens and sabotage had adopted the following recommendations:

We recommend the immediate evacuation of all persons of Japanese lineage and

all others, aliens and citizens alike, whose presence shall be deemed dangerous or

inimical to the defense of the United States from all strategic areas.

In defining said strategic areas we recommend that such areas include all military

installations, war industries, water and power installations, oil fields, and refineries,

transportation and other essential facilities as well as adequate protective areas adjacent

thereto.

We further recommend that such areas be enlarged as expeditiously as possible until

they shall encompass the entire strategic area of the states of California, Oregon and

Washington, and Territory of Alaska.

These recommendations were forwarded to President Roosevelt with a

covering letter of the same date signed on behalf of the entire west coast

Congressional delegation.62 On 16 February the President sent the letter

and its inclosed recommendations to Secretary Stimson, with a memorandum

59

 Both the original and carbon of General DeWitt's recommendations in AG 014.311

(1-13-41), sec. 10, are stamped to indicate receipt in GHQ on the date and at the hour indicated. As Colonel Bendetsen said on 19 February, the DeWitt recommendations "must have hit the

wrong air line." Tel Conv, Col Bendetsen with Col Donald A. Stroh, 19 Feb 42, PMG 384.4

WDC. The GHQ action is recorded in GHQ 337 Staff Confs, binder 2, entry of 19 Feb 42; and in

Memo, G-5 Sec GHQ for Gen Clark, 19 Feb 42, GHQ file, WDC: Enemy Aliens. 60

 1st Ind, GHQ for TAG, 20 Feb 42, on Memo, CG WDC for CG FF, 14 Feb 42, GHQ

file, WDC: Enemy Aliens. 61

 2d Ind, TAG for PMG, 22 Feb 42, on Memo, CG WDC for CG FF, 14 Feb 42, PMG

014.311 WDC. Stamped RECEIVED IN PMG, 11:00 A.M. 24 Feb 42. 62

 Recommendations inclosed in Ltr, Senator Holman, Senator Wallgren, Representatives Lea,

et al., to President Roosevelt, 13 Feb 42, AG 014.311 (2-16-42).
134 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

that read: "Will you please be good enough to reply to Congressman Lea

in regard to the enclosed letter."

 63

On the same day, 16 February, Colonel Bendetsen boarded an airplane

in San Francisco, and he reached the War Department's offices in Washington about noon on 17 February.64

 Before his arrival the Provost Marshal

General's office initiated a telegraphic survey among the corps area commanders with the following message:

Probable that orders for very large evacuation of enemy aliens of all nationalities

predominantly Japanese from Pacific Coast will issue within 48 hours. Internment

facilities will be taxed to utmost. Report at once maximum you can care for, including

housing, feeding, medical care, and supply. Your breakdown should include number of

men, women, and children. Very important to keep this a closely guarded secret.65

A follow-up letter explained that 100,000 enemy aliens would be involved,

60,000 of whom would be women and children, and that all were to be

interned east of the Western Defense Command, "50 percent in the Eighth

Corps Area, 30 percent in the Seventh, and 10 percent each in the Fourth

and Sixth."

 66

 There were three reasons for the intention (as of 17 February)

for removing the Pacific coast Japanese to areas east of the Western Defense

Command. Since mid-December General DeWitt had insisted that internment of enemy aliens ought to be outside his theater of operations; some of

the governments of the intermountain states had already indicated that they

would not countenance any free settlement of the west coast Japanese within

their borders; and, lastly, an Army survey of existing facilities for intern63

 Memo, President Roosevelt for SW, 16 Feb 42, AG 014.311 (2-16-42), received in

Secretary's office at 9:11 a.m., 17 Feb 42. 64

 Tel Conv, Gen DeWitt with Gen Gullion, 17 Feb 42, ASW 014.311 EAWC. In its Final

Report, the War Department stated (page 25): "The War Department representative [Colonel

Bendetsen] carried back to the Secretary the recommendation of the Commanding General that

some method be developed empowering the Federal Government to provide for the evacuation

from sensitive areas of all persons of Japanese ancestry, and any other persons individually or

collectively regarded as potentially dangerous. The Commanding General's proposal was reduced

to writing in a memorandum for the Secretary of War, dated February 14, 1942. . . . This recommendation was presented to the Secretary of War on or about February 16th." No other

evidence was found that the recommendations contained in General DeWitt's memorandum to

the Secretary of War were considered or referred to in the preparation of new War Department

directives on the subject between 17 and 20 February. After these directives were drafted and

after talking with General DeWitt on 20 February, Colonel Bendetsen wrote to the Secretary

of War: "It was I who misunderstood General DeWitt's plan.—he has no mass movement in

mind." Memo, Col Bendetsen for SW, 21 Feb 42, and atchd transcript of Tel Conv, Gen DeWitt

with Col Bendetsen, 20 Feb 42, in SW file, Aliens. 65

 Memo, PMG for TAG, 17 Feb 42, PMG 384.4 WDC. The copy bears the notation: "Gen

Gullion took this up in person with Mr. McCloy who approves." 66

 Ltr, TAG to CG's, Corps Areas, 17 Feb 42, PMG 384.4 WDC. The reference to all

Japanese residents as aliens was rather frequent practice in Army exchanges on the subject during

February 1942.
JAPANESE EVACUATION FROM THE WEST COAST 135

ment in the five interior states of the Ninth Corps Area disclosed that they

could not accommodate more than 2,500 people.67

The War Department's plan for mass evacuation took definite shape in

an afternoon conference on 17 February of Secretary Stimson with Mr.

McCloy, General Gullion, General Clark, and Colonel Bendetsen. Despite

General Clark's protest that any mass evacuation would involve the use of

too many troops, Mr. Stimson decided that General DeWitt should be instructed to commence an evacuation immediately and to the extent he

deemed necessary for the protection of vital installations. After the meeting

General Clark consulted his GHQ chief, General McNair, who decided that

General DeWitt should not be allotted any additional troops for evacuation

purposes.68

On the evening of 17 February, Mr. McCloy, General Gullion, and

Colonel Bendetsen met with Justice representatives at the home of Attorney

General Biddle. After some preliminary discussion, General Gullion pulled

from his pocket and proceeded to read the draft of a proposed Presidential

Executive order that would authorize the Secretary of War to remove both

citizens and aliens from areas that he might designate. Mr. Biddle accepted

the draft without further argument, because the President had already indicated to him that this was a matter for military decision. After several more

meetings between Justice and Army officials during the next two days, the

Executive order was presented to the President and signed by him late on 19

February.69 Between 18 and 20 February Mr. McCloy, General Gullion, and

Colonel Bendetsen drafted the instructions for General DeWitt to guide his

execution of the evacuation plan, and embodied them in two letter directives,

both dated 20 February.70

On 21 February the Secretary of War, in accordance with the President's

request, answered the Congressional letter of 13 February by assuring the

67

 This last point was already fully appreciated in Washington but was confirmed by Rad, CG

Ninth Corps Area to TAG, 18 Feb 42, PMG 014.311 Corps Area Rpts on Housing Facilities. 68

 Stimson Diary, entry of 17 Feb 42; Memo for Rcd, Gen Clark, 17 Feb 42, GHQ file, WDC:

Enemy Aliens. General Clark also told General Marshall about the meeting and the decision about

troops, but a search of Army records fails to disclose evidence that the advice of the Chief of

Staff was sought in the formulation of the War Department plan for Japanese evacuation. 69

 Stimson Diary, entry of 18 Feb 42; Memo, PMG for CofS, 20 Feb 42, OCS 21227-113;

Ltr, Mr. Biddle to the author, 31 Aug 56; Grodzins, Japanese Evacuation, pp. 266-67; tenBrock

et al., Prejudice, War and the Constitution, pp. 111-12. 70

 Ltrs, SW to CG WDC, 20 Feb 42, PMG 384.4 WDC; Notes on Conf in ODCofS, 20 Feb

42, OCS Conf, Binder 32; Tel Conv, Gen DeWitt with Gen Joyce, 23 Feb 42, WDC-CAD

311.3 Tel Convs (DeWitt 42-43). The longer of the Secretary of War's letters is the Outline

Memorandum published in part in War Department, Final Report, pp. 28-29, and atchd to Ltr,

ASW to Gen DeWitt, 20 Feb 42, ibid., p. 27. Executive Order 9066, 19 Feb 42, and the shorter

SW Ltr of 20 Feb, are also published in Final Report, pp. 25-27.
136 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

west coast delegation that plans for the partial or complete evacuation of

the Japanese from the Pacific coast were being formulated.71 In consultation

with the Department of Justice, War Department officials at this time also

prepared a draft of legislation that would put teeth into the enforcement

of the new evacuation program, but did not submit it to Congress until

9 March. This draft as a bill became Public Law 503 after brief debate; it

was passed by a voice vote in both houses on 19 March and signed by the

President on 21 March. Three days later, the Western Defense Command

issued its first compulsory exclusion order.72

As already noted, the plan for evacuation embodied in the War Department's directives of 20 February differed materially from the plan recommended by General DeWitt in his memorandum of 13 February. The central

objective of the DeWitt plan was to move all enemy aliens and Americanborn Japanese out of all Category A areas in California, Oregon, and Washington that the general had recommended through 12 February. Although

General DeWitt had repeatedly described the Japanese as the most dangerous element of the west coast population, he also made it clear as late as 17

February that he was "opposed to any preferential treatment to any alien

irrespective of race," and therefore that he wanted German and Italian aliens

as well as all Japanese evacuated from Category A areas.73 His plan assumed

that all enemy aliens would be interned under guard outside the Western

Defense Command, at least until arrangements could be made for their resettlement. Citizen evacuees would either accept internment voluntarily or

relocate themselves with such assistance as state and federal agencies might

offer. Although this group would be permitted to resettle in Category B

areas within the coastal zone, General DeWitt clearly preferred that they

move inland.

The central objective of the War Department plan was to move all

Japanese out of the California Category A areas first, and they were not

to be permitted to resettle within Category B areas or within a larger Military Area No. 1 to be established along the coast.74

 There was to be no

evacuation of Italians without the express permission of the Secretary of

71

 Ltr, SW to Representative Lea, 21 Feb 42, AG 014.311 (2-16-42). 72

 Grodzins, Japanese Evacuation, pp. 331-39; War Department, Final Report, pp. 29-31, 49.

On the legal aspects and consequences of the Presidential and Congressional decisions, see Clinton

Rossiter, The Supreme Court and the Commander in Chief (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,

1951). pp. 42-54. 73

 Tel Conv, Gen DeWitt with Gen Gullion, 17 Feb 42, ASW 014.311 EAWC. 74

 The central objective of the War Department plan is clearly outlined in paragraphs 1-6 of

the Outline Memorandum of 20 February, paragraphs omitted in the publication of the memorandum in War Department, Final Report, pages 28-29.
JAPANESE EVACUATION FROM THE WEST COAST 137

War except on an individual basis. Although the War Department plan

ostensibly provided that German aliens were to be treated in the same manner as the Japanese, it qualified this intention by providing for the exemption

of "bona fide" German refugees. This qualification automatically stayed the

evacuation of German aliens until General DeWitt could discover who

among them were genuine refugees. The War Department plan contemplated voluntary relocation by all types of evacuees to the maximum extent

possible, with internment as necessary outside the Western Defense Command. Another major difference between the two plans was related to General DeWitt's recommendation of a licensing system for Category A areas;

the President's Executive order of 19 February did not require the application of the licensing plan, and licensing was not embodied in the War Department's directives of 20 February.

There were other lesser differences between the two plans. General DeWitt had recommended that before any evacuation all preparations should

be complete, including the "selection and establishment of internment facilities in the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Corps Areas." As already noted, the

War Department at this time was also planning to put all internees east of

the Ninth Corps Area, but its directives did not contemplate any postponement of evacuation until internment facilities were ready. General DeWitt

had also recommended the initial and separate internment of all enemy alien

males over 14 years of age, until family units could be established in internment camps. The War Department plan had no such provision. As for the

number of people to be involved, General DeWitt's memorandum contained

an estimate that 133,000 people would have to be evacuated either voluntarily or by compulsion. A breakdown of this figure (based on his previous

Category A recommendations) discloses that his plan would have involved

about 69,000 Japanese (25,000 aliens and 44,000 American citizens), about

44,000 Italians, and about 20,000 Germans. The War Department planners

apparently made no estimate of the numbers that their directives would

involve, but eventually they did involve more than 110,000 Japanese residents—citizens and aliens—of the west coast states.

The Evacuation of the Japanese

How the Army would handle Japanese evacuation remained uncertain

for a month or so after General DeWitt received his new instructions. That

it would have to act, and quickly, was certain by late February. In effect

President Roosevelt with the unanimous backing of the Pacific coast Con-
138 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

gressional delegation had directed the War Department to evacuate the

Japanese, and the War Department now detailed its most industrious advocate of mass evacuation to help General DeWitt execute the mandate. And,

although there was no threat of an enemy invasion of the west coast that

might have stirred disloyalty among some of its Japanese residents, a condition had developed that made some solution of the Japanese problem

mandatory.75

This condition had been forecast in a careful survey of Pacific coast

public opinion made during the week of 7-13 February (and analyzed too

late to influence the course of events), which indicated a state of affairs

needing "prompt and careful attention," because of the very widely held

belief along the coast that the Japanese population was disloyal and a menace to the national security. The report of this survey concluded that "racial

or national antagonism seems to account in large part for the unfavorable

attitude toward the Japanese" and that the factor of economic competition

was relatively minor. It also indicated a much more pronounced anti-Japanese

sentiment in southern California than elsewhere along the coast; outside of

southern California, less than one-half of those interviewed favored the internment of Japanese aliens, and only 14 percent the internment of Japanese

citizens.76

By late February a stream of pleas for action was flowing into the War

and Justice Departments from California. On 22 February, for example, the

Commandant, Eleventh Naval District, sent the following dispatch to

Washington:

Situation of Japanese in Southern California very critical. Many are forced to move

with no provision as to subsequent housing or means of livelihood. Many families

already destitute. All localities object to movement of evacuees into their area. Recommend that the Departments concerned make immediate plans for the evacuation and

reestablishment of aliens removed from areas designated by military authorities.77

On the succeeding two days the shelling of the Santa Barbara oil installations

75

 On 20 February, the date of the War Department's instructions to General DeWitt, General

Marshall concurred unreservedly in a British Chiefs of Staff estimate that, "so long as the United

States maintain a battle fleet in the Pacific, large-scale seaborne expeditions against the western

seaboard of North America and the employment of capital ships in this area are considered impracticable." (Ltr, Field Marshall Sir John Dill to Gen Marshall, 20 Feb 42 and Memo, Brig Gen

Dwight D. Eisenhower to Sir John Dill, 20 Feb 42 both in OCS 21347-7.) In a general estimate

of the situation a month later, on 19 March 1942, G-2 held that the maximum foreseeable threat

to the Pacific coast was that from carrier-borne air raids against aircraft factories and naval bases.

(MIS WD Estimate 2, 19 Mar 42, OPD Exec 10, item 29) 76

 Confidential Rpt of OFF, 9 Mar 42, recorded in Tel Conv, Col Bendetsen with Mr. Carrington Gill, 9 Mar 42, WDC-CAD 311.3 Tel Convs (Bendetsen, Feb-Mar 42). 77

 Quoted in Ltr, SN to Atty Gen, 22 Feb 42, ASW 014.311 EAWC.
JAPANESE EVACUATION FROM THE WEST COAST 139

and the "Battle of Los Angeles" added a strong fillip to the local temper of

opinion.78 Even after General DeWitt's public announcement of evacuation

plans at the beginning of March, the San Francisco representative of the Office

of Government Reports held there was a "serious possibility of mob violence

and vigilante committees if the Army does not work fast enough."

 79

On 23 February Colonel Bendetsen arrived in San Francisco to serve as

a liaison officer between General DeWitt and Assistant Secretary of War

McCloy and to help in the execution of the War Department directives. With

his assistance, General DeWitt drafted and obtained War Department approval of his first public proclamation of the new program and of an explanatory press release, both of which were issued on 2 March. The proclamation established two military areas, a Military Area No. 1, which encompassed the western halves of the three Pacific states and southern Arizona

and a Military Area No. 2, which covered the eastern halves of the Pacific

states and northern Arizona. The press release forecast the exclusion of all

persons of Japanese ancestry from Military Area No. 1, and the subsequent

exclusion of German and Italian aliens at least from the prohibited zones

within Area No. 1.80

Apparently, in late February and early March both the War Department

and General DeWitt hoped that the mere announcement of prohibited and

restricted zones would induce a voluntary migration out of these zones, as

had been the case in the California prohibited zones previously announced

by the Department of Justice. General DeWitt estimated that 15,000 persons

(of whom many must have been Japanese citizens) had moved out of these

zones by midnight, 24 February. Most of them had moved into adjacent

restricted zones in urban areas.81 In his press release of 2 March, General

DeWitt urged the Japanese to move voluntarily into the interior from Military Area No. 1 and stated that those who did so would "in all probability

not again be disturbed." But only about 2,000 Japanese residents actually

moved out of Area No. 1 before it was announced that voluntary migration

would soon cease.82 Although large numbers of Japanese appear to have been

willing before 1 March to migrate voluntarily into the interior, most of them

78

 Stimson Diary, entry of 26 Feb 42. See above, pp. 87-88. 79

 Telg, W. L. Wheeler to Phillip C. Hamblet, Exec Officer, Office of Govt Rpts, 5 Mar 42,

ASW 014.311 EAWC 80

 Public Proclamation 1, and accompanying press release, 2 Mar 42, AG 014.311 (1-13-41),

sec. 10; Memo, GHQ, unsigned and undated, summarizing Gen DeWitt's new plan of action,

GHQ file, WDC: Enemy Aliens. 81

 Tel Conv, Gen DeWitt with Gen Clark, 26 Feb 42, WDC-CAD 311.3 Tel Convs (DeWitt,

42-43). 82

 War Department, Final Report, p. 107.
140 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

could not do so thereafter for two reasons: first, almost nothing had been

done to help evacuees solve the many personal problems inevitable in a quick

removal; and second, there was a very open and rapidly spreading hostility

among governments and populations of interior areas to the free settlement

of Japanese in their midst.83

That the first of these reasons for the failure of voluntary migration was

the fault of the federal government as a whole seems evident from Secretary

Stimson's record of a Cabinet discussion on 27 February concerning Japanese

evacuation:

The President brought this up first of all and showed that thus far he has given

very little attention to the principal task of the transportation and resettlement of the

evacuees. I outlined what DeWitt's plan was and his proclamation so far as I could

without having the paper there. Biddle supported us loyally, saying that he had the

proclamation already in his hands. I enumerated the five classes in the order which

are being affected and tried to make clear that the process was necessarily gradual,

DeWitt being limited by the size of the task and the limitations of his own force.

The President seized upon the idea that the work should be taken off the shoulders of

the Army so far as possible after the evacuees had been selected and removed from

places where they were dangerous. There was general confusion around the table

arising from the fact that nobody had realized how big it was, nobody wanted to take

care of the evacuees, and the general weight and complication of the project. Biddle

suggested that a single head should be chosen to handle the resettlement instead of

the pulling and hauling of all the different agencies, and the President seemed to

accept this; the single person to be of course a civilian and not the Army. . . .84

The person chosen for this assignment was Mr. Milton S. Eisenhower of

the Department of Agriculture. Mr. Eisenhower worked informally on the

evacuation problem from the end of February until 18 March, when President Roosevelt named him director of the newly created War Relocation

Authority. Before its establishment, General DeWitt had acquired a civil

affairs organization of his own to handle evacuation problems. The directives

of 20 February in effect put the Western Defense Command's evacuation

operations under the direct supervision of the Secretary of War, and, as

noted, Colonel Bendetsen had been chosen as Co-ordinator of matters between Washington and San Francisco.85

 During a visit of Mr. McCloy to

83

 War Department, Final Report, pp. 41-43; H. Doc. 1911, 77th Cong., 2d sess., 19 Mar 42,

pp. 27-30; Memo, SW for President Roosevelt, 15 Apr 42, ASW 014.311 West Coast-WDC,

Apr-May 42; Ltr and Incl, Dir WRA to ASW, 8 Jun 42; Ltr, Dir WRA to ASW, 11 Mar 43.

Last two in ASW 014.311 WDC Gen. 84

 SW's Notes after Cabinet Mtg, 27 Feb 42, WDCSA 334 Mtgs and Confs. The DeWitt plan

referred to in this quotation was the plan proposed to Washington in drafts of Public Proclamation 1 and the accompanying press release. 85

 tenBrock et al., Prejudice, War and the Constitution, pp. 118-22; Tel Conv, Gen DeWitt

with Gen Clark, 26 Feb 42, WDC-CAD 311.3 Tel Convs (DeWitt, 42-43); G-4 Memo for

Rcd, 1 Mar 42, G-4 file 32860. The last two items reflect the War Department's own confusion
JAPANESE EVACUATION FROM THE WEST COAST 141

the west coast, General DeWitt, on 10 March, established a Civil Affairs

Division in his general staff, and, on the following day, a Wartime Civil

Control Administration to act as his operations agency for carrying out the

evacuation program. At Mr. McCloy's urging, and with General Marshall's

approval, Colonel Bendetsen was formally transferred from the War Department staff and made chief of both agencies.86

 These agencies and the

War Relocation Authority provided the administrative means for handling

a controlled rather than voluntary evacuation.

By early March the Army had selected two sites—one in the Owens

Valley of California and the other along the Colorado River in Arizona—

for relocating as many as 20,000 to 30,000 Japanese who could not

or would not locate anywhere else.87 When, by mid-March, most of the

interior states west of the Mississippi River had made it known officially that

they would not permit free settlement of citizen or alien Japanese within

their borders, it became obvious that if the Japanese were to be evacuated

en masse they would have to be put in government-operated camps under

armed guard. On 21 March (the same day that President Roosevelt signed

the enforcement act) Colonel Bendetsen recommended the termination of

voluntary migration, and four days later General DeWitt and Mr. Eisenhower agreed that it would have to end. In consequence, General DeWitt

stopped voluntary migration on 29 March and prepared to carry out a program of enforced evacuation, initially to Army-operated assembly centers.

The large-scale movement of Japanese under Army supervision actually

began on a voluntary basis from the Los Angeles area on 21 March; after

the end of March all evacuations (beginning with Bainbridge Island) were

compulsory.88 Until a meeting with the governors and other officials of the

intermountain states at Salt Lake City on 7 April, the War Relocation Authority continued to hope that it could arrange the free settlement of a substantial number of the evacuated Japanese in the interior. But the intransiabout the arrangements for supervision from Washington, which in part was due to the imminent

transfer of responsibilities under the impending general reorganization of Army headquarters.

After the reorganization of 9 March the Washington military staff agencies almost disappear from

the picture, except for the planning and direction of construction by the Corps of Engineers with

staff supervision by the Services of Supply. 86

 War Department, Final Report, p. 41; Memo, ASGS for CofS, 11 Mar 42, OCS Conf,

Binder 34; Ltr, SW to Prof. William E. Hocking, 16 Mar 42, SW file, Aliens. Coincidentally

with his new assignments, Colonel Bendetsen was promoted to the rank of full colonel. 87

 Ltr, SW to Secy Interior, 13 Mar 42, and related papers, ASW 014.311 EAWC; Memo,

Gen Gullion for Maj Gen Brehon B. Somervell, 26 Mar 42, PMG 014.311 Gen P/W. 88

 The Army had nothing directly to do with the first compulsory evacuation from Terminal

Island, executed by the Navy in late February 1942. See Hist of WDC, I, ch. 4, 8-9.
142 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

JAPANESE EVACUEES ARRIVE AT THE COLORADO RIVER RELOCATION CENTER,

Poston, Ariz.

gent attitudes exhibited at that meeting persuaded all concerned that the

Japanese, whether aliens or citizens, would have to be kept indefinitely in

large government-operated camps, called relocation centers, which were

built by the Army Engineers in the spring and summer of 1942.89

89

 War Department, Final Report, pp. 43ff; Ltr, Dir WRA to ASW, 9 Apr 42; Memo, SW

for President Roosevelt, 15 Apr 42. Last two in ASW 014.311 West Coast-WDC, Apr-May 42.

Ltr, Dir WRA to ASW, 11 Mar 43, ASW 014.311 WDC Gen; War Relocation Authority, WRA,

pp. 26-30.

The term "relocation" was used first (and was still so used when the War Relocation Authority

was established) to mean voluntary resettlement by the Japanese; after voluntary migration failed,

it was used to describe the permanent camps to which the Japanese were sent from the Army's

assembly centers. In the Supreme Court's decision upholding the constitutionality of evacuation,

in the case of Korematsu v. United States decided on 18 December 1944, the majority opinion, in

referring to the relocation centers, stated: "We deem it unjustifiable to call them concentration

camps with all the ugly connotations that term implies." In his dissenting opinion, Justice Owen

J. Roberts referred to "the so-called Relocation Centers, a euphemism for concentration camps."

323 United States Reports, pp. 223, 230.
JAPANESE EVACUATION FROM THE WEST COAST 143

North of the Pacific states, the Canadian Government carried out an

evacuation of Japanese residents from British Columbia that closely paralleled that from the west coast of the United States in time and circumstance.

The agitation against the Japanese appears to have developed more quickly

in British Columbia than in California, and as a consequence the commander

of the Canadian Army's Pacific forces recommended on 30 December 1941

that the Japanese be removed from the coastal area, primarily because he

thought there was a definite danger of interracial riots and bloodshed.90 On

14 January 1942 the Canadian Government announced plans for a partial

evacuation of British Columbia's 22,000 Japanese, and on 26 February it

authorized a complete evacuation from a wide area inland from the coast.

As a result, 21,000 Japanese residents (three-fourths of them Canadianborn) were evacuated between February and October to interior camps similar to the relocation centers in the United States.91

Further north, in Alaska, the Army had been made responsible for controlling enemy aliens soon after the Pearl Harbor attack, and it had promptly

interned those considered dangerous. On 6 March 1942 the Secretary of

War extended his authority under Executive Order 9066 to the Army commander in Alaska. By the end of May, he had evacuated not only his alien

internees but also the whole Japanese population of Alaska—230, of whom

more than half were United States citizens.92

It was General DeWitt's intention in early May not only to complete

the evacuation of Japanese from Military Area No. 1, but also to move all

of the other 16,000 Japanese living within an eight-state area "so there won't

be any Japanese in the Western Defense Command who are not in resettlement projects."

 93

 Thereafter, General DeWitt intended also to carry out an

evacuation of German and Italian aliens from all prohibited zones within the

Western Defense Command. There were more than one thousand of these

zones after mid-March when he extended the scope of the enemy alien program to the four interior states of his command not previously covered by it.

But his plans for a collective evacuation of German and Italian aliens faced

90

 Col Charles P. Stacey, "Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War,"

Six Years of War: The Army in Canada, Britain and the Pacific (Ottawa: E. Cloutier, Queen's

Printer, 1955), p. 169. 91

 Forrest E. La Violette, The Canadian Japanese and World War II (Toronto: University of

Toronto Press, 1948), p. 44ff. 92

 tenBrock et al., Prejudice, War and the Constitution, pp. 134-35; Memo, CG ADC for

CG WDC, 5 May 42, WDC-CAD 014.31 Aliens. 93

 Tel Conv, Gen DeWitt with Adm Greenslade, 9 May 42, WDC-CAD 311.3 Tel Convs

(DeWitt, 42-43).
144 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

strong opposition. In General DeWitt's own San Francisco headquarters, the

assistant chief of the Civil Affairs Division concluded:

So far as concerns the mission [of the Western Defense Command] of protecting

against sabotage and the evacuation of German and Italian aliens, the accomplishment

of the mission should be started by a different approach. In the case of the Japanese,

their oriental habits of life, their and our inability to assimilate biologically, and, what

is more important, our inability to distinguish the subverters and saboteurs from the

rest of the mass made necessary their class evacuation on a horizontal basis. In the case

of the Germans and the Italians, such mass evacuation is neither necessary nor desirable.

He went on to urge instead a policy of individual exclusion for the Germans

and Italians, rather than mass evacuation.94 In Washington, as Colonel Bendetsen subsequently explained, "there was much opposition in the War Department to the evacuation of Italian aliens and considerable opposition,

as well, to the collective evacuation of German aliens."

 95

The Washington opposition to German and Italian evacuation developed

in part as a consequence of the Provost Marshal's February proposal to extend the military area scheme to the entire continental United States.96

 On

13 February the War Department had asked eight of the corps area commanders to submit recommendations for areas within which the Army

should control the residence or presence of civilians to a greater or lesser

degree.97 Each of them responded with recommendations, which, if adopted,

would have required a fairly sizable alien exclusion program throughout the

nation. For example, the Second Corps Area commander recommended a

prohibited zone ten miles wide along the seacoast from the Delaware-Maryland state line northward to the eastern tip of Long Island (and including all

of Suffolk County, N.Y.) from which all enemy alien residents were to be

evacuated. Within this area he thought that it would probably be necessary

to regulate the residence and movement of all other civilians by a permit

and pass system. He also recommended a prohibition against enemy aliens

approaching or being found within one hundred yards of any waterfront

installation in the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area.98 Collectively

the corps area recommendations seemed to reflect an early wartime attitude

94

 Memo, Lt Col William A. Boekel, Asst ACofS CAD, for Col Bendetsen, 4 May 42, WDCCAD 014.31 Aliens. 95

 Ltr, Col Bendetsen to Col Gustaf J. Braun, Special Troops, Fort Ord, Calif., 31 Dec 42,

WDC-CAD Final Rpt. 96

 See p. V-28 above. 97

 Ltr, TAG to CG's Corps Areas (Except Ninth), 13 Feb 42, AG 384 (2-4-42). 98

 Ltr, Maj Gen Irving J. Phillipson, CG Second Corps Area, to CG SOS, 18 Apr 42, PMG

384.4 Gen.
JAPANESE EVACUATION FROM THE WEST COAST 145

toward aliens expressed immediately after the war by an officer of the

Provost Marshal General's office in these words:

In connection with subversive warfare, during the last war, I would like to make

this observation. In the fall of 1941 and the winter of 1942, we expected that subversive elements would be found mainly in the alien population. To our amazement

by 1943 we discovered such was not the case at all. Most aliens were scared to death.

So most of our disloyal individuals were old-line families in this country. That was

amazing to us, and we had to face the facts and recognize it.99

By early March the War Department had come to appreciate that any

general evacuation of German and Italian aliens from the west coast (even

with broad exemptions) would be bound to produce repercussions throughout the nation.100

 When Attorney General Biddle heard about conferences

on alien restrictions being held in New York City, he sent a vigorous protest

to President Roosevelt, in which he contended that any German or Italian

evacuation on the east coast would have the gravest consequences to the

nation's economic structure and war morale since it would be bound to produce confusion and disaffection among persons of those nationalities throughout the country. The President was in thorough agreement with the seriousness of this prospect, and Mr. Stimson hastened to assure him that "no such

mass evacuation of aliens on the East Coast as is suggested by Mr. Biddle's

memorandum . . . is either under way or contemplated," although he admitted

that limited evacuations from particularly critical areas were being studied.

As a consequence, General Drum was informed that there must be no evacuation of aliens within the Eastern Defense Command except with the knowledge and approval of the War and Justice Departments.101

 With Presidential

approval the War Department on 22 April did extend the military area system

authorized by Executive Order 9066 to all of the continental defense commands, but only after it had been explained to the President that this extension was necessary to enforce dim-out and air defense regulations, and so

forth, and not for the purpose of controlling enemy aliens. "The control of

alien enemies," the President informed Mr. Stimson, "seems to me to be primarily a civilian matter except of course in the case of the Japanese mass

evacuation on the Pacific Coast."

 102

99

 Hearings before WD Civilian Def Bd, 5 Dec 46, Report of War Department Civil Defense

Board, an. 1, p. 81. 100

 Memo, Alfred Jaretzki, Jr., Special Asst to ASW, for Col Ralph H. Tate, 4 Jun 42, ASW

014.311 Gen. This memorandum presents a good detailed résumé of the German-Italian evacuation question as it developed between February and May 1942. 101

 Memo, Atty Gen for President 9 Apr 42, Memo; President for SW, 14 Apr 42; Memo, SW

for President 15 Apr 42. All in ASW 014.311 West Coast-WDC, Apr-May 42. Stimson Diary,

entry of 15 Apr 42. Memo, OPD for TAG, 24 Apr 42, OPD 014.311 (3-1-42)/7. 102

 Memo, President for SW, 5 May 42, ASW 014.311 Gen.
146 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

It was this background of related developments that determined the fate

of General DeWitt's recommendation, submitted through Colonel Bendetsen

on 10 May 1942, for a limited collective evacuation of German and Italian

aliens from Military Area No. 1.103 When General DeWitt was told on the

following day that Mr. Stimson and Mr. McCloy were not inclined to agree

with his recommendation, he insisted that the removal of German and

Italian aliens as recommended by him was an essential war measure; and

he insisted, too, that, if the War Department refused to adopt his recommendation, then he must be given definite instructions to the contrary that

would exempt him from all responsibility for the consequences.104 Before

General DeWitt's recommendation could be discussed with the President,

the Congressional committee that had been studying the west coast evacuation of the Japanese issued its second report, which, among other observations, labeled any mass evacuation of German and Italian aliens "out of the

question if we intend to win this war."

 105

 On 15 May the President approved

an alternative to General DeWitt's recommendation upon which the War

Department secretaries had already agreed. Instead of a collective evacuation

of German and Italian aliens from the west coast or from anywhere else in

the United States, the War Department would authorize the defense commanders to issue individual exclusion orders against both aliens and citizens

under the authority of Executive Order 9066. Instructions to this effect, including a caution enjoining strict secrecy, went to General DeWitt on 22

May and, although they did not contain the waiver of responsibility he had

requested, apparently they gave him a broad enough grant of authority to

satisfy his concern over the problem of German and Italian aliens.106

103

 Memo, Col Bendetsen for ASW, 10 May 42, ASW 014.311 WDC Gen. Colonel Bendetsen

had returned to Washington to present General DeWitt's recommendation in person, and he prepared the memorandum as a formal recommendation of General DeWitt rather than as a personal

expression of his own opinion. 104

 Tel Conv, Gen DeWitt with Col Bendetsen, 11 May 42, WDC-CAD 311.3 Tel Convs

(DeWitt, 42-43); Memo, Col Bendetsen for ASW, 12 May 42, ASW 014.311 WDC Gen. 105

 H. Doc. 2124, 77th Cong., 13 May 42, p. 31. 106

 Memo, ASW for SW, 15 May 42; Memo, Col Bendetsen for ASW, 15 May 42. Both in

ASW 014.311 Gen. Stimson Diary, entry of 15 May 42; SW's Notes after Cabinet Mtg, 15 May

42, WDCSA 334 Mtgs and Confs; Ltr, TAG to CG WDC, 22 May 42, AG 014.311 (1-13-41),

sec. 10; Memo Jaretzki for Col Tate, 4 Jun 42, ASW 014.311 Gen.

The rejection of General DeWitt's May recommendation concerning the removal of German

and Italian aliens, which he explicitly justified on grounds of military necessity and at a time when

the Pacific outlook was considerably grimmer than it had been in February (see Chapter IV,

above), certainly weakens the theory, advanced in the War Department, Final Report and elsewhere after 1942, that the War Department acted on evacuation in accordance with recommendations of the commanding general that in turn were based on the general's estimate of the military

necessity of the situation. There is no more than a trace of this theory in War Department records

that antedate the preparation of the Final Report by the Western Defense Command in early 1943.
JAPANESE EVACUATION FROM THE WEST COAST 147

As for General DeWitt's intention of interning all of the other Japanese

residents of the Western Defense Command, the War Department approved

the evacuation of those in the eastern half of California only and left undisturbed those in eastern Oregon and Washington, in northern Arizona,

and in the other states of the Western Defense Command—except, of course,

as General DeWitt applied to them his new authority to exclude suspected

individuals from sensitive areas.107 The final mass evacuation measure nevertheless affected about 10,000 persons and was carried out by direct movements from places of residence to relocation centers.108

The Western Defense Command completed the evacuation of more than

100,000 persons of Japanese ancestry from Military Area No. 1 on 7 June,

and the removals from Military Area No. 2 in California were virtually

complete by early August. The Army kept control of the evacuees until 3

November 1942 when, with the last movement from an assembly center to

a relocation center, the War Relocation Authority took over general responsibility for the care and disposition of relocated Japanese.109

What were the reasons that impelled the Army to carry out the mass

evacuation of Japanese residents from the west coast beginning in March

1942? The general answer to this question is that the President and Congress

had approved mass evacuation and the Secretary of War and his principal

civilian assistant in this matter themselves thought it necessary to carry it out,

Mr. Stimson on 16 March (and before the evacuation had begun) referred

to the prospect as a "tragedy" that seemed "to be a military necessity" because very large numbers of the Japanese were "located in close proximity

to installations of vital importance to the war effort."

 110 A week later Mr.

McCloy reported, after his west coast visit, that there had been no cases of

sabotage traceable to the Japanese population, but that "there was much

evidence of espionage."

 111

The most damaging tangible evidence against the Japanese was that

produced by the intensive searches of their premises by the FBI from early

February onward. By May it had seized 2,592 guns of various kinds, 199,000

107

 Rad, WD to CG WDC, 28 May 42, AG 370.05 (11-6-41), sec. 2. 108

 More than half of these were Japanese who had moved voluntarily into the interior of

California from Military Area No. 1, the majority of whom moved on the two days between the

issuance of the "freeze order" of 27 March and its effective date of 29 March. 109

 War Department, Final Report, pts. IV and VI; War Relocation Authority, WRA, pp. ixx, 23; tenBrock et al., Prejudice, War and the Constitution, pp. 126-34. 110

 Ltr, SW to Prof Hocking, 16 Mar 42, SW file, Aliens. 111 Notes on War Council, 23 Mar 42, SW Conf, binder 2. No proven instances of espionage

after Pearl Harbor among the Japanese population have ever been disclosed.
148 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

rounds of ammunitions, 1,652 sticks of dynamite, 1,458 radio receivers,

2,914 cameras, 37 motion picture cameras, and numerous other articles that

the alien Japanese had been ordered to turn in at the beginning of January.

Nonetheless, after assessing this evidence, Department of Justice officials

concluded:

We have not, however, uncovered through these searches any dangerous persons

that we could not otherwise know about. We have not found among all the sticks of

dynamite and gun powder any evidence that any of it was to be used in bombs. We

have not found a single machine gun nor have we found any gun in any circumstances

indicating that it was to be used in a manner helpful to our enemies. We have not found

a camera which we have reason to believe was for use in espionage.112

There were better if less tangible grounds for suspecting that some of

the Japanese people—citizens as well as aliens—would become disloyal in

the event of a Japanese invasion. The Navy report of early February 1942

previously cited concluded that a very small minority (less than 3 percent)

of alien and citizen Japanese were so fanatically loyal to Japan that they

could be expected to act as saboteurs or enemy agents, and a somewhat

larger minority might be passively disloyal, if given the opportunity.113 On

similar grounds the War Relocation Authority concluded that "a selective

evacuation of people of Japanese descent from the west coast military area

was justified and administratively feasible in the spring of 1942," although

it concluded also that a mass evacuation such as was actually carried out was

never justified.114 But no military estimate after December 1941 forecast

even the possibility of an invasion of the west coast by the Japanese in

strength, and all disloyalty among the Japanese remained passive until after

their removal to relocation centers.

Although little support for the argument that military necessity required

a mass evacuation of the Japanese Can be found in contemporary evidence,

it might be contended that the co-operation of the white population of the

Pacific states in the national defense effort could not have been otherwise

assured. By March 1942 a large segment of that population along the coast

was determined to be rid of the Japanese, at least for the duration of the war.

Prewar antipathies combined with wartime fears into a formidable pressure

for removal. Writing in June, Mr. McCloy explained that the nature of the

112

 Draft of Memo, early May 42, Atty Gen for President Roosevelt, as quoted in Grodzins,

Japanese Evacuation, pp. 134-36. A major portion of the first two items listed above was picked

up in a raid on a sporting goods shop. 113

 Rpt of Comdr Ringle, no date, copy in ASW 104.311 EAWC. 114

 War Relocation Authority WRA, p. 182.
JAPANESE EVACUATION FROM THE WEST COAST 149

attack on Pearl Harbor and the apparent exposure of the west coast to enemy

action left its "American populations . . . in a condition of great excitement

and apprehension," which "tended greatly to inflame our people against all

persons of Japanese ancestry."

 115

 Shortly after the evacuation had been completed, the Assistant Secretary commented to General Drum:

As you know, the Japanese were removed from the West Coast, first, because of

the proximity of the West Coast to the Japanese theater of operations and, second,

because of the very large number of Japanese concentrated in that area, and thirdly,

because of the fear that direct action might be taken against the Japanese as a result

of the rather antagonistic attitude of the local population.116

Yet in Hawaii, with a considerably greater concentration of Japanese much

closer to the arena of operations, no similar removal occurred despite very

similar evacuation planning after Oahu's baptism of fire in December 1941.117

115

 Ltr, ASW to Mrs. Edwin H. Kinney, 27 Jun 42, ASW 014.311 WDC Gen. 116

 Ltr, ASW to CG EDC, 16 Nov 42, ASW 014.311 WDC Gen. 117

 See below, ch. VIII.
CHAPTER VI

The Reinforcement of Oahu

The Hawaiian island of Oahu held a position of the first importance in

the military structure of the United States before and during World War II.

During the prewar years Oahu and the Panama Canal Zone were the two great

outposts of continental defense, and, after Japan plunged the United States

into a Pacific war, Oahu became an essential springboard for the offensive that

was finally to crush the Japanese Empire.

What gave Oahu its military importance was the great naval base of Pearl

Harbor. The Army had primary responsibility for protecting Pearl Harbor

and, to fulfill this responsibility, before the war it maintained on Oahu its

largest and, in many respects, its best equipped overseas garrison. The Army's

objective was to make Oahu impregnable, and in April 1941 the War Department confidently described the island as the strongest fortress in the

world.1 Seven months later this confidence was rudely shaken by Japan's

amazingly successful attack on a major portion of the Pacific Fleet berthed

and moored in Pearl Harbor, and on the Army's surrounding air installations

and aircraft on the ground. The background of this Japanese venture has been

one of the most intensively studied and related episodes in modern history,

and this volume can add only some detail about what the Army did before

and during the attack.2

The Hawaiian Department Before 1941

The Army had established its first post on Oahu more than forty years

1

 Aide-mémoire on the Defense of Hawaii, 24 Apr 41, WPD 3672-32. 2

 Pearl Harbor Attack, and Report of the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl

Harbor Attack, 79th Cong., 2d sess., Doc. 244 (Washington, 1946) (hereafter cited as Pearl Harbor Report) contain the greatest bulk of the evidence gathered. Watson, Prewar Plans and Preparations, chs. XIV-XV, relates the Army background. Samual Eliot Morison, "History of the United

States Naval Operations in World War II," vol. III, The Rising Sun in the Pacific, 1931-April

1942 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1950), is the best brief account of Navy and Japanese

operations. William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason, The Undeclared War, 1940-1941 (New

York: Harper and Brothers, 1953), describes the diplomatic background in detail. See also the

bibliographic survey by Louis Morton, "Pearl Harbor in Perspective," in United States Naval

Institute Proceedings, vol. 81 (April 1955), pp. 461-68.
THE REINFORCEMENT OF OAHU 151

earlier, immediately after the United States annexed the Hawaiian Islands in

August 1898. Increasing Japanese-American friction in the following decade

led to a decision by the Army and Navy in 1908 to make Pearl Harbor the

principal American naval bastion in the Pacific.3 To protect Pearl Harbor,

the Army greatly expanded its Oahu garrison and in 1913 established the

Hawaiian Department as an independent command under direct War Department control. In the two decades after World War I the Army kept about

11 percent of its manpower on Oahu, built up formidable coastal defenses

on its south shore to protect Pearl and Honolulu harbors, and installed air

defenses to guard vital installations against this new element of warfare that

developed so rapidly between world wars.

The Army's mission in Hawaii was defined in 1920 as the defense of the

Pearl Harbor naval base against "damage from naval or aerial bombardment

or by enemy sympathizers" and against "attack by enemy expeditionary force

or forces, supported or unsupported by an enemy fleet or fleets."

 4 The mission remained essentially unchanged until 1941, and until that year the Army

did almost nothing to guard the other major islands of the Hawaiian chain

against attack. In February 1941, General Marshall broadened the stated mission informally by emphasizing the responsibility of the Army for protecting

the fleet as well as the Pearl Harbor naval installations.5 In practice, as

events were to prove, the impact of this new instruction was blunted by the

common assumption in Washington and Hawaii that no serious attack on

Oahu was at all likely if the bulk of the fleet was present in Hawaiian waters.

The eight major islands of the Hawaiian chain are situated about 2,400

statute miles southwest of the California coast, and about 3,900 miles from

the principal Japanese island of Honshu. The main island group extends

nearly 400 miles from Hawaii—the large island which has nearly two-thirds

of the total land area—northwestward to Kauai and Niihau. (Map II)

Hawaii, Maui, Oahu, and Kauai are the principal islands, and the latter three

are roughly of the same size. All are mountainous islands of volcanic origin,

possessed of a subtropical climate that is pleasant and healthful. Oahu, the

third largest island with an area of 604 square miles, owes its pre-eminence

to two harbors along its southern shore: that of Honolulu, and the shallow

lagoon seven miles to the west that after intensive development became the

Navy's largest overseas base. Oahu, with less than one-tenth of the archipe3

 Louis Morton, Strategy and Command: The First Two Years (Washington, 1962) (hereafter

cited as Morton, Strategy and Command), ch. I, p. 23. 4

 Ltr, TAG to CG Hawaiian Dept, 3 Jan 20, copy in OPD Résumé, Pearl Harbor Attack. 5

 Pers Ltr, Gen Marshall to Maj Gen Walter C. Short, 7 Feb 41, WPD 4449-1.

152 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

lago's area, had 60 percent of its population in 1940, and nearly 70 percent

by the end of the Pacific war. The population of all the islands is something

of a racial kaleidoscope. The largest single element in 1940 was of Japanese

descent—roughly, 37 percent of the total of 423,000. On both Hawaii and

Kauai those of Japanese descent outnumbered those of Caucasian descent by

three to one, and on Oahu the two groups were about equal in number.

Although more than three-fourths of the people of Japanese descent were

American-born citizens, their preponderance in the total population had a

profound influence on military thinking about what might happen in a war

with Japan. Most Army and Navy officers assumed that in the absence of

close military control there would be widespread attempts at sabotage, and

therefore they planned for a wartime establishment under martial law. The

existing Hawaiian government was that of a fully incorporated territory,

with an elected legislature and a nonvoting delegate to Congress, and executive and judicial officers appointed by the President. It had jurisdiction over

the main archipelago, the chain of minuscule reefs extending a thousand

miles from Kauai to Midway, and two distant coral islands to the southwest.

Oahu is a diamond-shaped island having two parallel mountain ranges,

which have precipitous slopes to the seaward and a broad plateau in between

that spreads out as a coastal plain in the south. Before World War II Oahu's

Army and Navy installations were mostly on this plateau and plain. There

they were so closely intermingled and integrated with the civilian population

and general economic activity of the island that military secrecy on any large

scale was impossible. The Army had its headquarters at Fort Shafter in the

western outskirts of Honolulu, but the main body of its troops was stationed

at Schofield Barracks in the center of the plateau about ten miles inland

from Pearl Harbor. The principal Army unit was the Hawaiian Division,

activated in 1921; and its station at Schofield covered the Pearl Harbor base

against an enemy landing on the northwest coast. It was only along this coast

that the Army believed a hostile landing in force even remotely feasible. The

principal Army air installations were Hickam Field, the base for bombardment aviation, adjacent to Pearl Harbor on the Honolulu side, and Wheeler

Field, the pursuit and fighter base located in the interior next to Schofield

Barracks.

On the day war began in Europe in September 1939, the Army commander in Hawaii, Maj. Gen. Charles D. Herron, after "taking stock" of

his local outlook, informally commented to General Marshall that he would

not "want to be given the job of cracking the nut" which Oahu presented to

any would-be invader, because of its "encircling reefs and two coasts pro-
THE REINFORCEMENT OF OAHU 153

tected by very difficult small mountain ranges and the south shore very

heavily armed [and therefore with the] prospect of fighting an entrenched

division all the way across after a landing on the north shore." He admitted

that Oahu was difficult to defend against "air attacks coming in from the

sea." But he expressed the belief that airplane carriers could "not live in

these waters as long as we have left any bombers at all;" and anyway he

felt "that naval air forces, like the cavalry of old, always has in its mind, the

get-away."

 6 General Herron's optimism about Oahu's relative invulnerability to invasion appears to have been well founded, but two years later

the Japanese certainly belied his observation about carriers.

The possibility of war with Japan had led the Army and Navy in 1924

to draft a new joint ORANGE plan to govern the conduct of such a war. Since

the Limitations of Armament Treaty of 1921 barred the building of any

new military defenses to the westward of Hawaii, the Pearl Harbor base and

its Army defenses assumed an ever-increasing importance in Pacific war

plans during the twenties and thirties. By 1938 the Navy had expended about

$75,000,000 on this base, and the Army more than twice that amount on

military installations to protect it. Navy plans for a Japanese war visualized

the launching of a transpacific offensive from Oahu through Japanese-held

islands toward the Philippines; but by 1935 the Army was convinced that

such an offensive was impracticable, at least at the beginning of a war with

Japan, and therefore that American strategy in the Pacific should be essentially defensive and should concentrate on holding the Alaska-HawaiiPanama line. The last ORANGE plan revision of 1938 represented an unsatisfactory compromise of the Army and Navy positions. In any event, because of the increasing threat of war with Japan, the Army from 1935 until

the autumn of 1939 accorded the Hawaiian Department top priority in the

supply of equipment, and it increased the strength of the garrison by more

than 50 percent, from 14,821 to 21,289 between the summers of 1935 and

1938.7

In September 1935 General Herron's predecessor in Hawaii, Maj. Gen.

Hugh A. Drum, had expressed himself as far from satisfied with either the

peacetime or planned wartime allotments of men and material to his department, and he also wanted to broaden the Army's mission. General Drum proposed that the mission include defense of all the main Hawaiian islands and

participation in the air defense of the eastern Pacific area. He asked for

6

 Pers Ltr, Gen Herron to Gen Marshall, 1 Sep 30, CofS file, Herron, Gen C. D. 7

 Rpt of Col Edward M. Markham to CofS, 10 Jan 38, sub: Rpt on Def Features of the

Hawaiian Islands, WPD 3878-9; Annual Reports of the Secretary of War, 1945-40.
154 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

twenty-six of the new "flying fortress" heavy bombers then under development, and he proposed to construct operating fields for them on Hawaii and

Kauai islands. This measure in turn would require some deployment of

Army ground forces to the outer islands to protect the new airfields. The

War Department rejected these proposals on the ground that the defense of

ocean areas was the Navy's business and that the dissipation of Hawaii's

forces would weaken the defense of Pearl Harbor, which must remain the

overriding mission of the Army in Hawaii. Army plans of 1935 called for

a war garrison on Oahu of more than 100,000 officers and men, and the

Army planners in Washington rejected General Drum's proposal that 23,000

of these troops be put on the outer islands in wartime.8 The Joint Board

confirmed these actions and held that the mission of United States forces in

Hawaii was only "to hold Oahu as a main outlying naval base" and the

Army's specific mission was "to hold Oahu against attacks by sea, land, and

air forces, and against hostile sympathizers."

 9

After a lengthy maritime strike in the winter of 1936-37 General Drum

resubmitted his recommendations with the argument that the Army must

extend its protection to the outer islands if it wished to assure an adequate

supply of food for Oahu in time of war. Oahu produced only 15 percent of

its own requirements in food, but the other islands could readily make up

the deficiency in an emergency if communication was maintained with them.

Again the War Department objected. In both 1935 and 1937, its basic argument against broadening the Army mission in Hawaii was the following:

"If the Fleet is in the Pacific and free to act, Oahu will be, with the completion of the existing defense project, secure against any attacks that may be

launched against it. It is only in the case that the Fleet is not present or free

to act that the security of the Hawaiian Islands can be seriously threatened."

 10

That the presence of the fleet in or near Hawaiian waters provided a more

or less automatic guarantee against any serious attack on Oahu continued to

be a widely held conviction both in Washington and Hawaii until the

Japanese demonstration to the contrary in December 1941.

A fresh survey of Oahu's defenses, conducted in late 1937 by Col.

Edward M. Markham on oral instruction of the President and Secretary of

War, produced conclusions similar to those of General Drum.11 Colonel

8

 WPD Study, 9 Dec 35, sub: Defense Mission—Hawaiian Dept, and other papers in WPD

3878; Memo, Col Sherman Miles for ACofS WPD, 28 Dec 35, WPD 3672-7. 9

 Memo, JB to SW, 19 May 36, WPD 3878-1. 10

 Memo, ACofS WPD for Col Miles, WPD, 29 Jul 37, and other papers in WPD 3878-3. 11

 Colonel Markham had just completed a four-year tour of duty as Chief of Engineers, with

rank of major general; and he retired with that rank in February 1938.
THE REINFORCEMENT OF OAHU 155

Markham stressed the need for making the Pearl Harbor base as nearly impregnable as possible. He pointed out that despite their recent strengthening,

the Army's installations for defending it were considerably less than impregnable, principally because of "the astounding advance in aircraft design

and range over the past twenty years." He emphasized as "a corollary of the

first order" the importance of preventing an enemy from seizing and using

Oahu and its Pearl Harbor base "as a springboard of attack against our west

coast territory and shipping, and the Panama Canal." Colonel Markham

agreed with General Drum that substantial peacetime Regular Army garrisons should be installed on Hawaii and Kauai to operate and support new

air bases and to assure Oahu of food in an emergency. Finally, he included

among the basic assumptions of his report one of the more prophetic forecasts of the prewar years:

War with Japan will be precipitated without notice. One of the most obvious and

vital lessons of history is that Japan will pick her own time for conflict. The very form

of its government lends itself to such action in that its military and naval forces can,

under the pretext of an emergency, initiate and prosecute military and naval operations

independently of civil control. . . . If and when hostilities develop between the United

States and Japan, there can be little doubt that the Hawaiian Islands will be the initial

scene of action, and that Japan will apply her available man-power and resources in

powerful and determined attacks against these islands.12

The slight impact of the Drum and Markham recommendations can be

credited in good measure to the rising threat of Hitler's Germany and the

increasing prospect of war in Europe, which from 1938 onward absorbed

the major attention of the Roosevelt administration and of the War Department in particular. Although the United States Government considered that

the Hawaiian Islands lay within the Western Hemisphere, new plans for

hemisphere defense developed after 1938 emphasized the strengthening of

the American military position in Atlantic and Latin American areas. The

War Department's stand also reflected the fact that Oahu, in comparison

with other overseas bases or with the continental United States itself, was

already well provided with defenses, and especially with the means for resisting invasion. It had a full infantry division, a heavy concentration of coast

defense guns, and from 1938 onward the more or less constant protection

of the United States Fleet. But, until 1941, it had no modern Army combat

planes.

One factor that altered the military security of Oahu in the years immediately preceding the Pearl Harbor attack was the increasing capabilities of

12

 Rpt of Col Markham to CofS, 10 Jan 38.
156 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

carrier-based air power. With the nearest Japanese airfield 2,100 miles away,

military authorities correctly calculated that Oahu was beyond the range

of land-based air power; but it could be reached by carriers, of which Japan

had six in operation by August 1939, and two more under construction. In

January 1938 Colonel Markham had pointed out how easy it would be for

carrier-based planes to approach Pearl Harbor from the northeast. Screened

by the heavy cloud cap almost continuously present over the main Koolau

Range, they could cross Oahu and deliver a surprise attack on the naval base

and its surrounding installations almost without warning. Since local ground

defenses and unwarned pursuit planes could not hope to cope with such an

attack, Colonel Markham assumed that the Army in order to fulfill its mission would have to conduct long-range aerial reconnaissance, and he recommended an Army air strength of 350 planes, to match an estimated 379

planes that Japan might possibly bring to bear in an initial all-out attack.13

The first War Department plans of 1939 for expanding the Air Corps

proposed to increase the authorized number of Army combat planes in Hawaii

from 124 to 256, and to include in the new allotment 140 bombers and 100

pursuit ships. In its report of June 1939 the Army Air Board explained the

large number of bombers by pointing out the need for Army reconnaissance

as well as striking forces to operate within a 1,000-mile radius of Oahu. Since

the Air Board report like all similar prewar studies recognized that a carrier

attack once launched would inevitably inflict some damage, it pointed out

that the only sure means of preventing successful carrier attacks was to locate

the carriers outside a 600- to 700-mile radius (the range of their attack

planes plus one night's sailing) and bomb them before they could launch

their planes. With strength enough to do this, Army aircraft in Hawaii could

also interdict any attempt by the enemy to establish airfields on any of the

other major islands.14

Under the production circumstances of 1939 any plans for strengthening

Army air power in Hawaii were bound to take a long time to carry into

effect, but the initial plans were further limited at the end of 1939 by general

assumptions of the War Plans Division in Washington that Japan would

not risk more than two of its carriers in a surprise attack and that long-range

aerial reconnaissance was properly a Navy and not an Army mission. In the

light of these assumptions the Army planners recalculated Hawaiian needs

13

 Rpt of Col Markham to CofS, 10 Jan 38. On 7 Dec 1941 the six Japanese carriers engaged

used 355 planes against Oahu. See below, p. VII-28. 14

 Memo, ACofS WPD for Chief, Budget and Planning Br, WDGS, 6 May 39, WPD 3807-31;

Tabs Y and Y2 to Army Air Bd Rpt, 26 Jun 39, WPD 3748-17.
THE REINFORCEMENT OF OAHU 157

for Army aircraft and allotted the Department 122 pursuit planes and 68

medium bombers. The bombers were to be used for reconnaissance only if

the Navy was absent or if it asked for reinforcement.15 These two assumptions, that the Japanese would never employ more than two carriers in a

surprise attack in the eastern Pacific and that Army bombers should not be

used for long-range offshore reconnaissance, remained constants in Washington and Hawaiian defense thinking and planning for the next two years, and

contributed substantially to Japanese success in December 1941.16

Under the revised 54-group air program of June 1940, Hawaii was

allotted some additional pursuit and light bomber strength for close-in

defense purposes and was scheduled to receive 68 heavy bombers—B-17's

—instead of mediums. But the premises behind the new allotments were

still a maximum 2-carrier threat and performance by the Navy of all longrange reconnaissance.17

 During the same month General Marshall suggested

sending 5 or 10 B-17's to Oahu immediately, but his G-3 (an Air officer)

objected on the ground that so few would have no restraining influence on

the Japanese and would inevitably be destroyed by hostile pursuit before they

could help in fighting off an attack—comments which throw light on the

utility of the 12 heavy bombers (only 6 of which were in commission) on

Oahu on the morning of 7 December 1941.18 What the Hawaiian Air Force

actually had at the beginning of 1941 was a heterogeneous collection of 115

combat planes, all of them obsolete or obsolescent. They were useful almost

exclusively for training and not for fighting.19

A second factor affecting the Hawaiian defense picture was the decision

to base the United States Fleet at Pearl Harbor. With Anglo-French naval

power seemingly in control of the Atlantic, the United States continued

after August 1939 to keep the bulk of its naval strength in the eastern Pacific.

Until 1940 the principal bases for the United States Fleet were on the continental west coast, with Pearl Harbor serving as an advance base and concentration point during maneuvers. But after annual maneuvers in April

1940 the fleet, under command of Admiral James O. Richardson, was

15

 Tab C to Memo, WPD for CofS, 21 Dec 39, WPD 3807-41. See also above, ch. III,

pp. 55-56. 16

 The tenacity of the first of these assumptions is reflected in the underestimates of Japanese

carrier strength by both Washington and Hawaiian authorities immediately after the December

1941 attack. They knew Oahu must have been hit by planes from more than two carriers, but

they guessed that no more than three or four had been used. 17

 Memo, Lt Col Jonathan W. Anderson for Brig Gen George V. Strong, WPD, 24 Jun 40,

WPD 3807-41. 18

 Notes on Conf in OCofS, 17 Jun 40, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 15, pp. 1929-31. 19

 Table showing Army airplane strength in Hawaii, January 1941, in OPD Exec 4, item 5.
158 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

ordered on 7 May to stay at Pearl Harbor, as a warning and deterrent to

Japan. Almost immediately thereafter Hitler's smashing land victory in

western Europe threatened to cripple or destroy Anglo-French naval power

in the Atlantic. To retrieve the situation it appeared by mid-June to Army

and Navy leaders in Washington that the United States would have to

transfer the bulk of its naval strength to Atlantic waters.20

It was this prospect that led General Marshall on 17 June to alert the

Panama and Hawaiian Departments to the danger of a transpacific raid,

following the departure of the United States Fleet. The Chief of Staff and

his advisers reasoned that, as collaborators with Nazi Germany, Japan and

the Soviet Union might launch such a raid in an effort either to keep the

United States Fleet in the Pacific or to block the Panama Canal after its

passage into the Caribbean. They feared a raid against Hawaii only if the

fleet had departed, and when President Roosevelt decided in early July to

keep the fleet at Pearl Harbor their apprehensions about Oahu faded.21

The alert message to Oahu was plain spoken:

Immediately alert complete defensive organization to deal with possible transpacific raid to greatest extent possible without creating public hysteria or provoking

undue curiosity of newspapers and alien agents. Suggest maneuver basis. Maintain

alert until further notice. Instructions for secret communication direct with Chief of

Staff will be furnished shortly. Acknowledge.22

General Herron reacted with vigor. He ordered a 24-hour manning of all

observation posts and antiaircraft batteries, and for the first time the antiaircraft gun crews received live ammunition and instructions to fire on any

foreign planes sighted over restricted areas. Airplanes at Hickam and

Wheeler Fields were dispersed, and on 21 June Army planes took over the

task of inshore dawn patrols from the Navy. Although not similarly alerted,

Admiral Richardson's forces co-operated wholeheartedly, instituting both

inshore patrols and a limited amount of longer range aerial reconnaissance—

the limiting factor being the small number of Navy planes available for the

purpose. On inquiry, the Chief of Naval Operations confirmed that the

Army's alert had been issued after consultation with the Navy and requested

Admiral Richardson to continue his co-operation. On 19 June the War

20

 See Conn and Fairchild, Framework of Hemisphere Defense, ch. II; Morison, Rising Sun

in the Pacific, p. 43; Memo, WPD for CofS, 17 Jun 40, WPD 4250-3. 21

 Notes on Confs in OCofS, 17 Jun 40, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 15, pp. 1929-31; Memo,

Gen Strong for Gen Marshall, 15 Dec 45, ibid., pp. 1908-10; Memo for Rcd, Gen Strong, 11 Dec

45, OPD Pearl Harbor file, Misc Corresp; Draft Ltr, CofS to CG Hawaiian Dept, ———— Jun 40,

WPD 4322. 22

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 17 Jun 40, WPD 4322.
THE REINFORCEMENT OF OAHU 159

Department authorized a gradual modification of the alert, and a month

later its relaxation at General Herron's discretion, except for continued precautions against sabotage and local air patrols on a training basis. The Navy

maintained some distant patrolling by Oahu-based sea planes for most of

the time until 30 December 1940, when Admiral Richardson discontinued

such reconnaissance after being advised by the Chief of Naval Operations

that only naval operating areas needed reconnoitering.23 In the meantime,

the alert measures had fostered closer co-operation between Army and Navy

forces, and in General Herron's opinion had had a wholly salutary effect on

the morale of Army troops. In a personal letter of 6 September he told

General Marshall that "the position of this place on the Army priority lists

is still all right," and assured him that "as things now are, I feel that you

need not have this place on your mind at all."

 24

 But on the preceding day he

had officially asked for a good many more antiaircraft troops to man guns

already on hand.

The request of Hawaii for more antiaircraft troops reached Washington

in the same month that the United States Government openly shifted its

course from neutrality to nonbelligerency and determination to support Great

Britain in the Atlantic war. To be effective the new course required peace in

the Pacific area, outside of China. But President Roosevelt and his advisers

believed that the United States must also do what it could, short of war, to

show Japan that its open alignment of 27 September with Germany and Italy

was not going to stop American aid to Britain. As one gesture the President

directed that Hawaii be reinforced by a National Guard infantry division,

and Secretary Stimson had some difficulty in persuading the President that

under existing circumstances such a move would really weaken and not

strengthen the military security of Oahu. Partly to satisfy the President's

wishes for some sort of reinforcement, as well as General Herron's plea for

more men, General Marshall decided to send a National Guard antiaircraft

regiment from California to Hawaii as soon as possible. The 251st Antiaircraft Artillery Regiment, which moved to Oahu during the winter, was

the first National Guard unit to leave the continental United States for overseas duty in World War II.25

23

 Various exchanges between WD and Hawaiian Dept, 17 Jun-16 Jul 40, WPD 4322; Memo,

Gen Herron for Gen Marshall, 18 Dec 41, OPD Résumé, Pearl Harbor Attack; Testimony of

Adm Richardson, 11 and 20 Nov 45, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 1, pp. 274, 312; Testimony of

Gen Herron, 8 Jan 44, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 27, p. 125. 24

 Pers Ltr, Gen Herron to Gen Marshall, 6 Sep 40, in CofS file, Herron, Gen C. D. 25

 Stimson Diary, entries of 4 and 8 Oct 40; Memo, OPD for CofS, 7 Oct 40, and CofS for

DCofS Gen Bryden, 9 Oct 40. Last two in OPD Résumé, Pearl Harbor Attack. Notes on Conf in

OCofS, 8 Oct 40, OCS Conf, binder 6.
160 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

With strength to man existing ground defense equipment in the offing,

General Herron appears to have been reasonably well satisfied with the

Army's posture of defense on Oahu in late 1940. During November he sent

to Washington a paper entitled Draft Surmises on Insular Operations, his

opening surmise being that fleets could not operate more than 2,000 miles from

a major base, although a small raiding force could range much farther. The

implication for Hawaii was that a small raiding force was all that need be

anticipated. The general recognized the need to detect a carrier raid as far

off as possible and acknowledged that a shore-based aerial patrol was a

necessary adjunct to insular defense. But long-range reconnaissance was the

Navy's business, as Admiral Richardson had informally acknowledged in

August.26 And the discontinuance of Navy long-range patrolling by shorebased planes at the end of the year appears to have passed unnoticed by the

Army.

The absence of an effective shore-based aerial patrol seems to have concerned General Herron much less than the prospective congestion of the air

and of airfields when the Army and Navy obtained the full quota of planes

that had been allotted to Oahu. The general wondered whether it might not

be better to keep most of the heavy planes allotted to Hawaii on the west

coast, on the assumption that the time had come when the Hawaiian Islands

could be largely defended by bombers based on the mainland. The War

Department thought differently, considering the 68 Army heavy bombers

allotted the minimum needed on the spot; and it also took note of and

advised General Herron about the Navy's new plan to station 180 longrange patrol planes in the islands, including 108 that were to remain permanently to patrol coastal waters and sea lanes. This last increment, when

it arrived, could presumably provide all of the long-range reconnaissance

needed.27 According to his later recollections, what worried General Herron

most at the end of 1940 was the inadequacy of his antiaircraft defenses, not

the present or prospective means of locating and bombing carriers. He told

the Army Pearl Harbor Board in 1944 that he and his air commander had

known "that an air force could come in and do some damage." Continuing,

he said:

We hoped to be able to follow them out and destroy the carriers. But I do not think

we had any idea that we could turn back an aerial attack entirely, for this reason: that

26

 Gen Herron, Draft Surmises on Insular Operations, 12 Nov 40, WPD 3878-8; Pers Ltr,

Gen Herron to Gen Marshall, 13 Aug 40, and Incls, in CofS file, Herron, Gen C. D. 27

 Various papers, dated 11 Dec 40-7 Jan 41, in WPD 3878-9; Testimony of Rear Adm

Claude C. Bloch, Commandant, Fourteenth Naval District, 30 Dec 41, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 22,

p. 500.
THE REINFORCEMENT OF OAHU 161

the only antiaircraft we had was that which was prepared against high-altitude bombing. We did not have the small-caliber stuff which you need to do anything about dive

bombings. So we felt they could come in; that they would not come in there unless

they had enough planes to overcome what planes we had.28

Defense Preparations During 1941

From available evidence it appears that as the year 1940 ended the Navy

was more concerned than the Army about the state of the Army's defenses in

Hawaii. After Admiral Richardson discovered on a Washington visit during

October that the President was determined to keep the fleet at Pearl Harbor,

he arranged with General Herron to inspect the Army's defenses and review

their adequacy to protect the fleet and naval installations. His findings became

the basis for a letter from the Secretary of the Navy to the Secretary of War

on 24 January 1941, which stressed that Japan might initiate hostilities by

a surprise attack on the fleet and on the base installations at Pearl Harbor,

and envisaged an air attack by bombers and torpedo planes as more probable

than threats of sabotage, submarine attack, the sowing of mines, and bombardment by naval gun fire. The Navy's estimate did not even mention

invasion as a danger, though that was the preoccupation of a large portion

of the Army defenders. The Navy urged "that the Army assign the highest

priority to the increase of pursuit aircraft and antiaircraft artillery, and the

establishment of an air warning net in Hawaii."

 29

The Navy's letter arrived on the heels of a forecast by President Roosevelt

that Japan might even then be preparing to strike at the United States, and

his decision that if that happened the United States must "stand on the

defensive in the Pacific with the fleet based on Hawaii" and continue aid to

Britain.30 The War Plans Division recommended that a few B-17's be sent

to Oahu at once and that Hawaii (as well as Alaska and Panama) be put on

a war basis as soon as possible.31 Even so, the War Department had drafted

a routine response to the Navy's letter, stating in effect that nothing more

could be sent to Hawaii for some time to come. General Marshall stopped

this draft, and arranged to have eighty-one pursuit planes, fifty of them of

the P-40B type, shipped by carriers to Oahu as soon as possible.32

28

 Testimony of Gen Herron, 8 Jan 44, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 27, p. 128. 29

 Ltr, SN to SW, 24 Jan 41, WPD 3583-1. 30

 Memo, CofS for WPD, 17 Jan 41, WPD 4175-18. 31

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 21 Jan 41, WPD 4175-18. 32

 Notes on Conf in OCofS, 6 Feb 41, OCS Conf, binder 10; Memo, Gen Marshall for ACofS

WPD, 6 Feb 41; Ltr, SW to SN, 7 Feb 41. Last two in WPD 3583-1; Memo for Rcd of Maj Gen

Thomas T. Handy, 1 Aug 44, in OPD Résumé, Pearl Harbor Attack.
TROOPS ON MANEUVERS IN HAWAII, 1941, PREPARE To RESIST INVASION.

Guarding a beach (top). Loading a 75-mm, gun (bottom).
THE REINFORCEMENT OF OAHU 163

The Army answered the Navy's letter on 7 February 1941, the same day

that General Herron relinquished command of the Hawaiian Department to

Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short. A week earlier the Navy had reshuffled its forces,

redesignating the fleet at Pearl Harbor as the Pacific Fleet and giving it a new

commander, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel. The Army command went to

General Short because of his reputation as an effective training man, and he

threw himself into the work of his new post with great energy. General

Marshall pointed out to him in a personal letter of 7 February that "the

fullest protection for the Fleet is the rather than a major consideration" for

the Army in Hawaii, and observed further:

My impression of the Hawaiian problem has been that if no serious harm is done us

during the first six hours of known hostilities, thereafter the existing defenses would

discourage an enemy against the hazard of an attack. The risk of sabotage and the risk

involved in a surprise raid by Air and by submarine constitute the real perils of the

situation. Frankly, I do not see any landing threat in the Hawaiian Islands so long as

we have air superiority.

He also stressed the need for the closest co-operation with the Navy and

with the new Navy commander, Admiral Kimmel.33

For various reasons, concern in Washington over the possible imminence

of war with Japan subsided after February 1941, and worries over recognized

deficiencies in the Army's defense equipment faded once more into the background.

By April, it looked as if the United States was on the brink of open

participation in the Atlantic war, and plans were afoot to reinforce the

Atlantic Fleet by withdrawing a substantial part of the Pacific Fleet from

Hawaiian waters. In the eyes of Washington, Oahu looked more secure than

ever, now that it was protected by some modern Army pursuit craft and was

about to be reinforced further by fifty-five more P-40's and thirty-five B-17's.

General Marshall assured Secretary Stimson that he thought Oahu was

impregnable whether any fleet was there or not, because "with our heavy

bombers and our fine pursuit planes, the land force could put up such a

defense that the Japs wouldn't dare attack Hawaii, particularly such a long

distance from home."

 34

To assist Mr. Stimson in convincing the President it was safe to shift

American naval power to the Atlantic, General Marshall had the War Plans

Division prepare an estimate, the draft of which read:

The Island of Oahu, due to its fortification, its garrison, and its physical characteristics, is believed to be the strongest fortress in the world.

33

 Pers Ltr, Gen Marshall to Gen Short, 7 Feb 41, WPD 4449-1. 34

 Stimson Diary, entry of 23 Apr 41.
164 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

It has been carefully fortified against naval attack and its antiaircraft defense is

relatively complete.

Its total garrison is at present approximately 31,000 men, and is in process of

augmentation by 6,000 men.

Including the movement of aviation now in process, it is defended by 35 of our

longest range bombers, 35 medium range bombers, 105 of our high speed pursuit

ships, 65 fighters, and 13 light bombers.

The Hawaiian Islands are subject to (a) sabotage, (b) carrier raids, (c) an attack

in force.

In point of sequence, sabotage is first to be expected and may, within a very limited

time, cause great damage. On this account, and in order to assure strong control, it

would be highly desirable to set up a military control of the islands prior to the likelihood of our involvement in the Far East.

Carrier raids by the Japanese involve jeopardizing naval units that will not be

lightly undertaken. To meet these carrier raids our bombardment, protected by pursuit

aviation, the latter operating from advanced fields on the Islands of Hawaii and Kauai,

can cover a radius from Oahu of approximately 400 miles and beyond suitable points

for the establishment of hostile land-based aviation.

An attack in force against Oahu necessitates an air superiority that can only be had

by the establishment of land-based air within striking distance of Oahu. This can only

be accomplished successfully within the Hawaiian group and with the defense indicated above it is not believed that such establishment can be accomplished.

Hawaii is capable of reinforcement by heavy bombers from the mainland by air.35

A note (by the President's military aide) on a revised version handed to Mr.

Roosevelt summed up the War Department's optimistic view: "Modern

planes have completely changed situation as to defensibility."

 36

 The principal

effect of these arguments seems to have been to plant a new legacy of confidence among Washington leaders in the immunity of Hawaii from serious

attack, since the President decided then and thereafter that the bulk of the

Pacific Fleet must remain in the western Pacific as a deterrent to Japanese

aggression.37

When General Short surveyed his new command in February 1941, he

recognized a good many more flaws in its armor than the War Department

in Washington did two months later. Although he appears never to have

been greatly concerned during 1941 about the number of Army aircraft on

hand and ready for action, he did take an intense interest in other matters

related to air defense. Prompted by General Marshall's personal letter of 7

February and an official War Department communication of the same date,

General Short turned his attention at once to improving co-operation

35

 WPD Draft of Aide-mémoire on Oahu, n.d. but probably 23 Apr 41, WPD 3672-32. 36

 Notation on Aide-mémoire, Def of Hawaii, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 15, p. 1635. The original of the revised version, dated 24 Apr 1941, is in WPD 3672-32. 37

 See Conn and Fairchild, Framework of Hemisphere Defense, chs. V and VI.
THE REINFORCEMENT OF OAHU 165

between Army and Navy forces and in particular to clarifying the respective

responsibilities of their air forces in defensive operations.38

At the beginning of 1941 Army and Navy forces in Hawaii, as everywhere else in the field, operated more or less independently of each other,

with co-ordination as circumstances required under the principle of mutual

co-operation. On paper responsibility for local naval defense measures

except aboard ship rested with the commandant of the Fourteenth Naval

District, Rear Admiral Claude C. Bloch, and it was with Admiral Bloch's

organization that the Army command proceeded to negotiate on a number

of matters pertaining to air defense. Actually the Fourteenth Naval District

had no defense forces of its own during 1941, and the contribution that the

Navy could make to local defense depended upon what could be spared from

the fleet and its Marine Corps attachments. It therefore depended also on the

maintenance of a close personal relationship and understandings between

General Short and Admiral Kimmel, the fleet commander.

Their predecessors, General Herron and Admiral Richardson, had succeeded in overcoming some of the characteristic resistance to effective ArmyNavy co-operation in the field. An aftermath of the spring maneuvers and

subsequent alert of 1940 had been an informal joint agreement on air operations under which the Navy assumed exclusive responsibility for distant

reconnaissance, both services retained the right to conduct close-in reconnaissance for their own protection, and each might engage independently

in air attacks against a hostile fleet.39 The new formal agreement signed

by General Short and Admiral Bloch on 28 March 1941 left responsibility

for distant reconnaissance with the Navy, but if Army planes helped out they

were to operate under Navy command; if Navy planes helped in the defense

of Oahu's land area, they were to operate under Army command; and any

Army bombardment planes engaging in offensive operations at sea were to

be under Navy command.40 In joint exercises during 1941 the new agreement

worked well enough; but the prejudice in both services against unity of

command offered fair assurance that except in such exercises the agreement

would not be invoked unless a compelling and clearly recognized emergency

was at hand.

In another joint paper signed three days later, the Army and Navy air

commanders in Hawaii acknowledged how difficult it might be to foresee

38

 Ltr, Gen Short to Gen Marshall, 19 Feb 41, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 15, pp. 1602-04. 39

 Ltrs, Gen Herron to Gen Marshall, 13 Aug 40-28 Jan 41, in CofS file, Herron, Gen C. D. 40

 An. 7 to Jt Coastal Frontier Def Plan, 1939, signed 28 Mar 41, in AG 381 (1-24-41) (1).
166 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

such an emergency. Their estimate of the outlook emphasized the possibility

of a sudden Japanese attack on Oahu prior to a formal declaration of war,

and they noted the likelihood under existing circumstances that a dawn air

attack launched from carriers might hit at the fleet and naval installations

at Pearl Harbor with such complete surprise that defending pursuit could

do little to soften the blow. They recognized that distant air reconnaissance

was the best defense against surprise. Pointing out that it would be impossible with the equipment at hand to maintain such reconnaissance except

for a short period, they emphasized the necessity of obtaining intelligence

that a raid on Oahu was imminent before undertaking a systematic longrange reconnaissance of its sea approaches.41

In addition to pushing toward agreement on other matters of mutual

concern to the two services, General Short made a point of cultivating the

personal friendship of Admirals Kimmel and Bloch. In forwarding the

items described above to General Marshall, he stated that he had found both

admirals most co-operative and that they all felt that steps had already been

taken to make it possible for Army and Navy forces to act together and with

the unity of command that the situation might require. Somewhat later

Admiral Kimmel reported to Washington in the same vein, but noted the

serious need for a great many more Army heavy bombardment planes.42

Instead of receiving 35 B-17's as planned in April, only 21 made an

historic mass flight from California to Oahu in mid-May. The critical outlook of affairs in the Atlantic area induced General Marshall to withhold

the other 14.43 Early in July the War Department was wondering whether

more than one 35-plane group of heavies was really needed in Hawaii before

the outbreak of a war, and even the Hawaiian Air Force commander optimistically estimated in August that one such group would be strong enough

to finish off six enemy carriers. The real need, he felt, was for long-range

reconnaissance; and, ignoring the Navy's responsibility for this function

and plans for undertaking it eventually, he asked for a total of 180 heavy

Army bombers so that the Army could do it. His request, warmly endorsed

by General Short, reached Washington in the midst of new War Department

planning that allotted from 136 to 204 heavy Army bombers to the Hawaiian

41

 Jt Estimate Covering Jt Army and Navy Air Action in the Event of Sudden Hostile Action

Against Oahu or Fleet Units in the Hawaiian Area, 31 Mar 41, Incl to Pers Ltr, Gen Short to

Gen Marshall, 14 Apr 41, AG 601.5 (4-14-41). 42

 Pers Ltr, Gen Short to Gen Marshall, 14 Apr 41, AG 601.5 (4-14-41); Memo, Adm

Kimmel for Adm Stark, 4 Jun 41, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 16, pp. 2238-39. 43

 Craven and Cate, Plans and Early Operations, pp. 172-73; Memo, Office Chief of Air Corps

for TAG, 7 May 41, AG 452 (3-3-41); Notes on Conf in OSW, 19 May 41, Pearl Harbor

Attack, pt. 15, p. 1631.
THE REINFORCEMENT OF OAHU 167

Department by mid-1942, and this planning had to suffice as an answer for

the time being. These plans also coincided with the new Washington decision

to reinforce the Philippines, and the net result was that Oahu lost 9 of its

21 heavies to the Philippines in early September and kept the remaining 12

only because they could be employed most usefully at Hickam as sources of

spare parts and in training new combat and ferry crews.44

Superficially, Oahu's needs for pursuit craft appeared much better met.

During most of the time between May and December 1941 it had about 150

Army pursuit and fighter planes, two-thirds of them modern P-40's. But a

chronic shortage of spare parts kept many of these planes out of commission,

and the ones available had to be used intensively for training. The greatest

qualification was that pursuit planes, however modern, were all but worthless as defense equipment in the absence of an effective warning system,

and Oahu had none before the attack on Pearl Harbor.45

In early December 1941 the Army did have an aircraft warning system

nearing completion in Hawaii, but it was not yet in operation. This system

depended for its information on the long-range radar machines developed

by the Signal Corps in the late 1930's, the SCR-270 (mobile) and SCR-271

(fixed). The Signal Corps in Washington drafted the first plan for installing some of this equipment in Hawaii in November 1939, but before 1941

not much actually was done to prepare for its installation.46 As of February

1941 the War Department expected to deliver radars to Hawaii in June

and hoped they could be operated as soon as they were delivered. The first

mobile sets actually reached Hawaii in July, delivery having been delayed

by about a month because of a temporary diversion of equipment to an

emergency force being prepared for occupation of the Azores. In September

five mobile sets began operating at temporary locations around Oahu, and

a sixth, the Opana station at the northern tip of Oahu, joined the circuit

on 27 November. Three fixed sets also arrived during November, but their

mountain-top sites were not ready to receive them.47

44

 Memo, SGS for CG AAF, 3 Jul 41, OCS 17234-25; CG Hawaiian Air Force for CG AAF,

through CG Hawaiian Dept, 20 Aug 41, with Incls, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 14, pp. 1019-34;

Memo, Col Bernard Thielen for Brig Gen North, 3 Dec 45, OPD file, Pearl Harbor Misc Corresp;

Testimony of Maj Gen Frederick L. Martin, 29 Aug 44, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 28, p. 973. 45

 This last point had been fully appreciated by the Chief Signal Officer and the commander

of the GHQ Air Force back in February, before any of the new planes had been sent out to Hawaii

(Notes on Confs in OCofS, 19 and 25 Feb 41, OCS Conf, binder 10); but the mere presence of

the planes appears to have had a satisfying effect both in Washington and Hawaii. 46

 Various papers, dated 1939-41, in WPD 3640-5, 6, and 13. See Terrett, The Emergency,

pp. 299-306, for details. 47

 1st Ind, OCSigO to ASF, 31 Jul 44, on Memo, ASF for CSigO, 27 Jul 44, in OPD Résumé,

Pearl Harbor Attack.
168 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

The radars in operation on Oahu in late 1941 had a dependable range

of from 75 to 125 miles seaward. An exercise in early November demonstrated their ability to detect a group of carrier planes before daylight 80

miles away, far enough out to alert Army pursuit planes in time for the

latter to intercept incoming "enemy" bombers about 30 miles from Pearl

Harbor. But this test in no way indicated the readiness of radar to do its

job a month later. The sets were being operated solely for training; a shortage of spare parts and of a dependable power supply made it impracticable

to operate them for more than three or four hours a day; the organization

for using their information was a partly manned makeshift operating for

training only; and defending pursuit, even if they could have been informed,

would have had to keep warmed up and ready to take off in order to intercept enemy planes before they reached their targets.

The radars were not supposed to function except for training purposes

until the Signal Corps turned them over to an air defense or interceptor

command, to be operated by the Army pursuit commander through an information center which would receive data from the radar stations, warn

the defending pursuit, control the movement of friendly planes, and control

the firing of all antiaircraft guns. In March 1941 General Short had agreed

that Hawaii needed such a command, and he arranged for his pursuit commander and his Signal Corps officer to visit the continental United States

in the late fall of 1941 to witness operations and exercises of interceptor

commands, preparatory to installing the system in Hawaii. They did not

get back to Oahu until 4 December, much too late to get a local interceptor

organization and information center into operation before the Japanese

attacked.

The Army generally had more confidence in late 1941 in a much older

weapon, the antiaircraft gun, as a means of air defense. Antiaircraft artillery had played an important part in the defense planning and preparation of

the Hawaiian Department since 1921, when it organized the first antiaircraft artillery regiment in the United States Army. Twenty years later the

latest revision of the Hawaiian defense project, approved by the War Department in September 1941, prescribed an impressive allotment of antiaircraft artillery weapons: 84 mobile and 26 fixed 3-inch guns for high altitude firing, and provision for replacing some of them as soon as possible

with more modern weapons; 144 of the newer 37-mm. automatic weapons;

and 516 caliber .50 antiaircraft machine guns for action against low-flying

aircraft. By then also the department had four antiaircraft regiments, and it

was scheduled to receive a fifth before the end of the year. Actually three
THE REINFORCEMENT OF OAHU 169

of the four regiments present were at little more than half strength, and the

equipment on hand was considerably less than that allotted, amounting to

60 mobile and 26 fixed 3-inch guns, only 109 antiaircraft machine guns, and

only 20 of the 37-mm. automatic weapons.48

With the strength available, Army antiaircraft on Oahu had the ability

when deployed to give some protection against high-flying horizontal bombing planes along the south coast (from Diamond Head to west of Pearl

Harbor) and around Schofield Barracks and Wheeler Field. The 37-mm.

guns had been in Hawaii for almost ten months before ammunition for

them arrived on 5 December 1941, and there had been very little for the

antiaircraft machine guns, so that firing practice for even the small number

of guns available for defense against dive or torpedo bombers or other lowflying planes had been more or less out of the question. About half the

mobile 3-inch guns were assigned action stations on private property, and

in practice sessions during the months before the Japanese attack the gun

crews kept to nearby roads and carefully refrained from trespassing.49 Except during practice sessions the guns and the regiments that manned them

were concentrated in three areas some distance from their battle stations,

and at all times after May 1941 ammunition for the guns remained in the

Ordnance depot. Only the fixed 3-inch guns, with ammunition boxed but

close at hand, were ready for near immediate action. The rest depended on

getting several hours' advance warning of an impending attack.

When General Short assumed command in February 1941 he immediately recognized the need for giving greater protection to Army aircraft on

the ground by constructing dispersal runways and bunkers at existing airfields, and by building new airfields on Oahu and on other islands to relieve

the congestion and close concentration of planes at Hickam and Wheeler

Fields. By May the War Department had given formal approval to the construction to 253 bunkers, but it failed to provide any funds or to approve

plans for them before the Japanese attacked in December. During the summer General Short by using troop labor managed to construct 85 bunkers at

Wheeler Field; but under the alert of 27 November planes were ordered

to be bunched not dispersed, and the bunkers therefore were not put to

use.50

48

 Lt Col Willard L. Jones, History of the Organization of United States Antiaircraft Artillery,

draft MS in OCMH; Memo, WPD for CofS, 2 Dec 41, WPD 1305-24; statistical data in OPD

file, Pearl Harbor Misc Corresp. 49

 Testimony of Maj Gen Henry T. Burgin before Army Pearl Harbor Bd, 8 Sep 44, Pearl

Harbor Attack, pt. 28, p. 1370. 50

 Résumé on Dispersion and Protection of Aircraft, WPD 4483.
170 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

On Oahu during 1941 the Army completed and opened the new Bellows

Field on the coast east of Honolulu, and it was being used in the fall by

pursuit and light bomber planes. General Short wanted to build another

pursuit field on the plateau about four miles northeast of Schofield Barracks, but the War Department insisted that it be located on the northern

tip of Oahu, at Kahuku Point, instead. Because of this argument, and the

fact that the Kahuku site was being used by the Navy as a bombing range,

a new major pursuit field on Oahu remained no more than an idea before

December.51 A small training field, near Haleiwa in the same area, was unknown to the Japanese and almost untouched by them in the Pearl Harbor

attack. The Army also made arrangements with the Navy for the practice

use of each other's airfields on Oahu and on other islands of the Hawaiian

group, and for the extension of runways on Navy fields to accommodate

Army heavy bombers.52

The development of military airfields in the outer islands harked back

to plans of the 1920's and 1930's for the establishment of air bases on

Hawaii and Kauai. Fields on these and other islands were begun in June

1940 by the Works Progress Administration in accordance with priorities

established by the Army. A year later the War Department approved new

construction that would allow the operation of heavy bombers from two

fields on Kauai and three on Hawaii and would permit pursuit planes to

operate from fields on Molokai and Lanai. Completion of these projects

would make possible the distant dispersion of bombers from Hickam, and

pursuit ships could be flown to the nearest islands. But no Army aircraft

had occupied the new fields before 7 December.53

The beginnings of military airfield construction on other major islands,

together with General Short's concern about the possibilities of sabotage or

other hostile action by residents of Japanese descent, prompted the first garrisoning of the Hawaiian group as a whole by active Army forces. In May

1941 General Short detached the 299th Infantry Regiment from the

Hawaiian Division and sent one battalion to Hawaii, another to Kauai, and

divided a third between Maui and Molokai.54 These detachments and other

Army forces sent to the outer islands were put under the local command of

51

 Ltr, Gen Short to Gen Marshall, AG 660.2 (3-5-41); Ltrs, Gen Short to Gen Marshall,

11 Jun 41, and Gen Marshall to Gen Short, 8 Aug 41, in Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 15, pp. 1624-

25; extract from Min, JB Mtg, 19 Sep 41, in OPD Résumé, Pearl Harbor Attack. 52

 Various papers, dated 10 Jul-25 Jul 41, in WPD 2550-28. 53

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 19 Jun 40, WPD 2550-14, and other papers in this same file. 54

 The 299th was a National Guard regiment organized and recruited in the outer islands, so

in effect this move represented a return of its component parts to their home stations, after six

months' duty and training on Oahu.
THE REINFORCEMENT OF OAHU 171

military districts (of Hawaii, Maui, and Kauai), which in turn reported

directly to the commander of the Hawaiian Department. Trained combat

troops on the outer islands numbered about 1,300 at the beginning of

December 1941.55

About the same time that General Short decided to garrison the outer

islands he asked the War Department to approve the reorganization of the

Hawaiian Division by distributing its four infantry regiments between two

new triangular divisions. The actual reorganization, into the 24th and 25th

Infantry Divisions, did not become effective until 1 October 1941. The new

divisions had an authorized strength of about 11,000 officers and men each,

but their actual strength was considerably less at the outset, and the 24th

Division had no control over the battalions of the 299th Infantry scattered

among the outer islands.56

In the year preceding the Pearl Harbor attack, the Army's officer and

enlisted strength in the Hawaiian Department grew from 28,798 to 43,177,

and Hawaii remained the largest of the overseas garrisons.57 Nearly half the

increase represented increments, including a good many men of Japanese

descent, drawn from the local population through the induction of the National Guard and the operation of the selective service system.58

 Since most

of the new men received from the mainland also needed more training, the

Hawaiian Department of necessity became a training establishment on a

large scale during 1941, resembling in many respects the ground and air

training commands then so active in the continental United States.

Until 28 May 1941 the RAINBOW plans contemplated an Army wartime

garrison of 79,000 for Hawaii, substantially less than had been scheduled

for it in war plans of the mid-1930's.59 On that date the War Department

ordered a further reduction of 21,000 and lessened the decrease only slightly to accommodate General Short's plan for additional units to guard the

Navy's new air station at Kaneohe Bay on the northeast coast of Oahu.60 By

22 September 1941, when Secretary Stimson and General Marshall went

55

 History of Army in Hawaii before 7 Dec 1941, in Bulky Package 2 of supporting documents

to USAFMIDPAC History in OCMH; Testimony of Gen Short before Roberts Commission, 23

Dec 41 and 8 Jan 42, in Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 22, p. 68, and pt. 23, p. 991. 56

 Memo, Gen Short for TAG, 25 Apr 41, in Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 18, p. 3096; Hawaiian

Dept GO 53, 1941, 26 Sep 41; Testimony of Brig Gen Durward S. Wilson before Roberts Commission, 24 Dec 41, in Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 22, p. 153. 57

 Tabulations of Machine Rcds Br, AGO, 30 Nov 45, in OPD file, Pearl Harbor Misc Corresp. 58

 Gwenfread Allen, Hawaii's War Years (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1950), pp.

264-66. 59

 Incl to Memo, WPD for CofS, 15 May 41, WPD 3493-11. 60

 Rad, TAG to CG Hawaiian Dept, 28 May 41, WPD 4175-18; various papers, dated

1937-41, in WPD 3835.
172 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

over the strengths of all overseas garrisons with President Roosevelt, Hawaii

had its full authorized peacetime strength of about 42,000. They agreed

that any further reinforcement of the Hawaiian garrison could be deferred

as long as the fleet remained in the Pacific, since the presence of the fleet

reduced the threat of major attack.61 The revised RAINBOW 5 plan of November 1941 called for 17,300 more troops to be sent as war reinforcements as

soon as possible, and an ultimate war garrison of about 68,000.62 Behind

all these figures appears a confidence in Washington during 1941 that

Hawaii by comparison with other overseas outposts was well manned, and

that in the event of war Hawaii would not be on the front line of conflict

as forecast by the larger war garrisons planned for it by the Army during

the 1930's.

The same confidence can be deduced from war plans drafted and approved by the War Department during late 1941. Back in August 1937

Army and Navy planners had put the Hawaiian Coastal Frontier into Category of Defense D, which indicated an area that might be subject to major

attack and within which all elements for defense should be approximately

ready for action or in action, including an active antiaircraft gun defense of

important areas and long-range aerial reconnaissance as required. Actually

this provision meant very little either before or after the Pearl Harbor attack, since even after the attack the Category D description remained unchanged until October 1943, and at no time did it reflect with any accuracy

the current status of defense operations. The War Department's RAINBOW

5 Operations Plan, approved 19 August 1941, confirmed Category of Defense D, and stated the Army's mission to be: "Hold Oahu against attacks

by land, sea, and air forces, and against hostile sympathizers. Support naval

forces in the protection of the sea communications of the Associated Powers

and in the destruction of Axis sea communications by offensive action

against enemy forces or commerce located within tactical operating radius

of occupied air bases."

 63

 The provision for the support of naval forces was

inapplicable until the Navy put its operating plans based on RAINBOW 5

into effect, an action which it did not take except in areas many thousands

of miles from Hawaii until after the Japanese attacked. A month later, on

17 September, the War Department approved the latest revision of the

61

 Memo, CofS for President Roosevelt, 22 Sep 41, with annotations, in Roosevelt Papers,

FDRL. 62

 Study, Comparison of RAINBOW 5 and Its Revision #1 of Nov 41, in OPD Pearl Harbor

file; Tab A to Memo, G-3 for CofS, 19 Nov 41, AG 381 (11-19-41). 63

 WD Operations Plan, RAINBOW 5, par. 30, copy in OPD Résumé, Pearl Harbor Attack.
THE REINFORCEMENT OF OAHU 173

Hawaiian Defense Project, which listed the forms of possible enemy attack

in the following order of probability:

(a) Submarine—torpedo and mine.

(b) Sabotage.

(c) Disguised merchant ship attack by blocking channels, by mines, or by air or

surface craft.

(d) Air raids, carrier based.

(e) Surface ship raids.

(f) Major combined attack in the absence of the U.S. [sic] Fleet.64

Thus, sabotage was again confirmed as the principal and immediate concern of Army defense forces. Finally, in the revision of RAINBOW 5 completed in November, the Washington planners limited the sea area required

for the defense of Oahu to a 500-mile radius from land, a limitation which

if it had been applied would have confined long-range reconnaissance to

bounds that all previous studies had considered ineffective for detecting the

approach of carrier forces before they could launch their planes.65

Thus, though extensively reinforced, the Army defenses of Oahu were

not ready by 7 December 1941 to detect the approach of a carrier attack or

to cope with an air attack as powerful as that launched by the Japanese.

64

 Revision 1940, sec. II, par. 1. d.(1), copy in OPD Résumé, Pearl Harbor Attack. 65

 Study, n.d., sub: Comparison of R 5 and Rev of R 5, Nov 41, in OPD Pearl Harbor file.
CHAPTER VII

The Pearl Harbor Attack

For the first half of 1941 the military strategy and preparations of the

United States were aimed toward belligerent participation in the Atlantic

war and maintenance in the Pacific of a defensive posture based on Alaska,

Hawaii, and Panama. Then, during July, Pacific strategy and preparations

began a rapid shift that profoundly affected the outlook and thinking of

American commanders both in Washington and in Hawaii. Through

decoded intercepts, Washington knew early in the month that Japan had

decided upon further aggression to the south. In the light of this knowledge,

during the last week of July the United States decided to try to defend the

Philippines in the event of war with Japan, and at the same time it applied

stringent economic sanctions against Japan which were intended to deter

the Japanese but which actually had the opposite effect. During August and

September, the War Department developed an entirely new concept for

defending the Philippines and checking a Japanese sweep southward. It

now planned to station large numbers of Army heavy bombers (B-17's) in

the Philippines. This plan in turn required the quick preparation of intermediate supporting bases at Midway and Wake Islands along the direct air

route from Hawaii to Manila and similar preparations as soon as possible

along a secondary route to the southwest toward Australia.1

Everyone recognized that these plans and preparations of late 1941 for

projecting American military power toward and into the Far East could not

become effective before early 1942, but no one either in Washington or in

Hawaii gave much thought to calculating what should be done in case the

Japanese chose to strike before then. In particular, the danger of a Japanese

carrier-based air raid on Oahu, which had been recognized as very real in

early 1941, all but ceased to be a matter of immediate concern; whereas,

with the increasing likelihood of war with Japan, the danger of sabotage on

Oahu loomed ever larger, not only in the thinking of the local Army and

Navy commanders and their staffs, but also in Washington. As General

1

 See Conn and Fairchild, Framework of Hemisphere Defense, chs. IV-VI; Matloff and Snell,

Strategic Planning, 1941-42, ch. IV; and Morton, Strategy and Command, ch. IV.
THE PEARL HARBOR ATTACK 175

Marshall put it, in testimony soon after the event, "I fully anticipated a

terrific effort to cripple everything out there by sabotage"; and at the same

time he acknowledged that to him the carrier attack had been an almost

totally unexpected blow.2

The Approach to War

The first warning to the Hawaiian Department that Japan had determined upon a new course of aggressive action went out from the War Department on 7 July 1941, though in milder language than the alerts flashed

to Alaska and Panama four days earlier.3 Later in the month, and six hours

before the new economic sanctions against Japan became effective, General

Short received his second warning, this time with advice that, while no immediate military retaliation by Japan was anticipated, the Hawaiian commander should take "appropriate precautionary measures."

 4 The general did

so by ordering a full alert of his forces, in marked contrast to the lesser action taken by him four months later. His chief of staff explained to the local

press that Army forces were "taking to the field for a ten-day maneuver

period." After several days the general called off the "maneuvers," but he

left Army guards on 24-hour watch at military and public utility installations, highway bridges, and along the Honolulu waterfront.5

The first warning to Hawaii that Japan might soon resort to military action against the United States was sent by the Navy to its fleet commanders,

including Admiral Kimmel, on 16 October. Because the Army staff in Washington disagreed with the Navy's alarm, the War Department sent a supplementary message to the Far East commander, General Douglas MacArthur, and to General Short, advising them that although "tension between

United States and Japan remains strained . . . no abrupt change in Japanese

foreign policy appears imminent." In short, the War Department did not

think that Japan might be on the verge of attacking the United States.6 Under the circumstances General Short saw no need to do any more than what

he was already doing. Vital installations had remained under guard against

2

 Testimony before Roberts Commission, 19 Jan 42, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 23, p. 1081. 3

 Rad, TAG to CG Hawaiian Dept, 7 Jul 41, WPD 4544; see chs. IX and XIII below. 4

 Rad, TAG to CG Hawaiian Dept, 25 Jul 41, WPD 4544-3. 5

 Testimony of Maj Gen Philip Hayes before Army Pearl Harbor Bd, 9 Aug 44, Pearl Harbor

Attack, pt. 27, pp. 138-39; Testimony of Gen Short before Roberts Commission, 23 Dec 41,

Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 22, p. 32, and before Army Pearl Harbor Bd, 11 Aug 44, Pearl Harbor

Attack, pt. 27, pp. 218-19, 230-31. 6

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 18 Oct 41, WPD 4544-5.
176 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

sabotage since July, and he "simply cautioned people who were responsible

for that guarding to be unusually careful."

 7 No further official word about

the prospects of war with Japan reached General Short directly from the

War Department until 27 November, and it came then only after action by

the Japanese and American Governments that made an early outbreak of

war all but certain. Of course the general by reading the local newspapers

could and presumably did learn unofficially a good deal about the tense

negotiations with Japanese envoys in Washington, since the local press

reported these negotiations very fully; and by 27 November this reporting

included an accurate prediction of an impending rupture and of Japanese

warlike moves in the offing.

On the eve of conflict the Honolulu press also reflected the opinion

widely held in Washington that Japan was too weak to pose a really serious

threat to the United States. As of 21 November the Secretary of the Interior, for one, was urging President Roosevelt to launch an immediate

attack on Japan's naval forces in their home waters, in order to destroy them

and thus release American naval strength for full duty in the Atlantic at an

early date.8 In September a War Department G-2 estimate of the Japanese

Navy had paid it much higher respect; but of Japanese aircraft performance

in China it rather condescendingly noted: "Plane design has lagged, but

lack of formidable opposition has left them undisputed air superiority."

 9 A

similar assumption lay behind General Arnold's remark on 26 November

that the Japanese had no seaborne aircraft that could catch one of the new

Army B-24 heavy bombers, which with light loads could fly 290 miles per

hour at 15,000 feet.10 He was wrong, as the Japanese Zeros that appeared

over Pearl Harbor two weeks later were soon to prove. About 28 November

G-2 estimated that Japan was then "completely extended militarily and

economically" and thus was "momentarily unable to concentrate anywhere

a military striking force sufficient to ensure victory"; and G-2 followed this

estimate with a prediction on 5 December 1941 that for the next four

months Germany would "remain the only power capable of launching large

scale strategic offensives."

 11

7

 Testimony of Gen Short before Army Pearl Harbor Bd, 11 Aug 44, Pearl Harbor Attack,

pt. 27, p. 219. 8

 The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes, vol. III, The Lowering Clouds, 1939-1941 (New York,

Simon and Schuster, 1954), pp. 649-50. 9

 Memo, G-2 for WPD, 17 Sep 41, WPD 4344-4. 10

 Notes on Conf in OCofS, 26 Nov 41, WDGSA 381 Philippines (12-4-41). 11

 Draft of G-2 Brief Periodic Estimate of the Situation, forwarded to GHQ for comment on

or about 28 Nov 41, in GHQ 381, binder 2; Memo, G-2 for CofS, 5 Dec 41, in Pearl Harbor

Attack, pt. 14, pp. 1373-74.
THE PEARL HARBOR ATTACK 177

If not reflecting informed opinion, the Honolulu Advertiser appears at

least to have been in tune with it in stating in a lead editorial of 3 December

1941:

. . . Unless there is an immediate and complete reversal of Tokyo policy, the die is

cast. Japan and America will travel down the road to war.

Such a course should be sad for Japan to contemplate. She is the most vulnerable

nation in the world to attack and blockade. She is without natural resources. Four years

of war have already left deep scars. She has a navy, but no air arm to support it. . . .

In fact Japan had ten aircraft carriers, to match the three then available in

Pacific waters to the United States Navy and its associates.

As late as Friday, 21 November, President Roosevelt appears still to

have been very doubtful about the intention of the Japanese to go to war,

and reluctant to press matters with Japan. After lunching with the President, Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes recorded Mr. Roosevelt's remarks, "he wished he knew whether Japan was playing poker or not," and

"he was not sure whether or not Japan had a gun up its sleeve."

 12

 In fact,

Japan had several guns, and the one that would soon go off with the biggest bang was the Japanese Navy's Striking Force then completing its assembly in Tankan Bay in the southern Kurils, preparatory to a dash across

the Pacific toward Hawaii.

By Monday afternoon, 24 November, the President and Secretary of

State Hull had come to the conclusion that there was little remaining hope

for a fruitful outcome of the negotiations. With Mr. Roosevelt's approval

Admiral Stark and General Marshall thereupon drafted a joint dispatch to

the senior Army and Navy commanders in the Philippines, which went out

as a Navy message not only to the Philippine but also to other Navy commanders, including Admiral Kimmel. The message warned of "a surprise

aggressive movement in any direction" by Japanese forces, "including an

attack on the Philippines or Guam;" and it requested its action addressees

(among them, Admiral Kimmel) to inform the senior Army officer in their

respective areas.13

When the next and better known warnings of 27 November went out,

the Army and Navy chiefs in Washington knew that war was all but certain, and probably imminent, although they had not been consulted about,

nor even shown, the answer given to the Japanese envoys the preceding

12

 Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes, III, pp. 649-50. 13

 Rad, CNO to CINCAF, CINCPAC, etc., 24 Nov 41, WPD 4544-12. Subsequently, General

Short could not remember having seen this message, and no copy of it could be found in Army files.
178 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

afternoon.14 Their concern and that of their staffs remained the Philippines;

the War Department drafted its message of 27 November as a warning to

General Douglas MacArthur, and phrased it to fit his peculiar circumstances. Unfortunately, only slightly modified versions that did not take local

circumstances so carefully into account were sent to the other principal

Army commanders in the Pacific area, in Panama, on the west coast, and in

Hawaii.15 General Short's version read:

Negotiations with Japan appear to be terminated to all practical purposes with only

the barest possibilities that the Japanese Government might come back and offer to

continue. Japanese future action unpredictable but hostile action possible at any

moment. If hostilities cannot, repeat cannot, be avoided, the United States desires that

Japan commit the first overt act. This policy should not, repeat not, be construed as

restricting you to a course of action that might jeopardize your defense. Prior to hostile

Japanese action, you are directed to undertake such reconnaissance and other measures

as you deem necessary but these measures should be carried out so as not, repeat not,

to alarm the civil population or disclose intent. Report measures taken. Should hostilities occur, you will carry out the tasks assigned in Rainbow 5 as far as they pertain

to Japan. Limit dissemination of this highly secret information to minimum essential

officers.16

Whereas the directive of General MacArthur to undertake reconnaissance

was a sensible one, since that was at least partially his responsibility, it was

not applicable to General Short's situation, for seaward reconnaissance to

any meaningful distance was recognized in Hawaii as strictly the Navy's

business. Furthermore, the clear instruction for action to General MacArthur, "you are directed to undertake such reconnaissance and other measures as you deem necessary," was qualified in the other messages by the

added phrase, "but these measures should be carried out so as not to alarm

civil population or disclose intent." But almost anything that General Short

might do on Oahu was bound to be observed; as his predecessor, General

Herron, subsequently remarked, "Hawaii, or Pearl Harbor, is a goldfish

bowl."

 17

 The first draft of the Hawaiian message had also included a specific

warning about subversion; but after argument this warning went out as a separate and almost simultaneous G-2 message, in these terms: "Japanese

negotiations have come to practical stalemate. Hostilities may ensue. Sub14

 Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, p. 900. 15

 Clear evidence on this point is contained in the Notes on Conf in OCofS, 26 Nov 41,

WDCSA 381 Philippines (12-4-41); and in Memo, ACofS WPD for CofS, 27 Nov 41, WPD

4544-13. 16

 Rad, CofS to CG Hawaiian Dept, 27 Nov 41, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 14, p. 1328. 17

 Testimony before Army Pearl Harbor Bd, 9 Aug 44, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 27, p. 129.
THE PEARL HARBOR ATTACK 179

versive activities may be expected. Inform commanding general and Chief

of Staff only."

 18

Within half an hour after receiving the first message, and before he saw

the second, General Short (after consulting with his Chief of Staff only)

sent his report of action taken: "Report department alerted to prevent sabotage. Liaison with Navy."

 19

The parallel Navy Department message of 27 November to Admiral

Kimmel, more definite in its warning than the War Department's, reached

Hawaii some time later in the day. Subsequently, General Short remembered

seeing it (or at least a paraphrase of it), although he could not remember

that it had in any way influenced his own course of action, despite its clear

opening phrases: "This dispatch is to be considered a war warning. Negotiations with Japan . . . have ceased and an aggressive move by Japan is expected within the next few days." Possibly the edge of these phrases was

blunted for the Hawaiian commanders by the last sentence of the message,

which implied that sabotage was now the worst that need be expected as

far east as Guam and Samoa.20

The next day, 28 November, the Hawaiian Department received two

more messages from Washington, one addressed to General Short and the

other through him to his air commander, both of them emphasizing the

need for the most careful precautions against sabotage and other subversive

activities.21 The general assumed these messages were follow-up replies to

his terse report of the 27th.22 He answered the first of the new messages

promptly and in detail, and this reply reached General Marshall's office on

1 December.23 Since Washington made no comment on either of his reports,

and gave him no further guidance about the impending crisis before the

great blow fell, the general assumed also that the War Department approved his course of action.

General Short's action had been to order an Alert No. 1, as defined in

a new Standing Operating Procedure dated 5 November 1941. This alert

assumed increased danger of sabotage and internal unrest, but no threat

from without. Under it the Army, in General Short's words, "put out a

lot of additional guards and checked on everything," and for the two in18

 Rad, G-2 to G-2 Hawaiian Dept, 27 Nov 41, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 14, p. 1329. 19

 Rad, CG Hawaiian Dept to CofS, 28 Nov 41, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 14, p. 1330 20

 Rad, OPNAV to Fleet Comdrs, 27 Nov 41, WPD 4544-16. 21

 Rads, TAG to CG Hawaiian Dept, 28 Nov 41, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 14, p. 1330. 22

 "I got a reply back from the Adjutant General the next day." Testimony of General Short

before Roberts Commission, 23 Dec 41, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 22, p. 39. 23

 Rad, CG Hawaiian Dept to TAG, 29 Nov 41, AG 381 (11-27-41) Gen.
180 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

fantry divisions this meant keeping thirty officers and 1,012 enlisted men

on guard and patrol duty.24 The Hawaiian Air Force was ordered to concentrate planes so that they could be guarded more easily, and these orders

were as easily executed since that was the usual practice at Hickam and

Wheeler Fields anyway.25 The only deviation from procedures prescribed

under Alert No. 1 was an order directing the operation of the new Army

radar machines between four and seven each morning—the most likely

period for a carrier strike, according to previous studies. On 28 November

the local press explained, "The entire Hawaiian Department was ordered

on a 'routine training alert' last night."

 26

Why General Short did not alert his command more fully was to become the subject of long questioning after the Japanese attacked. The new

Standard Operating Procedure had prescribed two higher alerts: under No.

2, against a threat of air and surface bombardment, all coastal and air

defenses, including antiaircraft guns, were to be ready for action; under No.

3, against a threat of invasion as well, all Army defenders were to occupy

battle positions. When first questioned, General Short said he ordered Alert

No. 1 for three reasons: first, he thought there was a "strong possibility"

of sabotage, and he feared sabotage more than anything else; second, he

had no information about any danger of external attack; and third, either

No. 2 or No. 3 would interfere very seriously with training—"it was impossible to do any orderly training with them on."

 27

Before the warnings from Washington came in on 27 November, General Short had been in conference for three hours during the morning with

Admiral Kimmel, Admiral Bloch, and members of their staffs, discussing a

Washington plan for reinforcing Midway and Wake Islands by sending

out fifty of the most modern Army pursuit planes then on Oahu. A proposal

that the Hawaiian Department should part with half of its effective pursuit strength for even a limited period must itself have been an indication

to General Short, as it was to Admiral Kimmel, that Washington had no

inkling of any Japanese plan to attack Oahu. For local warning of such an

attack the general was completely dependent on the Navy. During the conference on the 27th Admiral Kimmel turned to his War Plans officer, Capt.

24

 Testimony of Gen Short before Army Pearl Harbor Bd, 11 Aug 44, Pearl Harbor Attack,

pt. 27, p. 230; USAFMIDPAC Hist, Bulky Package 2, draft ch., Implementation of Defense.

The 5 Nov 1941 SOP is published in Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 24, pp. 2107-20. 25

 See testimony of Brig Gen Howard C. Davidson, CG 14th Pursuit Wing, before Roberts

Commission, 23 Dec 41, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 22, p. 110. 26

 Honolulu Advertiser, Nov 28, 1941, p. 1. 27

 Testimony before Roberts Commission, 23 Dec 41, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 22, p. 36.
THE PEARL HARBOR ATTACK 181

Charles H. McMorris, and asked specifically what the chances of a surprise

raid on Oahu were, and the answer was "none." No one of the other Navy

officials present challenged this judgment, and General Short saw no reason

to question it. Both he and his naval colleagues were also heavily influenced

by the knowledge that Japan could not attack Oahu with land-based planes,

and by the continuing assumption that the Japanese would not risk a carrier

strike as long as the bulk of the Pacific Fleet was in or west of Hawaiian

waters.28

The proposal to send Army pursuit planes to Midway and Wake was

only one of several measures planned or in preparation for sending Army

reinforcements out of Oahu to the westward and southwestward, in anticipation of Japanese action. On 27 November General Short informed

Admiral Bloch that the Army could not spare any 500-pound bombs with

which to stock Midway and Wake; and even if that had been possible, the

Army had no heavy bombers available to operate from them in an emergency—while the Hawaiian Department had six B-17's in commission, all

available and trained B-17 crews were engaged in ferrying heavy bombers

to the Philippines. On 29 November the War Department notified the general that it had assumed responsibility for defending Christmas and Canton

Islands on the new air ferry route to Australia and directed him to prepare

small task forces for dispatch to these islands as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the flow of B-17's from California through Hawaii to the Philippines continued; all of them came into Oahu unarmed, and it was General

Short's responsibility to see to it that they were made combat-ready before

flying westward.29

All these factors helped to influence General Short's decision to order

and maintain a No. 1 alert only; and he must also have been influenced by

knowledge that his air defense system was not ready to operate and that he

could not spot many of the Army's antiaircraft guns in their assigned field

positions without provoking protests from powerful civilian interests on

Oahu.30

The Navy commanders had no more prescience than General Short in

28

 See particularly General Short's testimony before the Roberts Commission on 23 Dec 41,

Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 22, pp. 43, 85, 96. See also "Admiral Kimmel's Own Story of Pearl

Harbor," in U.S. News and World Report, Dec 10, 1954, p. 134. 29

 Starting on 23 Dec 1941, the testimony on these various points before the several Pearl

Harbor investigating committees was very voluminous, and all in Pearl Harbor Attack. War

Department proposals and action can be followed in WPD 3878-12, WPD 4544-9, AG 381

(11-27-41), AG 381 (12-5-41), and WDCSA 381 Philippines (12-4-41). 30

 On this last point, see testimony of Gen Burgin before Pearl Harbor Bd, 8 Sep 44, Pearl

Harbor Attack, pt. 28, p. 1370.
182 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

foreseeing what was about to happen. The Navy was already operating under procedures similar to those under the Army's No. 1 alert; and the only

new precaution ordered locally after the warning of the 27th was a careful

surface patrol of Hawaiian waters against submarine attack. The Navy had

about fifty long-range patrol planes with which it could have instituted

distant reconnaissance from Oahu; but after careful reflection Admiral Kimmel decided his best course was "to bend every effort towards getting the

patrol planes ready for unlimited war operations" rather than "to expend

their efforts in partial and ineffective peace-time searches."

 31

 In consequence,

when the attack came, the Navy had only three of its Oahu-based patrol

planes in the air. And these were fleet planes, since none of the 108 aircraft

specifically allotted by the Navy to Hawaii for distant reconnaissance was

due to arrive for another year.32

Between 27 November and 7 December 1941 neither the Army nor the

Navy made an effort to invoke any of the plans for unity of command and

joint operations so carefully drawn earlier in the year. Despite General

Short's personal conferences with Navy opposites on 27 November and on

several other occasions during the succeeding ten days, an almost perfect

insulation continued to exist between the local defense preparations of the

two services (the conferences being about new defense measures to the westward). On this score, there can be no exception to what the majority of the

Congressional Pearl Harbor Joint Committee had to say in 1946: "It can

fairly be concluded that there was a complete failure in Hawaii of effective

Army-Navy liaison during the critical period and no integration of Army

and Navy facilities and efforts for defense. Neither of the responsible commanders really knew what the other was doing with respect to essential military activities."

 33

 Perhaps the most significant explanation of the almost

complete absence of effective co-operation between the Army and Navy in

local defense matters is the one pointed out by the Army and Navy Pearl

Harbor investigating boards, that in Hawaii "no one in authority appreciated the danger to which Pearl Harbor was exposed and consequently the

Army and Navy commanders . . . were preoccupied with training activities

to the exclusion of adequate alertness against attack."

 34

In any event Army and Navy business on Oahu proceeded almost as

31

 Corrected testimony before Roberts Commission, 27 Dec 41, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 22,

p. 329. 32

 Testimony before Roberts Commission of Admiral Bloch, 30 Dec 41, and of Rear Adm

Patrick N. O. Bellinger, 31 Dec 41, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 22, pp. 500, 557-58. 33

 Pearl Harbor Report, p. 153. 34

 Memo, COMINCH for SN, 3 Dec 44, in Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 39, pp. 383-86.
THE PEARL HARBOR ATTACK 183

usual in the ten days before the Japanese attacked. Probably it was chance

rather than design that brought all eight battleships of the Pacific Fleet into Pearl Harbor at one time on and after 2 December. At any rate they

made a fine showing for the newly appointed Soviet Ambassador to the

United States, Maxim Litvinoff, who arrived from the Orient en route to the

United States on Thursday afternoon, 4 December—and became an unofficial overnight guest of the Governor and his naval aide.35

 The three

most valuable properties of the Pacific Fleet, the aircraft carriers Lexington,

Enterprise, and Saratoga, were all away. The battleship crews undoubtedly

provided many of the 24,000 spectators who witnessed the annual Shrinesponsored football game on Saturday afternoon, 6 December, from which

the University of Hawaii emerged victorious over Willamette University

by a score of 20 to 6.36

Three days earlier, a plea for more field repair and maintenance equipment had been sent by the Hickman commander to the Commanding General, Hawaiian Air Force, which opened: "Due to the unsettled world conditions, it is believed that there is a probability of there being a necessity in

the near future of repairing and defending this and other airdromes of this

Department."

 37

 But the official Army outlook, as presented in a reconstructed

G-2 estimate of the situation, was less alarming. This estimate noted that

the Hawaiian Department had no knowledge of Japanese naval vessels

in waters farther east than the China Sea and no information to indicate

operations by Japanese aircraft except on the Asiatic mainland and in adjacent areas. Locally, there had been plenty of warnings about sabotage,

but no action by a resident of the Territory of Hawaii had indicated that

subversive acts would be committed. The conclusions were:

1. There was a possibility that disruption of relations, or war might result at any

time from overt acts by Japan either in the form of military action in the Far East,

sinking of transports enroute to the Philippines, or other similar acts.

2. With the large part of the American Navy based in the Hawaiian waters the

probability of an attack by the Japanese carriers was believed to be negligible.38

In other words Hawaii, preparing for war, as yet had no need itself to be

ready for large-scale attack.

35

 Honolulu Advertiser, Dec 2, 5, and 6, 1941. 36

 Ibid., Dec 7, 1941 (preattack edition). 37

 Ltr, CO Hickam Field to CG Hawaiian Air Force, 3 Dec 41, copy in notes used in

preparation of USAFMIDPAC Hist. 38

 Summary of Situation, by ACofS G-2 Hawaiian Dept, written on 22 Dec 41 but depicting

outlook as of 7 Dec 41, in Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 22, p. 25.
184 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

The Plan and Launching of the Attack

The Japanese Navy had a very different idea, although the surprise

carrier attack on Oahu on the morning of 7 December 1941 did not become an integral part of Japanese war plans until almost the last moment.

For several years before 1941, Japanese naval plans had contemplated a

possible submarine attack on the United States Fleet in Hawaiian waters,

but it was only in January of that year that a scheme was proposed for a

surprise air attack on the fleet while berthed and anchored in Pearl Harbor.

Japanese sources are unanimous in crediting authorship of the idea to

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander in chief of the Combined Fleet.39

Its feasibility may have been suggested by United States Fleet exercises of

1938, during which the carrier Saratoga demonstrated that such a surprise

attack could be successfully launched. Yamamoto's proposal, and its subsequent highly secret study, coincided with a rumor reported by Ambassador

Joseph C. Grew from Tokyo on 27 January 1941 that a surprise mass attack

on Pearl Harbor was being planned by the Japanese.40

In May 1941 Admiral Yamamoto presented his idea to the Japanese

Naval General Staff. Without rejecting it outright that body remained, at

least until late August, generally opposed to including a risky carrier operation in Japanese plans for naval action in the event of war with the United

States; and it was not until 20 October that the Naval General Staff formally

approved the plan. In the meantime, it appears that during the spring and

summer of 1941 the 1st Air Fleet under Yamamoto's direction undertook

some preliminary detailed planning and training for an attack such as the

admiral had projected; and between 2 and 13 September his plan was wargamed in Tokyo by Combined Fleet and Naval General Staff officers. In

the midst of these table-top maneuvers, on 6 September, the Japanese Government made its decision to go to war with the United States, Great Britain,

and the Netherlands, unless its minimum demands for control of a Greater

East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere were met by late October.41

39

 The best and most detailed account of the Japanese plans and preparations for the Pearl

Harbor attack is that by Robert E. Ward, "The Inside Story of the Pearl Harbor Plan," in United

States Naval Institute Proceedings (December 1951), vol. 77, pp. 1271-83. The operation is best

described in Morison, Rising Sun in the Pacific, pp. 80ff. 40

 Grew's report was duly though not quite accurately passed on to the War Department, as

indicated by Memo, Lt Col Rufus S. Bratton, G-2, for Col Charles H. Mason, G-2, 28 Jan 41,

in OPD Pearl Harbor Résumé. 41

 See Japanese Monograph No. 152, Political Strategy Prior to Outbreak of War, pt. V,

1940-41, especially pp. 44-48; and Far East Hist Source file, Important National Policy

Decisions, app. XVIII.
THE PEARL HARBOR ATTACK 185

War-gaming convinced the Japanese Navy that the Pearl Harbor plan

was feasible, although it might cost two carriers and one-third the attacking

force of planes. Some serious technical difficulties remained to be overcome:

one was the problem of a mid-Pacific mass refueling; another, not solved

until early October, involved fixing wooden fins to naval torpedoes in order

to stabilize them enough to be effective in the shallow waters of Pearl

Harbor; another required the last-minute conversion of a large number of

16-inch armor-piercing shells into 1,760-pound aerial bombs for the high

altitude horizontal bombers to be employed. In late October the project was

allotted top priority and maximum strength when the Japanese Army agreed

to release aircraft from Manchuria for southern operations, and six carriers—

including two new ones just commissioned—became available for the Hawaiian attack, instead of four as previously planned. On 5 November the

Japanese Navy issued its detailed operational orders for action, on 7 November it tentatively announced 8 December (7 December in Hawaii) as

"opening day," and by 17 November the approved detailed plan for the

Pearl Harbor attack had been delivered to the Striking Force.42 Sailing from

a desolate harbor in the Kurils on 27 November, its ships moved silently and

undetected across the North Pacific, but with orders to return if the United

States and Japan reached agreement before the fatal day.

The Carrier Striking Task Force, or 1st Air Fleet, that was headed for

Oahu, was a power-packed combination of 6 fast carriers supported and

escorted by 2 fast battleships, 2 heavy cruisers, 6 destroyers, and 3 submarines.

Aboard the carriers were more than 360 airplanes. Information passed

through Tokyo kept the Striking Force supplied with precise last-minute information about the ships actually in Pearl Harbor, although the maps and

some of the information available to the force were distinctly out of date.

After reaching a point 500 miles due north of Oahu during the evening of

6 December (Hawaiian dating), the ships raced southward and prepared

their planes for launching at a point about 200 miles from the island.

In the meantime another Japanese force of twenty-five submarines had

deployed south of Oahu. These long-range and modern submarines belonged

to the Advance Expeditionary Force of the 6th Fleet, and five of them carried

two-man midget submarines "piggy-back," for launching and penetration of

Pearl Harbor to abet the air attack. And, if the Pacific Fleet got wind of the

approaching carrier force and sortied, the 6th Fleet submarines were to attack

en masse.43

42

 Ward, op. cit., p. 1278; Japanese Monograph No. 97. 43

 Japanese Monograph No. 102.
186 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

The Japanese planned to fly the first wave of planes from the carriers

at 6:00 a.m. and begin their bombing two hours later, one-half hour after

the United States had been formally notified by Japan that it would seek recourse to arms to attain its ends. Thus did Japan plan to avoid a charge of

"attack without warning," but the plan cut the time element too fine to allow

for human error (in this case, slow decoding and typing of the Japanese

message at the Washington Embassy) and the bombs were falling before

Japanese diplomats arrived at the State Department to deliver the news of

war. From intercepts American officials had already obtained a full translation of the Japanese message hours earlier, but they did not appreciate the

full significance of its 1:00 p.m. deadline (7:30 a.m., Oahu time). Even

General Marshall, who sent a last-minute warning about the deadline to

Pacific commanders, went home to lunch instead of waiting in his office to

find out what might be going to happen at that hour. And his warning did

not reach General Short until hours after the event.44

On Oahu the military forces did obtain other warnings of impending

action. More than four hours before the air attack began, one of the midget

submarines was sighted less than two miles outside the Pearl Harbor entrance buoy, and either this submarine or another like it was sunk near the

harbor entrance at a quarter to seven. According to standing orders, the

presence of any unidentified submarine in restricted waters was to be considered a warning of imminent attack on a larger scale; but the Navy was

still in process of checking the authenticity of reports of these submarine

actions when the big attack came. No one thought to tell the Army about

them.45

On Oahu's north shore, three Army mobile SCR-270 radar sets were in

operation this Sunday morning, from 4:00 to 7:00 a.m., in accordance with

the schedule established under Alert No. 1. (See Map II.) All three (Kawailoa, Opana, and Kaaawa) recorded the approach of two Japanese reconnaissance planes, launched from cruisers, when they were about fifty miles

away, beginning at 6:45 a.m. One of the stations (but not Opana) reported

this flight to a Navy lieutenant on duty at the Army information center at

Fort Shafter about 6:52 a.m., who reported it to another Navy lieutenant

44

 On General Marshall's movements and actions this day, see especially Memo for Rcd, Col

Walter B. Smith, SGS, 15 Dec 41, and Memo, Col John R. Deane, ASGS, for Brig Gen Walter

B. Smith, 8 Jun 42, both in WDCSA Hawaii 1940-43. For a more detailed account in this

series, see Watson, Prewar Plans and Preparations, pp. 512-19. 45

 Morison, Rising Sun in the Pacific, pp. 95-97; Walter Lord, Day of Infamy (New York;

Henry Holt and Company, 1957), contains a detailed and authentic blow-by-blow account of the

whole Pearl Harbor action, including these midget submarine operations.
THE PEARL HARBOR ATTACK 187

who responded that the Navy "had a reconnaissance flight out and that's

what this flight was."

 46

 Much better known is the report by the Opana station at 7:20 a.m. of a mass flight of planes approaching from a northerly

direction. This was the first wave of Japanese bombers and fighters, which

had been spotted by the Opana radar just after seven while still some 130

miles from Oahu. By the time the Opana report came in the information

center had officially closed down, and an Army lieutenant who happened to

be still on duty decided that nothing need be done about the call—he knew

that American carriers were out and assumed that Opana had picked up a

reconnaissance flight from one of them.47

The Attack and the Response

An exact account of the Japanese air attack on the Pearl Harbor area and

on Army airfields elsewhere on Oahu is impossible, partly because the commander of the first wave of planes gave a signal that was partially misinterpreted, so that the action did not proceed exactly according to a calculated plan. The first wave consisted of 49 high-level bombers, 51 dive

bombers, 43 fighters, and 40 torpedo planes, a total of 183 planes. After

approaching the north shore of Oahu about 7:40 a.m., some of the planes

circled the island in order to swing in from the sea against south shore

targets, while others flew over and between the mountain ranges to attack

Wheeler Field and then other targets beyond. The attack began in the Pearl

Harbor area at 7:55 a.m.—or five minutes early by the schedule so nicely

timed in relation to the Japanese notification to Washington. All types of

Japanese planes attacked more or less simultaneously. The torpedo planes

did the greatest havoc to the battleships and other naval vessels afloat. All

together, 8 battleships, 3 light cruisers, 3 destroyers, and 4 other naval vessels

were destroyed or severely damaged, and most of this damage was done by

the first wave. The greatest loss of life (almost half the total) occurred early

in the attack after one of the converted 16-inch shell bombs crashed into the

battleship Arizona and exploded in a forward magazine, with awesome

consequences. Within five minutes or so the Navy's ships, whether hit or not,

46

 Rpt as stated by Rear Adm R. B. Ingles, Dir, Naval Intel, in Tel Conv with Lt Gen

Thomas T. Handy, DCofS, 8 Nov 45, extract in OPD Pearl Harbor file, Misc Corresp. See also

Army Exhibit, p. 8, copy in OPD file, Documentation—Pearl Harbor Brief; Morison, op. cit.,

p. 138 and n. 84; and Testimony of Lt Col William E. G. Taylor before Roberts Commission,

3 Jan 42, in Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 23, p. 757. This incident escaped the attention of all the

Pearl Harbor investigating committees. 47

 Thompson, et al., The Test, pp 3-4.
188 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

began putting up a tremendous antiaircraft barrage. The ships had 353 largecaliber and 427 short-range weapons aboard—or several times the Army's

antiaircraft strength on Oahu. Nonetheless, while many Japanese planes

were riddled, only 9 were lost from the first wave as a result of American

combat action.

The second wave of Japanese planes consisted of 54 high-level and 80

dive bombers and 36 fighters, making the total number of Japanese planes

participating in the attack 353, plus the 2 reconnaissance planes that came

in earlier. Launched one hour and fifteen minutes after the first wave, the

planes of the second began to arrive on target shortly before 9:00 a.m. and

continued the mass attack until about 9:45. The second wave, meeting stiffer

antiaircraft resistance (mostly from Navy guns) and from a few Army

fighter planes, lost 20 planes in action. The loss in combat of 29 planes

represented 8 percent of those engaged, a proportion close to the average

loss then being sustained by attacking forces in similar-sized air raids in

Europe against alerted defenses. Some other Japanese planes were smashed

up as they returned to their carriers, and of these at least 20 were a total loss.

By about 1:00 p.m. all returning Japanese planes were back on the carriers,

and the Striking Force raced away to the northwest.48

Although damage to the Pacific Fleet was the primary objective, the

Japanese assigned 199 of the attacking planes, or nearly 60 percent of the

total force, to missions against Army and Navy airfields on Oahu. The results

for the Navy and the Marine Corps on this account were even more devastating than for the Army: at the Kaneohe Seaplane Base on the northeast shore,

every one of the 33 patrol planes present was destroyed or damaged; nearly

as great loss was sustained at the Ewa Marine Air Station west of Pearl Harbor, where not a single plane was left in condition to fly during or immediately after the attack; and the same fate overtook all of the patrol planes

at the Ford Island Naval Air Station. In all, the Navy and Marine Corps

had 87 planes destroyed and 31 damaged, and these figures included almost

all of the fighters, bombers, and patrol planes on hand. In addition, during

and after the attack the carrier Enterprise lost a number of planes flown into

48

 Two works by Japanese authors contain chapters on the Pearl Harbor action that are

interesting supplements to the many other published works that have appeared. These volumes

are: Mitsuo Fuchida and Masatake Okumiya, Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan: The

Japanese Navy's Story (Annapolis: U.S. Naval Institute, 1955); Masatake Okumiya and Moro

Horikoshi, Zero: The Inside Story of the Naval Air War in the Pacific (New York: E. P. Dutton

and Company, Inc., 1956). On Japanese plane losses, see Craven and Cate, eds., Plans and Early

Operations, p. 200.
THE PEARL HARBOR ATTACK 189

the battle area, at least five of which were shot down by naval antiaircraft

fire.49

At Hickam Field, where the Army had its usable bombers lined up in

close formation in front of the hangars, the first Japanese planes flew over

at 7:55 a.m. These were torpedo planes headed for Pearl Harbor, but they

were followed almost immediately by four flights of dive bombers coming

in from the south, southeast, and north almost simultaneously for bombing

and strafing attacks on the supply depot, repair shops, and hangars. This

opening attack lasted about ten minutes. A second one came at 8:25, this

time from more low-flying dive bombers and one or more flights of highaltitude bombers. The third and final attack, by dive bombers and strafing

fighters of the second wave, struck around 9:00 a.m. These strikes left the

Hawaiian Air Depot completely destroyed, three of the five hangars burned,

the barracks and other post installations badly damaged, and more than half

the bombers present destroyed or damaged seriously. Casualties at Hickam

were also heavy, particularly among men who had taken refuge in the hangars after the first attack. But the most vital facilities—the repair shops and

machinery, and gasoline storage tanks—remained largely untouched.50

In the midst of the Hickam action twelve unarmed B-17's being ferried

from the mainland arrived over Oahu. Eight of them managed to land at

Hickam, and of the other four two came down at Haleiwa, one at Bellows,

and one on a golf course near the northern tip of Oahu. Enemy action destroyed one of the planes and badly damaged three others.51

A few minutes after the initial attack on Hickam, about twenty-five dive

bombers hit at the hangars at Wheeler Field, and heavy casualties occurred

when one bomb exploded in an adjoining barracks. After the bombing, the

Japanese planes circled back at very low altitudes to machine-gun the pursuit

craft parked (as at Hickam) in close formation in front of the hangars, and,

as they circled, some of the enemy strafed nearby Schofield Barracks. After

an extended lull another machine gun attack struck Wheeler, shortly after

9:00 a.m., and caught a number of pursuit ships being taxied to the runways

for launching. Wheeler lost two hangars, and more than two-thirds of its

planes were destroyed or badly damaged. The first attack effectively prevented

any large-scale response by Wheeler's fighter planes.

49

 Exhibit 6, Pearl Harbor Attack, Part 12, pp. 351-58, in which a loss of 5 planes from the

Enterprise is recorded. But see Morison, op. cit., p. 121; and Walter Karig and Welbourn Kelley,

"Battle Report," Pearl Harbor to Coral Sea (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1944), p. 19,

which gives figures of 11 planes and 9 men lost. 50

 Ltr, CG Hawaiian Dept to CofS, 12 Dec 41, and rpts in AG 381 (12 Dec 41). 51

 Craven and Cate, eds., Plans and Early Operations, pp. 199-200.
190 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

WHEELER FIELD AFTER THE BOMBING. Schofield Barracks is in the background.

On the eve of Pearl Harbor the Army had two of its pursuit squadrons

dispersed to Bellows and Haleiwa Fields for gunnery practice, and the planes

of these squadrons were armed and needed only fuel and warming up to be

ready for action. Apparently the Japanese did not plan to attack either of

these outlying fields. A single fighter strafed Bellows about 8:30 a.m., and

the flight of nine planes that attacked the same field about a half-hour later

seems to have been attracted by the B-17 which landed there. Material damage at Bellows was slight, and was even less at Haleiwa Field, strafed by a

single plane that followed in the two B-17's which landed there. The second

attack on Bellows caught the Army pursuits just as they were taking off.

Two of them were shot down before they could gain altitude, and one pilot

was killed as he climbed into his plane.52

At all Army installations attacked by the Japanese, enemy dive bombers

and fighters strafed individuals promiscuously, and in return Army men

52

 Ltr, Post Operations Officer, Wheeler Field, to CG Hawaiian Air Force, 18 Dec 41, AG

381 (12 Dec 41); Testimony of Col Lorry N. Tindal before Army Pearl Harbor Bd, 2 Oct 44,

Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 29, pp. 2290-94; Testimony of Maj George S. Welch before Army

Pearl Harbor Bd, 30 Aug 44, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 28, p. 1050.
THE PEARL HARBOR ATTACK 191

fired back with machine guns and lesser weapons. But the only effective

action came from the planes at Haleiwa. Two young lieutenants at Wheeler

were sufficiently alert after an all-night poker game to phone Haleiwa to

have their planes fueled and warmed up and then to race over there and get

off in P-40's at or soon after 8:15 a.m. One of them is credited with shooting

down four Japanese planes. Another flight from Haleiwa had a less happy

result when one of its planes, a P-36, was shot down by machine-gun fire

from Schofield Barracks. Six P-36's managed to get into the air from Wheeler

Field during the attack, and four of them engaged the nine enemy planes

which attacked Bellows Field. American pilots claimed two of the Japanese,

and one of their own number was shot down.53

Including the B-17's arriving from the mainland, some 249 Army planes

were involved in the Pearl Harbor attack, and of these about 74 were destroyed and 71 seriously damaged.54

 Among bombers the B-18's, which were

expendable, sustained the greatest loss; 14 of 24 B-17 heavies and 10 of 12

modern light A-20 bombers came through comparatively unscathed. The

fighters took a heavier beating, but by 10 December the Army had 44 of them

ready for action.55

Most of the Army's antiaircraft guns were unable to function during the

attack. None of the mobile 3-inch batteries was at its assigned field position,

and ammunition for all of them had to be fetched from the Ordnance Depot.

The Hawaiian Coast Artillery Command alerted the units of the 53d Coast

Artillery Brigade (Antiaircraft Artillery) at 8:10 a.m., and within three or

four minutes antiaircraft batteries at Fort Kamehameha (next to Hickam) and

at Fort Weaver (on the other side of the Pearl Harbor entrance) opened fire

with small arms. At 8:30 a fixed 3-inch battery at Weaver began to fire, and

similar batteries at Kamehameha and on Sand Island in Honolulu harbor

opened up against Japanese planes, the Sand Island battery claiming two of

them. Other antiaircraft units at Camp Molekoli and Schofield Barracks fired

small arms only at the enemy, the Schofield unit claiming one plane (in addi53

 The most reliable contemporary account of Army fighter activity appears to be that in the

letter of the Post Operations Officer, Wheeler Field, cited in the preceding footnote. See also

Lord, Day of Infamy, pp. 59ff. 54

 The Hawaiian Air Force had an assigned strength of 231 planes on 7 December, but the

number actually on hand appears to have been somewhat greater. The figures given on planes

involved and losses have been calculated from divergent figures contained in Army Exhibit, p. 9;

Incl to Ltr., Post Operations Officer, Wheeler Field, to CG Hawaiian Air Force, 18 Dec 41, cited,

reporting aircraft status and losses at Wheeler and its satellite fields as of 9 December 1941; and

Memo, CofS Hawaiian Air Force to CG Hawaiian Air Force, 20 Dec 41, copy in USAFMIDPAC

Hist notes, reporting aircraft status and losses at all fields as of 20 Dec 41. 55

 Tel Conv, Gen Short and DCofS Bryden, 10 Dec 41, in OCS Tel Conv, binder 1; Testimony

of Gen Short before Army Pearl Harbor Bd, 11 Aug 44, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 27, p. 172.
192 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

tion to the American one). But, with only a small fraction of the Army's

antiaircraft potential brought into play, its effort on this score was insignificant in comparison with the barrage thrown up by the guns of the Pacific

Fleet.56

Within minutes after the first torpedoes and bombs struck at Pearl Harbor,

General Short issued orders that put the Hawaiian Department on a full war

footing. By 8:45 a.m. his headquarters had begun to operate a forward command post located in tunnels at the Aliamanu Crater, three miles west of

Fort Shafter. Between 8:10 and 9:00 a.m. the major ground commands—

the Hawaiian Coast Artillery Command and the 24th and 25th Infantry

Divisions—received word to deploy and take the actions required under a

No. 3 Alert. Actually, all three had begun so to act before they got the

formal word. The 24th Division had a battalion of infantry on the road

from Schofield Barracks to its assigned battle position by 9:00 a.m., and

thereafter other divisional units left Schofield as soon as they had drawn

and loaded their ammunition and otherwise prepared for action. By late

afternoon, all divisional elements were digging in at their assigned field positions, with all weapons except heavy howitzers at hand and ready to fire.

As General Short put it, in the deployment "everything clicked," one of his

junior officers explaining: "We had gone so many times to our war positions

that it just seemed like drill when they were firing at us."

 57

 The deployment

showed clearly enough that the Hawaiian Department was thoroughly prepared to resist invasion, however unready it was against the peril of surprise

air attack.

After the attack was over the Army defenders, still anticipating invasion,

gave credence to a host of rumors and reports that enemy forces were still

at hand. Throughout 7 December reports that parachute troops had landed

poured in from all over Oahu, and sightings of hostile ships off shore were

almost as numerous. With darkness the situation became even more tense,

and General Short ordered all forces to be ready to resist another air attack

or attempted landing at dawn. Throughout the night Army troops fired small

weapons rather freely all over the island—with some ground patrols firing at

56

 Details of Army antiaircraft action are set forth in Ltr, CO 53d Coast Artillery Brigade

(AA) to CG Hawaiian Dept, 20 Dec 41, in Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 7, pp. 3002-004, and in

War Diary, Hawaiian Coast Artillery Command, 7 to 31 Dec 41, in AG 381 (12 Dec 41)

(Bulky Package). In all, the Army claimed 11 Japanese planes shot down, the Navy 28; on the

other hand the Japanese claimed all but 29 planes returned to the carriers. See Pearl Harbor

Report, p. 65. 57

 Testimony of Gen Short before Army Pearl Harbor Bd, 11 Aug 44, Pearl Harbor Attack,

pt. 27, p. 231, and of Capt Frank W. Ebey before Roberts Commission, 26 Dec 41, Pearl Harbor

Attack, pt. 22, p. 264.
THE PEARL HARBOR ATTACK 193

each other. The following entries from the War Diary of the Hawaiian

Coast Artillery Command for 8 December indicate the tension as the new

dawn approached:

0428—All units notified to be on alert for landing attack at dawn.

0438—Flash. 30 Enemy planes approaching from Kauai.

0507—Enemy planes dive bombing Wheeler Field. (Some firing by batteries in

Wheeler Field took place.)

0525—Schofield AA group reports barrage fire (searchlights useless because of low

ceiling) against planes, later reported as friendly.

0608—53d Brigade reports small arms firing on friendly aircraft definitely

established as from Marines or Navy.58

By afternoon on 8 December a more normal outlook began to prevail. During the second night the firing tapered off, and orders similar to the following, issued by the commander of the 25th Division, helped to stop it:

Promiscuous firing at friendly airplanes has been prevalent during preceding 36-

hour period. Such firing will be stopped at once. Under no circumstances will any

person in this division take up fire against any airplanes hostile or friendly until he or

his unit has been definitely attacked by bombing or machine gun fire.59

The last stray planes of the enemy had in fact departed from their rendezvous

point west of Oahu about 11:00 a.m. on the morning of 7 December, although

enemy submarines were still around.

Except for some strafing, the Japanese confined their attack on 7 December to military installations. The "bombs" which fell on Honolulu and other

civilian parts of the island were Navy 5-inch antiaircraft shells which had

failed to detonate in the air. Explosions in Honolulu started three major

fires, and at least 57 civilians were killed and nearly as many seriously

injured.60

Casualties among American service personnel were of course much

higher. The Navy and Marine Corps have counted 2,117 killed or died of

wounds, and 779 others wounded in action.61 The far smaller Army casualties are difficult to determine with exactitude. General Short, in his report

on the battle, listed 228 Army men dead or died of wounds, no seriously

wounded, and 358 slightly wounded, a total of 696 Army battle casualties,

as of midnight, 10 December. These appear to be about as accurate as any

58

 War Diary in AG 381 (12 Dec 41) (Bulky Package). 59

 Staff Journal, 25th Inf Div, 7 to 31 Dec 41, in AG 381 (12 Dec 41) (Bulky Package). 60

 Allen, Hawaii's War Years, pp. 5-9; Testimony of Col Webster A. Capron, 30 Aug 44,

and of Gen Burgin, 8 Sep 44, before Army Pearl Harbor Bd, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 28,

pp. 1059, 1372. 61

 Morison, Rising Sun in the Pacific, p. 126.
194 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

figures compiled and published since.62 The enemy acknowledged a loss of

55 men in planes; 9 of the 10 men aboard midget submarines were lost, the

other one being America's first prisoner of war in World War II; and on

10 December the Japanese also lost one of their large submarines (the I-70)

and its crew.63

When General Short submitted his report of the action to the War Department on 12 December, he had not yet heard of the drama being acted out

on the isolated island of Niihau, west of Kauai. A crippled Japanese plane

landed on Niihau on Sunday afternoon, about 2:00 p.m. After first being

disarmed by a native Hawaiian, the Japanese pilot persuaded one of the two

men of Japanese descent on the island—an American citizen—to free him,

return his weapons, and join him on a rampage. The affair ended on Saturday morning, 13 December, and before help summoned from Kauai had

arrived. Another Hawaiian, Benhakaka Kanahele, and his wife were captured

by the two Japanese; but they jumped their captors and, after Kanahele was

fully aroused by bullets in his stomach, groin, and leg, he picked up the Japanese pilot and smashed his head against a stone wall. The Nisei took one

look, shot himself, and the "Battle of Niihau" was over.64

Investigation and Judgment

News of the Japanese attack on Oahu reached Washington almost immediately. The Navy sent the first official word at 8:00 a.m., and Secretary

Hull knew about the attack before he received the Japanese envoys with their

fateful message. President Roosevelt and his principal advisers had expected

war, but they were as surprised as the Hawaiian commanders when the war

began in Hawaii. To find out what had happened, and why, the President

sent Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox on a flying trip to Hawaii, the Secretary arriving there on the morning of 11 December and departing the next

afternoon. His report, delivered to Mr. Roosevelt on the morning of 15 December, touched off the first of the formal investigations of the Pearl Harbor

62

 Ltr, CG Hawaiian Dept to CofS, 12 Dec 41, AG 381 (12 Dec 41). The History of the

Office of the Surgeon General, Hawaiian Department, in the USAFMIDPAC Hist, compiled

later from similar sources, lists 229 known Army dead or died of wounds, 113 seriously wounded,

and 346 slightly wounded. See also the Pearl Harbor Report, p. 65 and note 29, which list 194

killed in action, 22 missing in action, 21 died of wounds, 3 other dead (nonbattle) or declared

dead, and 360 wounded. 63

 Pearl Harbor Report, p. 65; Japanese Monograph 102, p. 13. 64

 Allen, Hawaii's War Years, pp. 44-46; Lord, Day of Infamy, pp. 195-200; Rad, CG

Hawaiian Dept to TAG, 15 Dec 41, AG 381 (11-27-41) (Gen).
THE PEARL HARBOR ATTACK 195

attack. None of them developed the position of the Hawaiian commanders

any better than Secretary Knox did in his report:

There was no attempt by either Admiral Kimmel or General Short to alibi the lack

of a state of readiness for the air attack. Both admitted they did not expect it, and had

taken no adequate measures to meet one if it came. Both Kimmel and Short evidently

regarded an air attack as extremely unlikely because of the great distance which the

Japs would have to travel to make the attack and the consequent exposure of such a

task force to the superior gun power of the American fleet. Neither the Army nor the

Navy Commander expected that an attack would be made by the Japanese while

negotiations were still proceeding in Washington. Both felt that if any surprise attack

was attempted it would be made in the Far East.65

There was likewise plenty of evidence of what happened on 7 December to

substantiate Mr. Knox's conclusion that "once action was joined the courage,

determination, and the resourcefulness of the armed services and of the

civilian employees left nothing to be desired.66

Despite the devastation wrought by the Japanese, service chiefs both in

Washington and in Hawaii underestimated the weight of the Japanese

attack. The consensus in the days immediately following the action was that

Japan had used no more than three carriers and 180 planes.67 This underestimate persisted during December and January through the investigation

of the commission headed by Justice Owen J. Roberts of the Supreme Court,

and it lent a good deal more color than justifiable to charges that the Hawaiian Department could have put up a much more effective defense if its forces

had been properly alerted. Undoubtedly, if there had been plenty of warning,

there could and would have been a more effective defense, but the Japanese

struck with such overwhelming force that there would have been little difference in the damage done—except, of course, to Japanese planes and possibly to the carriers. Certainly the unheeded warnings of the last hour or so

before the attack could have made little difference in the Army's defense. It

would have required (and actually did require) several hours' effort to get

most of the Army's antiaircraft guns into position and ready to fire, and in

any event the Army had very few guns that could have dealt with the lowflying torpedo planes and dive bombers. As for the Army's pursuit ships, the

well-known warning by the Opana radar might have provided enough time

65

 Rpt, SN to President, n.d. (circa 14 Dec 41), Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 24, p. 1753. 66

 Ibid., p. 1756. 67

 Naval Intelligence in Washington estimated that, of eight carriers in operation, Japan had

used no more than three in the Oahu raid. Min, JB Mtg, 8 Dec 41. Ltr, G-2 Hawaiian Dept to

G-2 War Dept, 20 Dec 41, and other papers in AG 381 (12 Dec 41), estimate 160-180 planes

and "at least three carriers."
196 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

to disperse them to bunkers at Wheeler Field, but not enough to get them

into the air against the first wave of Japanese planes.68

As Admiral King observed three years after the event, the basic reason

the attack succeeded so well was the general blindness of the United States

Army and Navy to Japanese potentialities in the central Pacific.69 The Roberts

Commission and later investigations found much to criticize about the

organization and operation of defense forces in Hawaii, but General Short

and his Navy colleagues stoutly defended the "system." Said General Short:

"I think the system is all right. I think that we made a very serious mistake when we didn't go to an alert against an all out attack. I think that our

system was perfectly all right. Our estimate of the situation was not."

 70

Whether Washington gave the Hawaiian commanders enough information

to make a correct estimate of the situation remains a much argued question.

But on the central issue of responsibility, no one has improved on the judgment of Secretary of War Stimson, recorded in his diary the day that the

report of the Roberts Commission was made public:

The printed report does not and could not go into what is the real underlying

basis of the trouble, namely, that both services had not fully learned the lessons of the

development of air power in respect to the defense of a navy and of a naval base. This

failure and shortcoming pervaded the services and the nation. We had grown to rely on

the impregnability of Pearl Harbor and nobody had anticipated that the Japs could

make an attack by air as thoroughly as they did. Crete and Greece had taught us the

vulnerability of a fleet in narrow seas against attacks by shore-based aircraft. It was the

Japs who carried out this lesson of attacks upon a fleet from carriers in the high seas.

I doubt if anybody in the Navy or the Army believed that they could successfully do it

or would try it. Certainly nobody in the responsible positions. And it was only through

such a disaster that we could all in the nation learn what modern air power can do even

in the high seas.71

68

 See Testimony of Gen Short before Congressional Jt Comm, 23 Jan 46, Pearl Harbor

Attack, pt. 7, p. 2995. 69

 Memo, COMINCH to SN, 3 Dec 44, par. 11, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 39, p. 385. 70

 Testimony before Roberts Commission, 8 Jan 42, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 23, p. 987. 71

 Stimson Diary, entry of 25 Jan 42.
CHAPTER VIII

The Hawaiian Defenses

After Pearl Harbor

When General Marshall and his principal subordinates met in Washington on the morning of 8 December 1941, their greatest immediate concern

was to discover ways and means of putting the Hawaiian garrison back on its

feet. They agreed that the Hawaiian Air Force must be reconstituted as soon

as possible, and General Marshall directed the Army Air Forces to give highest priority to the movement of enough planes to Hawaii to build up Army

air strength there to one full group of heavy bombardment and two full

groups of pursuit. Hawaii's own most urgent plea was for "all possible heavy

bombardment fully equipped," and fortunately this was the easiest of its

requirements to meet quickly. War had interrupted the prepared flow of

heavy bombers to the Philippines, and it was a simple matter for the Army

Air Forces to continue it to Hawaii. By 21 December enough B-17's had

been flown out from California to bring the heavy bomber force on Oahu

to a full-group strength of forty-three planes. To get other army reinforcements to Hawaii in similar quick order was a much more vexing problem.1

The Navy, which at once ordered the transfer of three battleships and an

aircraft carrier from the Atlantic Fleet to the Pacific, was insistent that the

Army send everything it could to bolster the defenses of Hawaii. On the

other hand, the Navy did not want any ships to leave the west coast without

escort, and Army reinforcements for Hawaii that had sailed just before the

Japanese attacked were turned back to San Francisco. As of 9 December,

the Army and Navy were agreed on a move that would have reinforced

Hawaii from another direction, by the return of a sizable Philippine-bound

convoy to Honolulu. But President Roosevelt overruled the services, and

1

 Rad, CG Hawaiian Dept to CofAAF, 7 Dec 41, copy in USAFMIDPAC Hist, Bulky File;

Notes on Conf in OCofS, 8 Dec 41, OCS Conf, binder 29; Memo, Lt Col Clayton L. Bissell for

ACofS WPD, 9 Dec 41, WPD 3807-105; AAF Monograph 41, Operational History of the Seventh Air Force, p. 105.
198 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

the convoy was therefore ordered to proceed to Australia. Help for Hawaii

would have to come from the mainland.2

For the first few days after Pearl Harbor both the War and the Navy

Departments thought that the Japanese might have strong naval forces

including carriers between Hawaii and the west coast, and the Navy objected

to any ship movements from California until the situation east of Hawaii

was clarified. The general underestimation of Japanese strength in the Pearl

Harbor attack underlay this thinking, the Navy assuming that the Japanese

had other carriers free for an attack on the Pacific coast. In turn, apprehensions of attacks on the American continent helped to modify the Army's

initial position of giving first priority to Hawaii. More vital still than Pearl

Harbor, from the Army's point of view, were the west coast bomber factories

and the Panama Canal; and by 12 December the Army position was "to take

all possible steps short of jeopardizing the security of the Continental United

States and the Panama Canal to reinforce the defenses of Oahu."

 3

Another reason for the Army's more cautious stand may be found in

doubts expressed by Secretary Stimson and others about the reliability of

Pearl Harbor as the major Pacific naval base.4 Naval officers on the spot

shared these doubts.5 They took their ships out of Pearl Harbor as fast as

they could after the attack, and kept them at sea. As late as 20 January 1942

Secretary Stimson noted his agreement with Mr. Justice Roberts (just back

from Hawaii) that Pearl Harbor was "no longer a safe advance base for

the Navy under the conditions of modern air and sea warfare."

 6 But three

weeks earlier Admiral William S. Pye, the acting fleet commander, had

struck a more realistic chord when he testified before the Roberts Commission:

"I do not believe that there is any other base in this area, and if we intend to

conduct war in this area this base must be held and used."

 7

By the time of Admiral Pye's testimony the Navy knew that President

Roosevelt was determined to push limited offensive operations against Japan,

and such operations could only be pushed from Hawaii. During December

2

 Notes of Min, JB Mtgs, 8, 9, and 10 Dec 41, in OCMH files. See also, in this series, Matloff

and Snell, Strategic Planning, 1941-42 pp. 78ff; and Richard M. Leighton and Robert W. Coakley,

Global Logistics and Strategy, 1940-1943, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II

(Washington, 1955), pp. 143ff. 3

 Memo, ACofS WPD for CofS, 12 Dec 41, WPD 4622-37. 4

 On 10 Dec Mr. Stimson is reported to have said "that he thought Hawaii was still good as

an outpost and a port of temporary call, but he did not consider it a full defensive area." Notes

on Conf with SW, 10 Dec 41, OCS Conf, binder 29. 5

 See, for example, Testimony of Capt Walter S. DeLany, USN, Operations Officer, CINCPAC,

before Roberts Commission, 30 Dec 41, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 22, pp. 520-21. 6

 Stimson Diary, entry of 20 Jan 42. 7

 Testimony on 30 Dec 41, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 22, p. 544.
THE HAWAIIAN DEFENSES AFTER PEARL HARBOR 199

the Navy of necessity recast its Pacific war plans, making the sure control of

the Oahu-Midway line the task of first priority for the Pacific Fleet, and giving second priority to that of holding the line from Hawaii to Samoa. The

necessary corollary of the new strategy outlined for the Pacific Fleet was a

much surer defense of Oahu by the United States Army.8

The Impact of War

In Hawaii, under the impetus of attack and the ensuing excitement, the

Army had moved quickly on 7 December 1941 to control almost every facet

of public and private life. One of its first steps was to round up all still and

motion pictures made of the attack itself, except those taken by the Navy.

By 10:30 a.m., in co-operation with the Navy, the Army G-2 organization

had begun to apply a tight censorship to prevent the transmission from

Hawaii of any unauthorized information about the attack or about the condition of Oahu's defense forces after it was over. A few minutes later, as Governor Joseph B. Poindexter was announcing over the radio that he had ordered

Hawaii's emergency M-day act in effect, the Army shut him off because it

thought Japanese attackers were using radio beams to guide their navigation.

During the morning General Short also undertook to evacuate all civilian

dependents from Hickam, Fort Kamehameha, and other damaged military

installations, and his G-2 staff began a quick roundup of "enemy agents

and suspicious characters." By 10 December the Army had interned 482

Japanese, Germans, and Italians, 43 of them American citizens.9

The establishment of full martial law under the Army commander as military governor made this internment and the other actions taken not only possible but unchallengeable. Since the summer of 1940 the Army had planned

for military rule of the Territory of Hawaii if it was seriously threatened

by invasion, and in March 1941 General Short had earnestly advocated a legal

foundation that would empower the President to authorize martial law in

an emergency.10 The Hawaiian legislature sought to forestall Congressional

action in Washington by passing its own M-day act on 3 October 1941. The

Governor's action in declaring this act in force at 10:00 a.m. on 7 December

did not satisfy General Short, who was more than ever concerned about the

dangers of sabotage and espionage among the large population of Japanese

8

 Notes on Conf at White House (President and American advisers only), 28 Dec 41,

WDCSA 334 Mtgs and Confs (1-28-42). See also Morison, Rising Sun in the Pacific, ch. XI. 9

 Ltr, CG Hawaiian Dept to CofS, 12 Dec 41, and other papers in AG 381 (12 Dec 41). 10

 3d Ind, CG Hawaiian Dept to TAG, 19 Mar 41, and Ltr, TAG to JAG, 25 Nov 40, AG

370.6 Hawaiian Dept (11-20-40).
200 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

descent on Oahu, particularly if Japanese forces followed up the air attack

with an invasion as the general thought they might do on the following

morning. Therefore, he called on Governor Poindexter and discussed with

him the need for martial law. After the general left the Governor telephoned

President Roosevelt, who approved its establishment. During the afternoon

the Governor signed proclamations (prepared by the Army's Judge Advocate months before) authorizing the commanding general of the Hawaiian

Department to exercise all of the Governor's normal powers, suspending

the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus until further notice, and conferring

full judicial as well as executive power on the Army in the person of its

commanding general. The President formally approved these actions on

9 December. General Short announced them in effect at 3:45 p.m. on the

7th, and gave actual charge of government under martial law to the Hawaiian Department's Judge Advocate General, Lt. Col. Thomas H. Green.11

Under its new authority the Army ordered a complete blackout beginning

at 6:00 p.m. on 7 December and continuing every night until further notice,

and for the first few weeks it barred all private cars from the highways and

maintained a strict curfew after the same hour. At 6:04 p.m. on 7 December

the police radio broadcast: "From now on nobody allowed out of their

homes."

 12

 Before the day was over the Army had issued orders closing all

saloons and prohibiting the sale of liquor; suspending civil courts and instituting provost courts in their place; closing all schools for an indefinite

period; suspending all food sales to permit a complete inventory of island

food stocks; and rationing gasoline. By and large, at the outset, civilians

accepted these and other measures with understanding and good spirit.

Later, both Hawaiians and agencies of the federal government other than

the War and Navy Departments registered a good many complaints about

the continuation of martial law; but the Army kept a tight control of civilians and civilian affairs until after the Battle of Midway in June 1942

erased any threat of invasion.13 Beginning in July 1942 the powers of government were gradually restored to civilian authority, but the suspension

11

 Allen, Hawaii's War Years, pp. 35-36, 79-80; Rad, CG Hawaiian Dept to JAG, 11 Dec 41,

AG 381 (11-27-41) Gen. 12

 Log of Honolulu Police Radio Broadcasts, 7-8 Dec 41, in USAFMIDPAC Hist, Bulky File,

backing papers to pt. I, ch. 3. 13

 Temporarily, with the establishment of unity of command on 17 Dec 1941 (see below),

the Navy acquired control of the military governorship and its machinery. See Testimony of

General Short before Roberts Commission, 23 Dec 41, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 22, p. 90. A

month later, and apparently after President Roosevelt made it clear that he intended control to

remain with the Army, the commanding general was again in full charge; and to avoid further

confusion he set up a separate organization for military government that was exempt from the

Navy's over-all command of tactical forces.
THE HAWAIIAN DEFENSES AFTER PEARL HARBOR 201

of habeas corpus and some degree of martial law continued in effect until

24 October 1944.14

The institution and maintenance of martial law in Hawaii clearly had

as a major if not central purpose the control of the large minority of the

population that was of Japanese descent, American citizens as well as aliens.

Immediately after the enemy attack there were a host of rumors and reports

of sabotage and other subversive activity by residents of Oahu. The most

careful investigation by the Army and other federal agencies failed to find

any support for these allegations. Before the attack there had been espionage,

that is, an extensive collection of military information, by the Japanese consular staff, and espionage of sorts by one other person, a German national

named Otto Kuehn. On the other hand, it is highly unlikely that anyone on

the consular staff knew of the impending attack. During and after the Pearl

Harbor raid, and for the remainder of the war period, no sabotage, espionage,

or any other sort of subversive activity is known to have occurred in Hawaii.

But there were many who credited this record to the close controls that

martial law allowed, and the services were especially anxious to keep it in

effect after the early drive for a mass evacuation of Japanese residents from

Oahu petered out.15

The inventory of food ordered by the Army on 7 December reflected a

long-standing concern with the problem of feeding Oahu's civilian population in an emergency. With the island's agriculture devoted almost exclusively

to pineapples and sugar, most foodstuffs had to be imported from the mainland. The Army's prewar plans and tentative moves toward encouraging

the production of other foods on an experimental and educational scale,

and toward stocking seed, had been ineffective. Another plan for stocking

nonperishable foods for emergency use received the blessing of the War

Department but no appropriations from Congress.16 When war came Oahu

had about a normal supply of food on hand for its 250,000 civilians, and no

means of increasing local production significantly. The inventory disclosed a

37-day supply of most staples, but serious shortages of potatoes, rice, and

onions. To maintain this supply and feed Army forces would require prompt

shipment and a continuing flow of about 32,000 tons of food a month from

14

 Notes on WD War Council Mtgs, 13 Jul, 21 Oct, 16 Dec 42. Ltr, SW to Atty Gen Biddle,

2 Nov 43, OPD 370.5 Hawaiian Dept/8; Allen, Hawaii's War Years, p. 176. For a detailed account

of the organization and operation of martial law in Hawaii during World War II, see

USAFMIDPAC History, Part VIII, Civil Affairs and Military Government. 15

 Allen, Hawaii's War Years, pp. 47ff; Rad, CG Hawaiian Dept to TAG, 2 Jan 42, AG 381

(11-27-41) sec. 1; WDC Interoffice Memo, 16 Mar 42, WDC 381 vol. II/4. 16

 Memo, Acting ACofS WPD for CofS, 7 Apr 41, and other papers in WPD 3915.
202 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

the mainland. In addition, General Short asked the War Department to

arrange for a six-month emergency reserve of 48,000 tons of food, and he

placed orders with the division engineer in San Francisco for 40,000 tons of

seed, insecticides, fertilizer, and farm implements in order to boost local food

production.17

Filling these orders on the mainland was no problem, but in the first

few weeks after the attack the presence of Japanese submarines and a critical

shortage of shipping made the food outlook an alarming one. Congress

hastily approved a revolving fund of $35,000,000 to finance shipments, and

the first emergency cargo of food began to load in San Francisco on 20 December. By mid-February 1942 the food situation was sufficiently in hand to

permit the War Department to turn over responsibility for supplying civilian

needs to the Department of Agriculture, and by June there was an ample

supply of food on hand. The effort to stimulate the production of food crops

locally met with indifferent success, partly because the federal government

decided that maximum production of sugar and pineapples was more important to the war effort.18

Immediately after the Japanese attack, the Army requested authority

to evacuate the families of servicemen to the mainland at government expense, and this evacuation was broadened to include other civilian women

and children who wanted to go as well as tourists stranded in Hawaii when

the war started. Although the primary consideration for evacuation was the

exposed position of Oahu, it also alleviated the housing shortage and left

fewer mouths to feed. By 1 March 1942 some 10,000 had left, and 20,000

more followed before the end of the year. An incidental but very significant

result of this evacuation was that it helped block the proposed mass evacuation of residents of Japanese descent to the mainland.19

Under martial law the Army could and did impose a strict censorship on

all information media in Hawaii and to all civilian letters and messages sent

from Hawaii after 7 December. The latter measure prevented the enemy

from finding out about the weaknesses as well as the strengths of island

defenses. On 8 December the War Department authorized censorship of all

communications to and from personnel under military control outside the

United States, and the Hawaiian Department was in a position to take full

17

 Rad, CG Hawaiian Dept to TAG, 14 Dec 41, OPD Exec 8, bk. 1. 18

 Allen, Hawaii's War Years, pp. 151-54; Memo, ASGS for CofS, 19 Feb 42, in OCS Conf,

binder 33. 19

 Tel Conv, CofS Hawaiian Dept with ASGS WD, 8 Dec 41, OPD 381 Hawaiian Dept/55;

paraphrase of Navy Rad, 1 Mar 42, AG 370.5 (11-6-41) sec. 2; Allen, Hawaii's War Years,

pp. 107-09.
THE HAWAIIAN DEFENSES AFTER PEARL HARBOR 203

advantage of this authority. In addition to postal censorship, radio stations

came under Army control on 8 December, and English language newspapers

were censored beginning on 9 December. Three days later the Army suspended the publication of foreign language newspapers and of "weekly

labor and communistic papers and other uncertain publications."

 20

 Although

the Army gave up its direct control of civilian censorship to the federal Office

of Censorship in February 1942, thereafter throughout the war the Army and

Navy continued to exert a much closer indirect control of information than

existed on the mainland.21

As soon as the air attack was over, the Hawaiian Department plunged

into a reconstruction and new construction effort of unprecedented scale and

pace. General Short and his District Engineer, Lt. Col. Theodore Wyman,

Jr., took full advantage of a War Department authorization of 9 December

to incur obligations for any purpose to meet urgent requirements.22 On 10

December the general reported that his engineer officer had "all the contractors in town working" and doing "marvelous work." The repair and expansion of air fields had top priority, and to get the work done quickly the district engineer commandeered civilian stocks of construction material and

equipment, absorbed the quartermaster construction organization, ordered

building equipment from the mainland in such quantities that it could not

be delivered for many months to come, and (by 23 December) employed

a civilian working force of 20,000 men.23 Unfortunately for Colonel Wyman, in numerous instances he neglected to maintain the "record of overobligations so incurred" which the authorization of 9 December had required.

However effective he was in getting the repair job done and new construction

under way, his failure to keep accounts and his high-handed tactics led to

his relief in March and the consolidation of all Army construction activity

under the department engineer.24

The principal immediate change in Hawaii's defense structure came

about on 17 December 1941, when the top Army and Navy commanders

20

 Rad, CG Hawaiian Dept to TAG, 12 Dec 41, AG 381 (11-27-41) Gen. 21

 Allen, Hawaii's War Years, pp. 146-48. 22

 Memo, G-4 for TAG, 9 Dec 41, OCS 20188-12. 23

 Tel Conv, Gen Short and DCofS Gen Bryden, 10 Dec 41, WPD Message File 1; Telg,

Dist Engr San Francisco to CofEngrs, 24 Dec 41, WPD 1928-45. 24

 App. 1 of Army Pearl Harbor Bd Rpt, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 39, especially pp. 207-10;

Incl to Memo, CG SOS for ACofS OPD, 8 May 42, OPD 333.1 Hawaiian Dept/2. For a detailed

account of Army construction activity in Hawaii before and after Pearl Harbor, see the forthcoming

volume by Karl A. Dod, The Corps of Engineers: Operations in the War Against Japan, chs. I

and VIII, to be published in the UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II series. The

Navy's construction work is described in Bureau of Yards and Docks, Building the Navy's Bases

in World War II (Washington, 1947), vol. II, ch. 22.
204 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

were replaced and all Army forces in the Hawaiian area were put under

command of the Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet. President Roosevelt

ordered the replacements after he read Secretary Knox's report on what had

happened. General Short's successor was Lt. Gen. Delos C. Emmons, an

Air Corps officer, and he reached Hawaii in time to take over the Army

command on 17 December. Admiral Kimmel's replacement was to be Admiral

Chester W. Nimitz, but for the two weeks before he took over on 31

December unity of command was exercised by the acting fleet commander,

Admiral Pye. General Emmons and Admiral Pye got together immediately,

and five days after his arrival the general could report to General Marshall:

"Unity of command here is essential, is working well, and will so continue."

 25

Although subsequently much criticism arose over the lack of a united

command and over effective interservice co-operation in Hawaii before Pearl

Harbor, the establishment of unity of command there was immediately

inspired by similar action directed by the President on 12 December for

the Panama Coastal Frontier. In any event General Marshall had long believed that Hawaii should be under Navy command, whenever the major

portion of the Pacific Fleet was present or was using Pearl Harbor as its

major base; and on 16 December he took the initiative in proposing to

Admiral Stark that all Army forces in the Hawaiian Coastal Frontier be

put under naval command, and with no strings attached.26 In practice, this

meant that henceforth during the war the Army kept responsibility for the

administration and discipline of its forces in the Hawaiian area, but the

Navy commanded their operations except (after the first month) those

associated with military government. The organization worked out by the

Navy put all defense forces specifically allocated to the coastal frontier (the

major islands and adjacent sea areas within a 20-mile limit) under Army

command, and all defense forces allotted to the Hawaiian Sea Frontier

(extending outward from the islands for 500 miles) under Navy command.

Under this arrangement Army pursuit aviation and the other elements of

the interceptor system remained under Army control, but Army heavy bombardment planes were put under the Navy's sea frontier command. From the

Army's viewpoint, this division of command over Army air units was a step

in the wrong direction; but the efforts of the Hawaiian Air Force (Seventh

Air Force from March 1942 onward) to recover operational control of its

heavy bombers were unsuccessful. Except for the heavy bomber units, the

25

 Telg, Gen Emmons to CofS, 22 Dec 41, AG 381 (12-17-41). 26

 Stimson Diary, entry of 12 Dec 41; Memo, CofS for CNO, 16 Dec 41, and other papers in

WPD 2917-38.
THE HAWAIIAN DEFENSES AFTER PEARL HARBOR 205

actual control of Army forces in Hawaii continued to be exercised by the

Hawaiian Department and successor commands, under missions assigned

by the Navy. There would undoubtedly have been a closer integration of

command if the local Army and Navy commanders had complied with a

Washington order of 19 December 1941 to establish a joint command post;

but it took them a year to agree on its location, and after another year spent

in construction they agreed that a joint command post was no longer needed.

The separate Army and Navy command headquarters continued to coordinate their work through liaison officers, as they had done before Pearl

Harbor, albeit more effectively. Nothing like a unified force evolved in

Hawaii, and indeed for the first few months there was much rivalry and

friction between the services. But at the top General Emmons and Admiral

Nimitz worked in close accord from the beginning, and by May 1942, when

the enemy again threatened in force, the Hawaiian defense forces were fairly

joined if not united.27

The most obvious joint enterprise of the Army and Navy in the period

immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack was the conduct of long-range

reconnaissance. The improvised and unsuccessful attempts of 7 December

to locate the Japanese Striking Force were succeeded as rapidly as possible

by an organized daily search under the command of the Navy's Patrol Wing

Two using as many Army and Navy planes as could be made available, to a

distance of 700 nautical miles in all directions. To make this patrol possible

the Navy transferred three squadrons of reconnaissance craft from the Atlantic as quickly as it could. The Navy's reconnaissance plan that became effective

during December called for a daily search by 46 planes, but in practice only

37 were normally used—12 B-17's and 25 Navy PBY's. The Army managed

to hold back 18 of its heavy bombers as a striking force ready for action on

30-minute notice. The reconnaissance, though far superior to anything attempted before Pearl Harbor, was admittedly a good deal less than perfect—

low visibility in the patrolled lanes could cut its effectiveness to near zero,

and about one-fifth of the circle surrounding the islands had to be left virtually unpatrolled each day. To make the patrol fully effective would not

only require a good many more planes but also radar to eliminate the hazards

of visual observation.28

27

 The establishment and workings of unity of command are described at length though not

completely in USAFMIDPAC History, pt IV, Joint Army-Navy Action, pp. 794ff. 28

 Testimony before Roberts Commission of Adm Bellinger, 31 Dec 41, Pearl Harbor Attack,

pt. 22, p. 566, and of Brig Gen Clarence L. Tinker, 8 Jan 42, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 23,

pp. 1027-28; Memo, CINCPAC to COMINCH, 7 Jan 42, copy in WPD 3444-25.
206 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

The Japanese were still around during December 1941, but not on carriers.

They kept a group of about nine submarines in the vicinity of Hawaii until

mid January, to do what damage they could. As commerce destroyers Japanese

submarines in Hawaiian waters proved as ineffective as they did on the west

coast.29 Another reason for their remaining was to find out just how much

damage had been done to the American Navy in Pearl Harbor. Fliers returning to the carriers on 7 December had reported as best they could on what they

had seen and photographed through flame and smoke, but the Japanese

wanted a better picture. To get one, a plane launched from submarine I-7

flew over Pearl Harbor at dawn on 18 December. The next day a Japanese

Navy communique announced that 8 battleships, 4 cruisers, and 2 destroyers

had been sunk or heavily damaged, and lesser damage had been done to

another battleship and 4 more cruisers. The communique also claimed 450

planes destroyed on the ground and 14 shot down—a claim more closely

related to enemy prewar overestimates of Hawaiian air strength than to the

damage actually done, bad as it was.30 Apparently neither the 18 December

flight nor a similar one during the night of 6-7 January was detected.31

Before December was over Japanese submarines had brought war home

to the outer islands, though in almost innocuous fashion. Just before dusk

on 15 December a submarine lobbed about ten shells into the harbor area

of Kahului on Maui, and three that hit a pineapple cannery caused about

$700 worth of damage. During the night of 30-31 December, submarines

engaged in similar and nearly simultaneous shellings of Hilo on Hawaii,

Nawiliwili on Kauai, and again on Kahului. At the last-named point Army

coast artillery guns returned the fire. Damage at all three points was slight,

and no one was hurt. The principal result of these shellings was to stir up

the war consciousness of all the Hawaiian Islands.32

The Question of Japanese Evacuation

Simultaneously with planning for a mass evacuation of Japanese residents from the west coast of the United States, Army authorities in Hawaii

and Washington proposed a similar mass evacuation from Hawaii, as a

29

 See ch. IV above. 30

 Japanese Monographs 102;108; General Headquarters Supreme Commander for the Allied

Powers, Japan, Japanese Operations in the Southwest Pacific Area (Southwest Pacific Series, vol.

II), National Archives and Records Service, p. 70 (hereafter cited as Far East History). 31

 The latter flight is recorded in List of Sub-Carried Plane Strikes, prepared by the Japanese

Navy, in Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 13, pp. 650-51. 32

 Rads, CG Hawaiian Dept to TAG, 16 and 31 Dec 41, and 1 Jan 42, all in AG 381

(11-27-41) Gen; Japanese Monograph 108; Allen, Hawaii's War Years, p. 59.
THE HAWAIIAN DEFENSES AFTER PEARL HARBOR 207

measure of defense. In Hawaii a prewar allocation of responsibility for controlling enemy aliens in the event of war, the establishment of martial law,

and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus gave the Army almost plenary authority over both citizens and aliens. There were, therefore, no legal

barriers to prevent the Army from handling the large Japanese minority in

the islands as it wished, but there were other factors—among them the

Hawaiian climate of racial tolerance, the fact that most of the pressure for

mass evacuation came from outside the Army, and the vital position of the

Japanese in the civilian labor force—which operated as powerful checks on

proposals to move a large part of the Japanese population from Oahu to

another island or the mainland.33

In prewar preparations for dealing with the Japanese problem, the military services and the Federal Bureau of Investigation had used two tactics in

Hawaii. As in the continental United States, they had compiled lists of

individual aliens who they assumed might be disloyal in wartime. They had

also launched a campaign in the summer of 1941 to assure the Japanese

population that if it remained loyal to the United States in a war with

Japan it would be accorded fair treatment. On 21 December General

Emmons publicly renewed this pledge—after careful investigation had disclosed that there had been no sabotage and (with one exception) no other

hostile act committed by either alien or citizen Japanese either during or

after the Pearl Harbor Attack.34

When General Emmons made this pledge he of course did not know that

two days before it had been decided at a Cabinet meeting in Washington

that all Japanese aliens in the Hawaiian Islands were to be interned by the

Army on other islands than Oahu.35 Thereafter the most ardent official

advocate of restrictive action of this sort was Secretary of the Navy Frank

Knox. Specifically at his request, the War Department on 10 January 1942

asked the Hawaiian commander whether it would be practicable to move the

Japanese population from Oahu to some other island. General Emmons

33

 The general position of the Japanese in Hawaii before and during the war is discussed in

detail in Albert W. Lind, Hawaii's Japanese: An Experiment in Democracy (Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1946) (hereafter cited as Hawaii's Japanese); Allen, Hawaii's War Years;

Joseph Barber, Jr., Hawaii: Restless Rampart (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1941);

and John A. Rademaker, These Are Americans: The Japanese Americans in Hawaii in World

War II (Palo Alto, Calif.: Pacific Books, 1951) (hereafter cited as Rademaker, These Are

Americans). 34

 Telg, G-2 GHQ to CG WDC, 19 Dec 41, WDC-CAD 014.31; Honolulu Advertiser, Dec.

22, 1941, pp. 1, 6; Lind, Hawaii's Japanese, pp. 70-71; Allen, Hawaii's War Years, pp. 83-84.

The exception was the Niihau incident, mentioned in Chapter VII above. 35

 Stimson Diary, entries of 19 and 20 Dec 41.
208 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

answered that such a move would be highly dangerous and impractical. It

would require a large amount of additional construction and building materials at a time when construction and shipping facilities were already taxed

to their utmost; it would require many additional troops to guard the island

at a time when the Hawaiian garrison had less than half the troops needed

for missions already assigned; and it would gravely disrupt the economy of

Oahu which, General Emmons estimated, had a Japanese population of

118,000 (20,000 aliens and 98,000 citizens) that provided the bulk of the

island's skilled labor. Although General Emmons expressed little faith in

the loyalty of the majority of the Japanese population in the event of an

invasion, he believed the Japanese indispensable unless they could be replaced by an equivalent labor force from the mainland. The general strongly

recommended that, if the War Department decided that any or all of the

Japanese had to be evacuated, they be moved to the continental United

States.36

The report of the Roberts Commission and the mounting west coast

agitation against the Japanese led to another Cabinet discussion on 30 January about the "dangerous" Hawaiian Japanese and about the many Army

troops of Japanese descent still in service in Hawaii. After the meeting

Secretary Stimson told General Marshall of his concern over the situation,

and the Chief of Staff instructed the War Plans Division to look into the

matter and make recommendations.37 When General Emmons was again

asked for his views, he recommended as "desirable" the evacuation to the

mainland of as many Japanese aliens and citizens as possible at the earliest

practicable date but stated that he did not want to evacuate more than a few

hundred internees until after some 20,000 Caucasian women and children

had been transported to the mainland. He also assured the War Department

that "if an assault were made on Oahu before transfer of sufficient number of

Nipponese, we have ready plans to immobilize the Japanese."

 38

 In response

to further questioning, the Hawaiian commander stated that, while all Japanese against whom there were specific grounds for suspicion were already

in custody, in order to make certain that no Japanese of potential disloyalty

remained in Hawaii it would probably be necessary to evacuate 100,000 of

36

 Rad, TAG to CG Hawaiian Dept, 10 Jan 42; Rad, Gen Emmons to TAG, 11 Jan 42.

Both in AG 014.311 (1-13-41), sec. 11. 37

 Stimson Diary, entry of 30 Jan 42; Memo, WPD for CofS, 1 Feb 42, and accompanying

Memos of 30 and 31 Jan, AG 014.311 (1-13-41), sec. 11. 38

 Rad, TAG to CG Hawaiian Dept, 2 Feb 42, Rad, CG Hawaiian Dept to TAG, 4 Feb 42.

Both in WPD 4250-5.
THE HAWAIIAN DEFENSES AFTER PEARL HARBOR 209

them.39 On the same day that he made this estimate, General Emmons was

somewhat startled to receive a War Department order directing him to

suspend all Japanese civilians employed by the Army. He again pointed out

that the bulk of skilled labor on Oahu was of Japanese descent and could

not possibly be replaced by civilians or soldiers already there. "The Japanese

question," he added, was both "delicate and dangerous" and it "should be

handled by those in direct contact with the situation." The War Department

promptly canceled its order, but proceeded with its evacuation planning.40

On 14 February the War Plans Division prepared a recommendation that

the Hawaiian commander "be authorized to evacuate all enemy aliens and

all citizens of Japanese extraction selected by him with their families, subject

to the availability of shipping and facilities for their internment or surveillance on the mainland," and subject to the prior evacuation of 20,000

"women and children other than Japanese" as General Emmons had requested.41

 While this recommendation was still being circulated among

Army staff agencies for comment, the Navy took the Hawaiian Japanese

question before both the newly constituted Joint Chiefs of Staff and President Roosevelt. The President responded to Secretary Knox as follows:

Like you, I have long felt that most of the Japanese should be removed from Oahu

to one of the other Islands. This involves much planning, much temporary construction

and careful supervision of them when they get to the new location.

I do not worry about the constitutional question—first, because of my recent order

[Executive Order 9066] and, second, because Hawaii is under martial law. The whole

matter is one of immediate and present war emergency.

I think you and Stimson can agree and then go ahead and do it as a military

project.42

The War Plans Division, hurriedly revising its study to take into account the

President's declared position, held with General Emmons that a concentration of the Oahu Japanese on one of the outlying islands was wholly impracticable and concluded by reiterating the recommendation it had made in

preliminary form a fortnight earlier. Both General Marshall and Secretary

Stimson approved the War Plans proposal, which contemplated the eventual

transfer of about 100,000 Japanese aliens and citizens from Hawaii to the

mainland for internment or resettlement, and Secretary Stimson carried a

39

 Rad, TAG to CG Hawaiian Dept, 8 Feb 42; Rad, CG Hawaiian Dept to TAG, 9 Feb 42.

Both in WPD 4250-5. 40

 Rad, TAG to CG Hawaiian Dept, 9 Feb 42; Rad, TAG to CG Hawaiian Dept, 12 Feb 42;

Rad, CG Hawaiian Dept to TAG, 10 Feb 42. All in WPD 4072-9. 41

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 14 Feb 42, WPD 4250-5. 42

 Memo, President Roosevelt for SN, 26 Feb 42, OPD 370.05 Hawaii (3-4-42).
210 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

brief of the Army's plan to a Cabinet meeting on 27 February.43 Mr. Stimson

recorded the Cabinet discussions as follows:

Removal of Japs from Oahu. Knox brought this up and urged vigorously the

remedy of the situation out there. I told them that the Army concurred in this but that

for the reasons given in Marshall's memorandum [that is, the latest War Plans recommendation] it would probably be necessary to send them to the United States. The

President was staggered by this and was rather plainly in favor of placing them on the

Island of Malikou [Molokai] in a big cantonment guarded by the Army. This was the

plan urged by Knox. I pointed out the difficulties of this so far as I could. The matter

was left unsettled.44

After considering the conflicting views of the Army on the one hand and

of President Roosevelt and Secretary Knox on the other, the Joint Chiefs of

Staff decided that the concentration of the Hawaiian Japanese on an island

such as Molokai was impracticable, and they unanimously recommended a

large-scale evacuation of Japanese aliens and citizens to the mainland, to

begin with "the most dangerous group" of 20,000 persons as soon as possible.45

 As presented by Admiral Stark to the President, the recommendation

read: "That such Japanese (either U.S. citizens or aliens) as are considered

by appropriate authority in the Hawaiian Islands to constitute a source of

danger be transported to the U.S. mainland and placed under guard in concentration camps."

 46

 The President approved this recommendation on 13

March 1942, "on the basis of an explanation made to him which pointed out

that evacuation would necessarily be a slow process and that what was intended, first, was to get rid of about 20,000 potentially dangerous Japanese."

 47

The principal obstacle to the execution of this recommendation was the

growing disinclination of Army officials to carry it out. On 27 March, after

the Hawaiian commander had been formally notified about the evacuation

plan that the President had approved and after a visit of Assistant Secretary

of War McCloy to Hawaii, General Emmons made a "present estimate" of

1,550 as the number of dangerous Japanese aliens and citizens that should be

evacuated and interned on the mainland, although he added that future circumstances might make it "advisable to raise this estimate to much larger

figures."

 48

 During his trip Mr. McCloy had learned that Army and Navy offi43

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 27 Feb 42, annotations thereon, and accompanying notes, WPD

4250-5. 44

 SW Notes after Cabinet Mtg, 27 Feb 42, WDCSA 334 Mtgs and Confs. 45

 Notes, JCS Mtg, 9 Mar 42, and Addendum, 11 Mar 42, to JCS 11, 12 Feb 42, sub: Hawaiian Def Forces, ABC 381 Hawaii (2-12-42). 46

 Ltr, CNO to President Roosevelt, 11 Mar 42 (photostat copy, with pen notations indicating President Roosevelt's approval.), PMG 383.01 Hawaii. 47

 Memo, Gen Eisenhower, OPD, for CofS, 27 Mar 42, OPD Exec 8, bk. 4. 48

 Rad, CG Hawaiian Dept to CG SOS, 27 Mar 42, PMG 383.01 Hawaii.
THE HAWAIIAN DEFENSES AFTER PEARL HARBOR 211

cials in Hawaii were opposed to any large-scale evacuation to the mainland or

to one of the outlying islands. The Army and Navy preferred, he reported, "to

treat the Japanese in Hawaii as citizens of an occupied foreign country."

 49

The Assistant Secretary agreed that the outlying island scheme was completely

impracticable. He believed a mass evacuation to the mainland almost as impracticable, because of the lack of shipping, the necessity of replacing the

Japanese labor force, the difficulty of providing enough suitable facilities for

relocating the Japanese on the mainland, and "the political repercussions on

the West Coast and in the United States generally to the introduction of

150,000 more Japanese." Dispatches in Honolulu newspapers published on 27

and 28 March quoted Mr. McCloy as stating that a mass evacuation of the

Japanese from Hawaii was impractical and was not contemplated. By the

beginning of April 1942, both Mr. McCloy and the Army's Operations Division appear to have assumed that the evacuation would be confined to the

1,550 "dangerous" Japanese specified in General Emmons' latest recommendation.50

This might very well have been the answer to the question of Hawaiian

evacuation if it had not been for the continued concern of the Secretary of the

Navy and the President for the security of Oahu. On 20 April Mr. Knox renewed his plea for "taking all of the Japs out of Oahu and putting them in

a concentration camp on some other island"; and the President himself continued to favor the same solution.51

 In a conference of the War and Navy

Secretaries and their military advisers on 28 April, all present—except Mr.

Knox—agreed that it was impracticable to move the Oahu Japanese to another island, and that instead General Emmons should be authorized to

evacuate ten or fifteen thousand adult male Japanese to the mainland. This

idea had been suggested much earlier by Admiral Bloch, the commandant of

the Fourteenth Naval District, who attended the meeting, and who was as

strongly opposed as General Emmons to the outlying island proposal.52 President Roosevelt, nevertheless, continued during May to favor a general

Japanese evacuation from Oahu to one of the smaller Hawaiian islands and

in consequence Mr. McCloy advised General Emmons that he had better work

49

 Notes, War Council Mtg, 23 Mar 42, SW Conf, binder 2. 50

 Memo, Mr. McCloy for Gen Eisenhower, 28 Mar 42; Memo, OPD for ASW, 3 Apr 42.

Both in WPD 4250-5. Honolulu Advertiser, Mar. 28, 1942, p. 3; Lind, Hawaii's Japanese,

pp. 78-79, 108-09. 51

 Memo, SN for President Roosevelt, 20 Apr 42; Memo, President Roosevelt for SN, 23

Apr 42. Both in ASW 014.311 Hawaii. SW Notes after Cabinet Mtg, 24 Apr 42, WDCSA 334

Mtgs and Confs. 52

 Two OPD Memos for Rcd, 28 Apr and 27 Jun 42, OPD 370.05 Hawaii (3-4-42); Memo,

SN for SW, 3 Mar 42, WPD 4250-5.
212 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

out some alternative evacuation plan, perhaps similar to that proposed by

Admiral Bloch, in order to satisfy the President and Mr. Knox.53

Before the Hawaiian commander came up with a new general evacuation

plan, he carried out one type of evacuation that he had proposed much earlier.

For more than a year the task of guarding the islands had been shared by the

298th and 299th Infantry Regiments, Hawaiian National Guard units that

had been called into federal service in 1940. By late 1941 many of their enlisted men and some of their officers were of Japanese ancestry. When sufficient

replacements from the mainland finally arrived in May, the Hawaiian Department withdrew the Japanese troops from the 298th and 299th Regiments,

organized them into a provisional battalion, and on 5 June shipped them to

the mainland. This group of 29 officers and 1,277 enlisted men thereafter became the 100th Infantry Battalion, which eventually landed on the Salerno

beachhead in Italy on 22 September 1943.54

As for Japanese civilians, General Emmons on 20 June proposed a voluntary movement to the mainland of the families of internees and of individuals

of low income who were more of a drain than a benefit to the Hawaiian

economy and war effort. The War Department thereupon arranged with the

War Relocation Authority to provide relocation facilities for 15,000

Hawaiian Japanese. The Hawaiian Department, which by 1 July considered

the position and conduct of the bulk of the Japanese population "highly

satisfactory," wanted to evacuate "as soon as practicable" only 5,000, not

15,000; but the figure of 15,000 was used in a new Joint Chiefs of Staff and

Presidential directive of 17 July.55

In view of the previously approved policy of evacuating military dependents and other non-Japanese civilians first, General Emmons was not able to

present a program for Japanese evacuation in accordance with his new

directive until early October. His plan then was substantially the one he had

proposed in June except that evacuation would be compulsory rather than

voluntary; it proposed to remove initially about 3,000 people who would

53

 SW notes for Cabinet Mtg, 1 May 42, WDCSA 334 Mtgs and Confs; Ltr, ASW to Gen

Emmons, 18 May 42, ASW 014.311 Hawaii. 54

 Memo, G-1 for TAG, 16 Dec 41, OCS 16418-97; Memo, OPD for COMINCH, 29 May

42, OPD 370.5 Hawaii/11; Rad, CG Hawaiian Dept to WD, 29 May 42; OPD Memo for

Rcd, 21 Jun 42. Last two in OPD 320.2 Hawaii/64, 94. OPD Routing Form, 26 Jun 42, OPD

370.5 Hawaii/13. For details of the military service and gallant combat record of these and

other Hawaiian troops of Japanese ancestry, see Thomas D. Murphy, Ambassadors in Arms

(Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1954); Allen, Hawaii's War Years, chs. 16 and 17; and Rademaker, These are Americans, ch. 3. 55

 Rad, CG Hawaiian Dept to WD, 20 Jun 42; Rad, WD to CG Hawaiian Dept, 23 Jun 42,

and related exchanges through 7 Oct 42. All in OPD 370.05 Hawaii (3-4-42). JCS 71, 14

Jul 42 (as approved by President Roosevelt on 17 July), ABC 381 Hawaii (2-12-42).
THE HAWAIIAN DEFENSES AFTER PEARL HARBOR 213

JAPANESE CHILDREN DRILLING in American service caps, Hawaii.

otherwise remain a drain on Hawaii's war resources, rather than "dangerous" Japanese as contemplated in the approved policy. Although the War

Department continued its planning and arranging for an eventual reception

of 15,000 Japanese, Army officials in Washington realized that a movement

of that size was now unlikely.56 Secretary Knox and the President continued

to be dissatisfied with the Army's slow progress toward evacuation,57 but the

War Department decided that it ought to adhere in practice to the latest

plan of General Emmons.

56

 Rad, CG Hawaiian Dept to WD, 2 Oct 42, AG 370.05 (11-6-41), sec. 2; various papers,

dated 7-12 Oct 42, OPD 370.05 Hawaii (3-4-42); Ltr, Gen Emmons to SW, 2 Nov 42, ASW

014.311. 57

 Ltr, SN to President Roosevelt, 17 Oct 42; Memo, President Roosevelt for SW and CofS,

2 Nov 42. Both in WDCSA 42-43 Hawaii.
214 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

In accordance with this plan about 1,000 Hawaiian Japanese—most of

them citizens—were moved to the mainland between November 1942 and

March 1943. By the latter month everyone had agreed that this movement

should cease, and on 2 April 1943 the War Department instructed General

Emmons to suspend evacuation to the mainland until and unless the number

of his internees exceeded the capacity of the Hawaiian Department's own

facilities for internment, which never happened.58 Before the evacuation

ended a total of 1,875 Hawaiian residents of Japanese ancestry had been removed to internment and relocation camps in the continental United States.59

When it ended an Army spokesman informed the Honolulu press: "The

shipping situation and the labor shortage make it a matter of military necessity to keep most of the people of Japanese blood on the island."

 60

Reinforcement

The initial military reinforcement of Hawaii following the Pearl Harbor

attack was guided by a lengthy list submitted by General Short on 8 December

1941, of the troops and equipment most urgently needed for the defense of

Oahu and by several supplementary lists sent by him during the next few

days. By 12 December the War Department had arranged to ship from San

Francisco some 7,000 men, more than 100 crated pursuit ships, 3,000,000

rounds of the scarce caliber .50 ammunition, more than 8,000 aircraft bombs

of assorted sizes, and a variety of other munitions. On the evening of 13

December the Army had 2 fast transports loaded and ready to go, but the

Navy refused to let them leave without escort. They finally sailed with 3

slower ships on the 16th, and reached Honolulu five days later—but only a

fortnight after the Pearl Harbor attack. A second and larger convoy of 11

ships departed from San Francisco on 27 December and arrived in Hawaiian

waters on 7 and 8 January 1942. Together these convoys brought about

15,000 more troops to Oahu, and the unit reinforcements included two regiments of infantry, one regiment each of field artillery and coast artillery, and

light tank, signal, and railway artillery battalions. With their arrival the

strength of the Hawaiian Department was increased to about 58,500 officers

and enlisted men, and it now had most of the heavy bombardment and pursuit strength allotted a month earlier. Despite a continued serious shortage of

58

 Rad, ASW to CG Hawaiian Dept, 2 Apr 43; Rad, ASW to CG Hawaiian Dept, 15 Apr 43;

Rad, CG Hawaiian Dept to ASW, 8 Apr 43. All in ASW 014.311 Hawaii. 59

 War Relocation Authority, The Evacuated People: A Quantitative Description (Washington, 1946), pp. 183, 191. 60

 Quoted in Lind, Hawaii's Japanese, p. 79.
THE HAWAIIAN DEFENSES AFTER PEARL HARBOR 215

antiaircraft weapons, the second week of January found Oahu generally well

secured against invasion.61

Two arguments won the approval of the War Department during December of a much larger reinforcement of Hawaii. The Navy contended that the

sure defense of the Hawaiian area depended primarily on Army air power

and that the security and effectiveness of that air power required its dispersion

among the major islands of the Hawaiian group. Secondly, while the immediate reinforcement of December 1941 might ensure against a direct attempt by the enemy to invade Oahu, the Japanese had the naval strength to

cover an invasion of one or more of the almost undefended outer islands.

From bases on these islands the enemy could attack and possibly starve out

Oahu. These arguments led to an inquiry to General Short about his plans

for garrisoning the other islands of the Hawaiian group. As of mid-December, all he planned to do was to distribute another National Guard infantry

regiment among them and add to their defenses a few more second-class

weapons (the best being kept for Oahu).62

When General Emmons assumed command he asked for nearly 50,000

additional troops, including two infantry square divisions, to garrison the

outer islands. He also wanted fillers to bring Oahu's units up to war strength

as soon as possible—the combined strength of the 24th and 25th Divisions

then being no more than 15,000 men. And he wanted to build up the

Hawaiian Air Force to a strength of 200 heavy bombardment planes and 325

pursuit ships. On 23 December General Marshall orally approved the immediate dispatch of one square division, two more antiaircraft regiments, and

10,000 additional service troops to Hawaii, and by the end of the month the

War Department had established an eventual strength of 100,000 ground

and 16,000 air troops for the Hawaiian Department, exclusive of its distant

appendages.63 Other more critical needs in the Pacific delayed the movement

of the bulk of the approved troop reinforcements, and Army strength in

Hawaii actually declined during early 1942. But with the arrival of the 27th

Infantry Division in March and April and its deployment with supporting

forces among the outer islands, the invasion threat to them really ended, and

it ended before the enemy again approached the Hawaiian area in force.

61

 The Army records relating to this initial movement of reinforcements to Hawaii are voluminous; see, among other files, AG 381 (11-27-41), WPD 3444-14, WPD 4622-37, and 43; and

OPD Exec 4, item 4. See also Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics and Strategy, 1940-43,

pp. 146-49. 62 Notes on Min, of JB Mtg, 13 Dec 41, in OCMH files; Rad, CG Hawaiian Dept to TAG,

15 Dec 41, copy in USAFMIDPAC Hist, Bulky File. 63

 Memo, WPD for G-3 and G-4, 24 Dec 41, WPD 3444-20; Memo for Rcd, WPD, (about

3 Jan 42), WPD 3444-16.
216 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Two factors inspired a more formal review and assessment of Hawaiian

defense needs by the Washington high command during February and March.

One was the reiterated request of General Emmons, strongly backed by

Admiral Nimitz, for a much higher heavy bomber strength than Washington

had allotted. The Navy wanted as many Army heavy bombers as possible

stationed in the Hawaiian Islands in order to free the fleet for limited offensive action to the southwestward, and it also wanted to be able to draw on a

reservoir of Army bombers to support its offensives. General Emmons wanted

enough heavy bombers to maintain a striking force equipped to deal effectively with an enemy attack by six carriers, this force to be over and above the

number of heavies needed for continued Army participation in long-range

reconnaissance. The other factor was the open distrust of a large segment of

the Hawaiian population of Japanese descent, which, as already related, had

led to demands in Washington that the Army cleanse the Hawaiian Department of its soldiers of Japanese descent and take other actions to put the

Japanese population under close control.64

These fresh demands led General Marshall to submit the question of the

strength of Army forces to be established and maintained in Hawaii to the

Joint Chiefs of Staffs. As this was being done General Emmons was further

disturbed by the detachment in early February of twelve of his heavy bombers for duty in the southern Pacific—and thereafter until late in May his

bomber command remained at no more than one-third its allotted strength

in heavies.65 In Washington the Chief of Naval Operations supported General

Marshall's contention that the forces already allocated to the Hawaiian Department would be strong enough, when delivered, to ensure retention of the

main islands, prevent serious damage by a Japanese raid, and give freedom of

action to the Pacific Fleet. As a seemingly necessary corollary to this assurance,

the Joint Chiefs had simultaneously recommended to the President that the

bulk of the Japanese population of the Hawaiian Islands be evacuated to the

United States mainland.66 On 13 March the President approved these recommendations, although, as already indicated, the Army was rapidly losing

interest in a mass evacuation of the Japanese. On the other hand, his approval

of the planned strengths of Hawaiian ground and air forces constituted the

64

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 6 Feb 42, Navy Memo re Hawaiian Def Force, 16 Feb 42, and other

papers, in WPD 3444-25; Memo, Gen Marshall for Gen Gerow, 30 Jan 42, AG 014.311

(1-13-41). 65

 Rads, TAG to CG Hawaiian Dept, 8 Feb 42, and CG Hawaiian Dept to TAG, 16 Feb 42,

AG 381 (11-27-41), secs. 2-A, 2-B; Tab I, Memo, Col John L. McKee, OPD, for ACofS OPD,

26 May 42, sub: Visit to Hawaii and Central Pacific Theater Bases, OPD 333.1 Hawaii. 66

 JCS 11 and Addendum, 11 Mar 42. and other papers in ABC 381 Hawaii (2-12-42).
THE HAWAIIAN DEFENSES AFTER PEARL HARBOR 217

strongest kind of backing for completing the Army reinforcement that had

been projected.

The garrison of the Hawaiian Department as approved by the Joint

Chiefs and the President was to consist of 74,000 ground troops on Oahu,

13,000 on Hawaii, and 12,800 distributed among five other islands. With

small additions during March, the authorized strength of the department became at the beginning of April 106,000 ground and 16,000 air troops, including replacements for all soldiers of Japanese descent; and the department

reached these strengths before the end of June 1942. The Army air units to

be retained in the islands for local defense were to contain 96 heavy and 24

medium and light bombers and 225 pursuit planes, and the Navy was obligated to keep 67 patrol planes on hand for long-range and local reconnaissance. Because Army officials in Washington were wary of Navy claims on

heavy bombers that might be present in Hawaii, it took the impetus of a new

and grave Japanese threat to get the planned increment of them out to the

islands; and their number was quickly reduced after the Japanese challenge

had been met.67

After December 1941 the movement of Army reinforcements and supplies to Hawaii had a lower priority than shipments to Australia and the new

island bases being developed along the way to it. Only the slower ships were

used on the Hawaiian run to carry supplies for the Army and the local civilian

population, and for several months a shortage of them led to a pile-up of

supplies in San Francisco. In contrast, the Navy got its supplies to Hawaii

during the first months of the war with little or no difficulty.68 The War Department had arranged for requisitions for military and civilian supplies submitted by the Hawaiian Department to be filled by the Army's San Francisco

Port of Embarkation, in accordance with priorities established by General

Emmons. By April this system was working smoothly, and the backlog of

Army supplies awaiting shipment in San Francisco had been substantially

reduced. After March General Emmons was more concerned about the continued shortage of civilian labor in Hawaii, including dock workers, than

about the shipping shortage. In any event his early exasperation over shipping

difficulties had already dissolved when the War Production Board in Washington circulated a colorful but not very well informed report on the situation. For the record, in a note to Admiral Nimitz, General Emmons cate67

 Rad, CofS to CG Hawaiian Dept, 1 Apr 42, OPD 452.1 Hawaii/26; OPD Weekly Status

Map, Mar-June 42, OPD Exec file. 68

 Navy Memo for CofS CINCPAC, 18 Apr 42, copy in USAFMIDPAC History, Bulky File,

reviews both Army and Navy shipping and supply systems and problems with clarity.
218 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

gorically denied most of the charges contained in this report, and he assured

both the admiral and the War Department that he was well satisfied with the

way his supply problems were being solved.69

When Assistant Secretary of War McCloy visited Oahu in mid-March he

found its Army defenses generally strong and well laid out. He was particularly impressed by the intensive improvement of Army airfields since the

Pearl Harbor attack. But he noted that the Army clearly lacked enough bombers to constitute an effective striking force against enemy carriers and that the

long-range reconnaissance patrol was far from being air tight. In Mr. McCloy's judgment the Pearl Harbor-Honolulu area still presented a "terribly

congested" and "most vulnerable" target.70

The Japanese made a very ineffectual swipe at this target during the early

morning of 4 March 1942. Two Japanese flying boats starting from Jaluit

Island in the Marshalls had refueled in a rendezvous with three submarines

at French Frigate Shoals and then flown on to Oahu, about 500 miles to the

southeast. Army radar spotted them 90 miles off Kauai; and the Interceptor

Command sent up four pursuit planes to find them, but without success because of their high altitude and a heavy overcast. One Japanese plane merely

skirted the west coast of Oahu. The other followed the north coast to Kaneohe, then turned south and at 2:15 a.m. dropped four 500-pound bombs

which landed in woods on the slopes of Mount Tantalus, about 2 miles from

downtown Honolulu. They caused no casualties, and no damage other than a

few broken window panes. Because of the high altitude of the planes and the

overcast, antiaircraft guns did not fire, and no general air raid alarm was

sounded. Both planes returned to their starting point safely; but as a "night

reconnaissance" of Pearl Harbor the flight was a failure, and a second "K

Operation," as the Japanese called the feat, scheduled for 7 March, was

canceled. Hawaiian authorities deduced that the Japanese planes must have

staged through French Frigate Shoals, and the Navy thereupon took steps to

deny them to enemy submarines.71

69

 Memo, William H. Husted for E. A. Locke, Jr., 4 Mar 42, Pers Ltr, Gen Emmons to Lt Gen

Brehon B. Somervell, 21 Mar 42, Ltr, Gen Emmons to Adm Nimitz, 25 Mar 42, and other papers

in USAFMIDPAC Hist, Bulky File. On Hawaiian supply problems in the early months of the

war, see also, in this series, Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics and Strategy, 1940-43, pp.

161-65; and Joseph Bykofsky and Harold Larson, The Transportation Corps: Operations Overseas

(Washington, 1957), pp. 491-94. 70

 Notes, War Council Mtg, 23 Mar 42, in SW Conf, Binder 2; Memo, ASW McCloy for SW,

1 Apr 42, WDCSA 42-43 Hawaii. 71

 Memo and Incls, CG Hawaiian Dept to TAG, 14 Mar 42, AG 381 (3-14-42); Honolulu

Advertiser, March 4 and 5, 1942; Japanese Monograph 102, p. 18; AAF Monograph 41, Operational Hist of the Seventh Air Force, p. 12; Morison, Coral Sea, Midway, and Submarine Actions,

p. 69.
THE HAWAIIAN DEFENSES AFTER PEARL HARBOR 219

A tight blackout had helped Army defenders pass the test of an isolated

enemy air operation, but how well they were now prepared to defend Oahu

against a large-scale carrier-based attack remained an unanswered question.

The elements of the interceptor system were functioning day and night, and

as efficiently as they could with the equipment at hand. American planes in

Hawaii still lacked equipment for their ready identification as friendly, and

the bulk of the pursuit planes, though modern P-40's, still could probably

not have climbed rapidly enough after radar warning to fend off a high-level

bombing attack. The antiaircraft situation was much better than at the time

of Pearl Harbor, but antiaircraft guns could only make a heavy air raid more

costly to the enemy, not stop it. The dispersal, bunkering, and camouflaging

of Army aircraft made them relatively immune to heavy loss, but the naval

base and Honolulu could not be hidden. As earlier, the Army was best prepared to fight off an invasion of Oahu. Combat troops were dug in in battle

positions all over the island, and a Washington inspection at the end of April

found the morale of the troops "excellent," and that "all understood that this

is a real war."

 72

Midway

A month later real war again approached the Hawaiian Islands in the

shape of a formidable Japanese fleet bent on capturing Midway and drawing

out the Pacific Fleet for a decisive engagement. The Japanese were executing

the second step of the "second phase" operations projected in their Combined

Fleet's operational order of 5 November 1941—the order that had set in motion the Pearl Harbor attack and the conquest of the Philippines, southeast

Asia, and Indonesia. Winning their first round of victories in only half the

calculated time, the Japanese in mid-January had begun planning what to do

next. The first proposal, advanced by the chief of staff of the Combined Fleet,

was for an invasion of the main Hawaiian Islands, but by early February

caution had modified it into a plan for occupying strategic points in the outer

Aleutians, Midway Island, and points on the Hawaii-Australia line of communication. The Midway operation in particular was expected to force a fleet

engagement, and, if victorious, the Japanese would then have undisputed

control of the central and western Pacific.73

72

 Par 9, Incl to Memo, CG SOS for ACofS OPD, 8 May 42, OPD 333.1 Hawaiian Dept/1. 73

 This paragraph and the two following are based on: Morison, Coral Sea, Midway and Submarine Actions, ch. VI; Japanese Monographs 93, Midway Operations. May-June 1942; 45,

History of Imperial General Headquarters, Army Section (1941-1945); 46, Aleutians Operations

Record, June 1942-July 1943; 88, Aleutian Naval Operations, Mar 1942-Feb 1943; 110; Far East

History, II, pp. 124-25; Fuchida and Okumiya, Midway, chs. I-VII.
220 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

By 16 April 1942 the Japanese high command had agreed that the Midway-Aleutian occupations should take place early in June and that the main

body of the Combined Fleet would cover the Midway operation and be in a

position for the anticipated fleet action. The spearhead of the Japanese Fleet

was to be a striking force built around four fast carriers. Continuing arguments for delay in order to make more adequate preparations for the new

offensive were silenced by the Halsey-Doolittle air raid on Japan on 18 April.

A Combined Fleet order of 5 May set the new offensive in motion, and the

striking force began to move out of its home waters on 26 May. The invasion

of Midway was to take place on 7 June.74

The Japanese reckoned that their fleet could reach the vicinity of Midway

without being discovered, that they could capture Midway before the Pacific

Fleet would swing into action, and that they would then have to deal with

only two (though possibly three) American carriers. One of the Pacific

Fleet's four carriers was tied up in San Diego until 1 June, but the Navy

managed to rush the other three from the southern Pacific to Pearl Harbor

and to repair the wounds that one of them had sustained in the Battle of the

Coral Sea (7-8 May) in time for it to join in the coming battle. Undetected

by the Japanese, the American carriers and their escorts left Pearl Harbor on

30 and 31 May to take up a waiting position on the flank of the approaching

Japanese armada. To check on American fleet positions and movements, the

enemy had sent out submarines and made preparations to reconnoiter Pearl

Harbor by air. For the latter purpose the Japanese tried to execute a new "K

Operation" similar to the one carried out three months earlier. It was frustrated when Japanese submarines found French Frigate Shoals occupied and

actively patrolled by the United States Navy. Reconnaissance of mid-Pacific

waters by submarine also failed, so that as the Japanese Fleet approached

Midway it had no knowledge of where the units of the Pacific Fleet were.

The Americans, on the other hand, knew well in advance almost precisely

what the Japanese were up to, thanks to their prewar breaking of the communications code used by the Japanese Navy. This knowledge and the fortunes of battle tipped the scales in the Battle of Midway, the most decisive

engagement of the Pacific war.

The United States had expected that Japan would retaliate as soon as it

could after the air raid on Japan, and at first the Army was most apprehensive

74

 6 June, Hawaiian dating. Hereafter, west longitude dating will be used in this section.
THE HAWAIIAN DEFENSES AFTER PEARL HARBOR 221

of a carrier-based air attack on the continental west coast.75 This apprehension

lingered even after intercepts clearly indicated Midway and the Aleutians as

the Japanese targets. The intercepts had become sufficiently meaningful by

14 May to warrant the declaration of a state of fleet-opposed invasion for

the Hawaiian area by General Marshall and Admiral King, in accordance

with the plan they had agreed upon the preceding month.76 By 16 May the

commanders in Hawaii knew that Midway and the Aleutians were the probable Japanese objectives, and by 21 May they had deduced that the attack on

Midway would begin on or about 3 June.77

Beginning on 18 May General Emmons kept the Army air command in

Hawaii on the alert for a possible carrier attack on Oahu. Some of the B-17's

on reconnaissance duty were replaced by old B-18 mediums, and a striking

force of heavy bombers was kept loaded with 500- and 600-pound bombs and

ready to fly. By 30 May flights from the mainland had increased heavy bomber strength from 30 to 56 planes, and 12 of them took off that day to operate

from Midway. Other Army planes followed, to make a force of 17 B-17's

and 4 B-26 medium bombers participating in the Midway battle. By 10 June

60 B-17 planes had reached Oahu from the West Coast, and during and after

the battle the Army continued to maintain a striking force of heavy and

medium bombers. But the destruction of the four enemy carriers on 4 and 5

June not only decided the issue at sea but ended the threat of another Pearl

Harbor attack, at least for the time being. The best of the heavy bombers

moved on in July to the South Pacific for more active operations.78

After the Japanese lost their carriers they abandoned the invasion of Midway and, without air cover, they also avoided any further fleet engagement

and turned homeward. The only fruit of their great offensive was the occupation of Attu and Kiska in the Aleutians.79

 Midway redressed the disparity of

naval strength that Japan had temporarily enjoyed and made impracticable

any more major offensives beyond the original perimeter of enemy conquest.

75

 Memo, G-2 for OPD, 20 Apr 42, and other papers, in OPD 381 Japan/6; Stimson Diary,

entry of 21 Apr 42. See above, p. 88. 76

 Rad, COMINCH and CofS to CINCPAC (Info to CG Hawaiian Dept), 14 May 41,

WDCSA 42-43 Hawaii. See above, p. 44. 77

 Memo, G-2 for CofS, 17 May 42, OPD 381 WDC/42; Rad, COMINCH to CINCPAC, 21

May 42, OPD Exec 8, bk. 5. 78

 Craven and Cate eds., Plans and Early Operations, pp. 451-62; AAF Monograph 41, Operational Hist of the Seventh Air Force, pp. 13-26, and appendices. 79

 See ch. X, below.
222 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

With Midway, the threat that Japan might try to invade Oahu or one of the

other main Hawaiian Islands was dissipated, and, although Japan retained a

capability of making a carrier strike, the likelihood of one became increasingly

remote. The strength of the Hawaiian Department in officers and men continued to grow after June 1942, but more and more, Hawaii became an advance training base and staging area for Army ground and air units that

would do battle in the farther reaches of the Pacific. The Pacific focus of

defense now shifted to the north.
CHAPTER IX

The Garrisoning of Alaska,

1939-41

The Japanese occupation of the Aleutian Islands of Kiska and Attu in

June 1942 made Alaska the one theater or area in the Western Hemisphere

in which Army ground and air forces met with a sizable battle test during

World War II. Yet in prewar years the likelihood of military action in or

near Alaska had appeared so remote that the Army had taken little more than

an academic interest in America's huge northern continental territory and its

island appendages extending far out into the Pacific. In fact, the only Army

tactical force in Alaska in September 1939, when the German attack on

Poland precipitated a new world war, was a garrison of 400 men—two rifle

companies—at Chilkoot Barracks near Skagway, a relic of the Gold Rush

days. Neither the size nor the location of this token force made it particularly

useful for carrying out the Army's responsibility for defending the Alaskan

mainland and the Aleutians as far westward as Unalaska Island.1

The Navy had likewise ignored Alaska, to all intents and purposes. In

1939 it maintained a small seaplane base at Sitka and direction finder stations at Soapstone Point (Cross Sound) and at Cape Hinchinbrook (Prince

William Sound). The only military establishments in the Aleutians were a

naval radio station and a small Coast Guard base at Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island. The Navy had based its Alaska policy on the belief that

Alaskan waters were secure as long as the Japanese abided by the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, which restricted the size of Japan's fleet and prohibited the fortification of its islands in the North Pacific. Despite the serious

concern caused by Japan's announced withdrawal from the treaty in 1934 and

its subsequent plunge into a desperate race for Pacific naval supremacy, this

policy remained unchanged until the Hepburn Board, appointed by the Navy

to investigate and to report on the need for additional naval bases in the Uni1

 Army interest in Alaska, from 1934 onward, can be followed most readily by reference to

WPD 3512.
224 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

ted States and its outlying territories, recommended in December 1938 that

Congress appropriate nineteen million dollars for the construction of air, submarine, and destroyer bases in Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. The board

proposed that this sum be used to enlarge the seaplane base at Sitka and to

establish seaplane and submarine bases at Kodiak, the large island east of

the Alaskan Peninsula, and at Dutch Harbor. Civilian contractors began construction of the naval bases at Sitka and Kodiak in September 1939. In July

1940 the contract was enlarged to include the development of the projected

naval air station and adjacent Army defense facilities at Dutch Harbor.2

Initial Army Plans and Preparations

In the meantime the revision of the ORANGE plan for a Japanese war in

early 1938, coupled with the adoption of a new policy of hemisphere defense

toward the end of the same year, had led to new Army defense plans for

Alaska that took shape during 1939. Three new elements helped to stimulate

a keener War Department interest in the area. In the first place the improvement of the airplane, particularly of the long-range bomber, gave new significance to Alaska's strategic position by making it more vulnerable to air attack from Asia and by increasing the danger of air strikes against the west

coast if an enemy secured bases in Alaska. In the second place the growing

strain in relations between the United States and Japan caused mounting concern for the protection of national interests in the northern Pacific. Lastly, the

Navy's plans to build new air and submarine bases in Alaska increased the

Army's task since the Army was responsible for the local protection of naval

installations.

After the outbreak of war in Europe, General Staff planning for the

defense of Alaska accelerated. By early 1940 the War Department had agreed

on a long-range program having five major objectives: to augment the Alaska

garrison; to establish a major base for Army operations near Anchorage; to

develop a network of air bases and operating fields within Alaska; to garrison

the airfields with combat forces; and to provide troops to protect the naval

installations at Sitka, Kodiak, and Dutch Harbor.

The actual build-up of Army defenses in Alaska made slow progress until

mid-1941. A variety of factors both in Washington and in Alaska itself was

2

 H. Doc. 65, 76th Cong., 1st sess., Jan 3, 1939; Hepburn Report, Dec. 27, 1938, Memo, CNO

for WPD, 2 Jun 39, WPD 3512-40; Navy Memo, Bur of Yards and Docks, 6 Apr 40, copy in

WPD 4156-2; Official History of the Alaskan Department, June 1940-June 1944, OCMH, ch. I,

p. 2; Morison, Rising Sun in the Pacific, pp. 32-34; Navy Dept, Building the Navy's Bases in

World War II, II, p. 163.
THE GARRISONING OF ALASKA, 1939-41 225

responsible. The War Department, laboring to produce a balanced program

for the overseas garrisons, could not suddenly expand the defenses of Alaska.

Furthermore, in the delicate task of equitably adjusting pressing needs to

limited resources, Army planners found it hard to shake their long-held conviction that Alaska was not a critical area. Finally, the Alaskan environment

conspired to retard a rapid expansion of Army installations.

Geography posed tremendous barriers to military construction and operations in Alaska. Nearly one-fifth as large as the main land mass of the continental United States, Alaska is not a homogeneous geographical entity but

a series of separate natural regions, each having its own distinctive physical

characteristics.3 The major obstacles to be overcome were isolation and the

lack of a well-developed internal transportation system. Until November

1942, when the Alaska Highway was opened for traffic, the only direct connection between the continental United States and Alaska was by sea or air.

To all intents and purposes Alaska was an island, not a peninsula. Almost

all food and supplies for the military garrisons as well as for the civilian

population had to be imported by sea, a situation not changed by the opening

of the highway. Not only was access to the territory restricted, but movement

within Alaska itself was also difficult, for the rivers and mountains are so

located as to offer few paths into the vast interior. In general, the larger topographic features correspond to those of the western continental United States.

Along the coast lies the Pacific mountain system, succeeded inland by a great

plateau, then a Rocky Mountain system, and finally, in the extreme north, a

great plains region sloping to the Arctic Ocean. The mountain barrier which

skirts the long southern shore line along the Pacific is bisected by only a few

passes utilized by the main railroad and highway systems. For hundreds of

miles, with the exception of these passes, there are no feasible routes inland

on the ground.

Defense requirements dramatically emphasized Alaska's remoteness and

the urgent need for better communications within the territory. In 1940 only

two railroads were in regular operation. One was the narrow-gauge White

Pass and Yukon Railroad, which ran from Skagway to Whitehorse in

Canada's Yukon Territory. The other was the government-owned Alaska

Railroad, operated by the Department of the Interior. It extended approximately 470 miles from Seward to Fairbanks, by way of Anchorage, and

reached out over short branch lines to the Matanuska Valley and the Eska

and Suntrana coal regions. It was the only all-year surface route from the

3

 Although Alaska has now become one of the continental United States, this term is still

commonly used to denote the 48 contiguous states.
226 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

coast into central Alaska, and the principal means of transportation to the

large Army bases that were to be established at Anchorage and Fairbanks.

This line, which had been in operation since 1923, had undergone little improvement, and both the track and rolling stock were in poor condition when

the defense development in Alaska began.

The southern end of the Alaska Railroad from Seward to Anchorage

posed the most serious problem. This section ran through extremely mountainous country, and operation was made difficult by heavy snow and steep

grades. Fifty miles north of Seward the railroad went through a tunnel and

then ran over a wooden loop trestle which was highly susceptible to damage

by sabotage or bombing. The vulnerability of the southern end of the road

was a matter of great concern to the Army's Alaskan commander. In 1940 the

War Plans Division welcomed and approved a proposal made by the Department of the Interior to provide a new southern terminal of the road. A year

later work was begun on a 12-mile cut-off from Portage to the port of Whittier at the head of Passage Canal, which would eliminate military dependence

on the treacherous mountain section south of Portage and shorten the rail

distance to Anchorage and points north by fifty-two miles, but difficulties in

construction prevented its opening until 1 June 1943.4

Rivers, airways, and a few roads supplemented the very limited railroad

facilities. The principal Alaskan road net was the Richardson Highway which

ran from Valdez to Fairbanks, and the connecting Steeze Highway from Fairbanks to Circle. No east-west road system existed. Although river transportation was used to a limited extent in the central plain area, only the Yukon

and Kuskokwim Rivers had scheduled carriers, and they are open to navigation only four or five months each year. A rapid growth of airways in Alaska

during the 1930's had helped to solve its transportation problems. By 1940

plane service linked together many communities which formerly had been almost completely isolated, and in that year Pan American Airways inaugurated

regular scheduled flights between Seattle and Ketchikan and Juneau. The

success of commercial aviation presaged the important role military aviation

would play in Alaska's defense. But air transportation alone could handle

only a small fraction of the military supplies that would be needed.

The principal communication facility in Alaska before the war was the

radio network of the Alaska Communication System operated by the Army

Signal Corps. Established in 1900 to build and operate cable and telegraph

4

 Memo, WPD for G-4, 21 Mar 40, and subsequent papers, in WPD 3512-57; Bykofsky and

Larson, Transportation Corps: Operations Overseas, p. 54.
THE GARRISONING OF ALASKA, 1939-41 227

lines to and within Alaska, this system by 1934 had abandoned all its wire

facilities and operated exclusively by radio. The only remaining wire communication within Alaska after 1934 was the telephone line along the Alaska

Railroad. Military traffic accounted for only a very small fraction of the

business handled by the Army's radio network until 1940; and for this

reason the War Department in the 1930's had favored either selling the

system or turning it over to the Department of the Interior. With the expansion of Alaskan defenses the Army quickly changed its mind; and, after

the alert of July 1941 disclosed the inadequacies of existing Army communication facilities, the War Department approved a rehabilitation and expansion of the Alaska Communication System and the repair of the disused

cable between Seattle and Seward in order to provide a secure means of

military communication with the continental United States. At the same time

the War Department decided to use the existing system instead of establishing a new and separate tactical command radio network, and to operate it

henceforth in such a manner that it could be used exclusively for military

needs if necessary.5

Geographical factors were basic to the assumptions on which Army plans

for Alaska were built, although Army planners sometimes forgot that the

obstacles posed by geography and climate were as formidable to any wouldbe invader as they were to defenders. They did recognize that the Alaskan

terrain precluded a major ground invasion. They assumed that the most

likely forms of attack would be small-scale air or ground raids made by an

enemy who would strike without warning. By 1940 they assumed it would

be necessary to station troops in Alaska before the outbreak of hostilities.

The key to Alaskan defense, according to a consensus of those responsible

for its security, lay in denying to an enemy actual or potential bases from

which air or naval operations could be conducted.6 The strategic problem

was to work out a system that could cope with the transportation difficulties

without unduly dispersing the forces. At the outset the planners formulated

two possible solutions to the problem. One proposed that a strong mobile

force be stationed in the Anchorage area. In the event of an attack, this force

5

 Memo, Lt Col Guy W. Chipman for ACofS WPD, 23 Jan 35, and subsequent papers, in

WPD 3512-8, 9, and 24; Memo, G-4 for CofS, 3 Sep 41, OCS 18263-54; Memo, G-3 for CofS,

9 Oct 41, OCS 18263-57. See also Terrett, The Emergency, chs. III and XI. 6

 Incl to Ltr, CG Fourth Army to CofS, 22 Aug 39, WPD 3512-46; Memo, WPD for CofS,

10 May 40, WPD 4297; Memo, CG Fourth Army for WPD, 31 May 40, WPD 4297; JB 312, ser

650, 15 Aug 40; Ltr, Hq ADF to CG Ninth Corps Area, 3 Sep 40, AG 320.2 (9-3-40); Ltr,

Brig Gen Simon B. Buckner, Jr., to CG Fourth Army, 9 Oct 40, WDC-ADC 381 Def of Alaska,

Gen, vol. II.
228 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

would be moved as quickly as possible to the threatened area to repel the

enemy. As the alternate solution, they proposed that the Army maintain

virtually autonomous garrisons of air-ground teams at strategic positions

along the southern coast and in the Aleutian Islands. These garrisons should

be sufficiently strong to be able to act alone in defending the local area. The

former plan was attractive in theory; the latter was possible in practice. It was

adopted and guided the subsequent expansion of garrisons throughout the

territory and into the Aleutian chain during the war.7

A defense system made up of a series of isolated semiautonomous garrisons could be a practicable one only to the extent that military aviation was

provided in the territory. For many years the Air Corps had urged the War

Department to develop airfields and air power in Alaska, but it was not until

the general reassessment of air needs for hemisphere defense in 1939 that

the Army began to plan for the deployment of tactical planes to the territory. As of May 1939 the Army proposed to garrison Alaska with one composite group comprising 8 long-range bombers, 17 medium-range attack

bombers, and 27 pursuit planes, together with suitable auxiliary aircraft.8

In June the Army Air Board concluded that a main air base should be established in the Anchorage-Fairbanks area, and that operating airdromes should

be built in the Anchorage-Kodiak, Juneau-Sitka, and Dutch Harbor regions.9

In revised estimates of airplane needs after the outbreak of war in Europe,

the Army proposed that Alaska be garrisoned eventually with 80 pursuit,

26 bombardment, and 4 amphibian planes.10

During the 1939 planning it had been hoped at first that both tactical

requirements for air defense and technical needs for experimental cold

weather flying could be met in the same major air base. The choice for such

a base site lay between Fairbanks and Anchorage, each location presenting

both assets and liabilities.11 Initially, Fairbanks was the more favored site.

Its tactical advantages included a central location on the Alaskan mainland

and a network of railroad, highway, river, and air connections. The wide

range of temperature at Fairbanks—90° F. in summer to –60° F. in winter

—made it ideally suited for experimental cold weather flying. But the disadvantages of Fairbanks as a site for the principal air garrison were manifold. Most troops and supplies would have to be transported overland nearly

7

 Official Hist of the Alaskan Dept, ch. I, pp. 5-6. 8

 Craven and Cate, eds., Plans and Early Operations, p. 125; Memo, WPD for Budget and

Planning Br., WDGS, 6 May 39, WPD 3807-31. 9

 Tab Y3, Air Bd Rpt, 26 Jun 39, WPD 3748-17. 10

 Tab C to Memo, WPD for CofS, 21 Dec 39, WPD 3807-41. 11

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 15 May 39, WPD 3512-38.
THE GARRISONING OF ALASKA, 1939-41 229

500 miles from Seward, the main port of entry. It was remote from the

Navy's projected bases at Sitka and on Kodiak and Unalaska. The climatic

conditions, while ideal for experimental flying, would make tactical air operations extremely difficult. The planners therefore reluctantly concluded

that a single station combining both tactical and technical needs would not

be feasible, and chose Anchorage as the site for the main tactical air base

as well as for the principal ground garrison. It could be supplied much more

readily, it was surrounded by extensive level ground for the encampment

of troops or the construction of buildings, and it was strategically located

to protect the vital southern Alaskan coast. A more equable climate than

that of Fairbanks reduced the risks involved in air operations. By the latter

part of 1939 all agencies responsible for Alaskan defense planning had

agreed that both a major tactical air base and a cold weather experimental

station were necessary, and that the former should be located near Anchorage and the latter near Fairbanks.12

In the 1939 planning it had also been agreed that, if the Army were to

fulfill its air mission of assisting in the defense of the new military establishments to be developed along the southern Alaskan coast and of supporting

the Navy in resisting hostile attempts to gain lodgment in Alaskan territory,

the Army Air Corps must be able to conduct operations as far west as Kiska

and as far south as Ketchikan. Accordingly, plans were made to build a series

of staging fields north from Puget Sound and out to the Aleutians that would

tie in with the new Anchorage base and with the Navy's fields (which the

Army proposed to use also) at Sitka, Kodiak, and Unalaska. The Army proposed to build these staging fields at Metlakatla (near Ketchikan), Yakutat,

and Cordova, and at Naknek, Port Heiden, and Sand Point on or near the

Alaska Peninsula. The Army also planned to develop subsidiary operating

and emergency fields in interior and western Alaska near Tanana Crossing,

Bethel, and Nome.13 By 1939, also, the Civil Aeronautics Authority had begun

to build additional airports and airway facilities in Alaska; and, at the request

of the Army, these airports were planned to conform to military standards.

By February 1940 the Army and the Civil Aeronautics Authority had effectively co-ordinated their construction programs.14

12

 Memos, WPD for G-4, 9 Feb 39, and WPD for G-3, 21 Mar 39. Both in WPD 3512-35.

Incl to Ltr, CG Fourth Army to CofS, 22 Aug 39, WPD 3512-46; Memo, WPD for CG Fourth

Army, 10 Oct 39, WPD 3512-47. 13

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 25 Aug 39, WPD 3512-38; Ltr, Hq ADF to CG Ninth Corps Area,

3 Sep 40, AG 320.2 (9-3-40); Official Hist of Alaskan Dept, ch. XXI. 14

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 20 Oct 39, WPD 3512-48; Memo, CofAC for TAG, 25 Oct 39,

WPD 3512-49; Memo, WPD for CofS, 29 Feb 40, WPD 3512-53.
230 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

The Alaska Defense Command

The Army took the first step toward implementing its long-range defense

program for Alaska in August 1939 when construction began on the air

base at Fairbanks, to be known as Ladd Field. Four months earlier President

Roosevelt by Executive order had set aside land near Anchorage for a projected ground base.15

 The Army had hoped construction of ground and air

installations near Anchorage could begin in the spring of 1940, but initially

the House Subcommittee on Military Appropriations eliminated the request

for funds for the Anchorage development from the 1941 budget. Ultimately

the entire amount asked for was appropriated, but it was German conquest

of the Low Countries and France and the threatened invasion of England

rather than Army pleas that moved Congress to prepare hastily a revised

appropriations bill which included funds for the Anchorage project.

Without waiting for final legislative action, General Marshall approved

a policy to govern the expansion of Alaskan defenses which provided for a

permanent ground garrison of about 2,000 men and a temporary emergency

garrison of about 3,100 men. The temporary garrison was to consist of one

regiment of infantry, one composite battalion of field artillery, one regiment of antiaircraft artillery, and essential service elements (at peacetime

strengths); and Anchorage was also to have a permanent air garrison of

one composite group. General Marshall directed that the first increment of

these forces—one battalion of infantry and one battalion of field artillery—

be sent to Anchorage not later than 30 June 1940. He recommended that

this force be followed as soon as possible by elements of the 28th Composite

Group (Air Corps) and the remainder of the temporary ground garrison.

Temporary construction of the mobilization type, designed to fit in with the

permanent facilities to be built later, was to be completed as rapidly as

possible.16

Congress in the meantime tentatively approved the establishment of Fort

Richardson at Anchorage as the principal Army headquarters, and construction of ground and air facilities began on 8 June 1940. The first increment of

combat troops, 21 officers and 732 enlisted men under the command of Lt.

Col. Earl Landreth, arrived at Anchorage on 27 June.17 On 19 September

15

 Memo, WPD for SGS, 6 Jun 39, WPD 3512-30. 16

 Memo, CofS for G-3, 27 May 40, OCS 14943-21; Memo, SGS for G-3, G-4, and WPD,

27 May 40, WPD 3512-62; Memo, WPD for all interested WD agencies, 29 May 40, WPD

3512-59; D/F, G-4 to TAG, 29 May 40, AG 600.12 (8-24-39). 17

 Ltr, CG Fourth Army to CofS, 28 Jun 40, OCS 14943-24.
THE GARRISONING OF ALASKA, 1939-41 231

1940 construction of the Metlakatla (subsequently known as Annette Island)

airfield began, and a month later construction of Yakutat airfield was

started.18

Until July 1940 the Army's Alaskan posts were directly under the Ninth

Corps Area, commanded by General DeWitt. As a result of the extensive

construction then planned, the projected expansion of both air and ground

garrisons, and the development of naval facilities, General DeWitt, with the

support of the War Plans Division, recommended that a special commander

for troops in Alaska be appointed to supervise directly the expansion of

Alaskan defenses. The War Department accepted his proposal, and on 9 July

1940, Col. Simon B. Buckner, Jr., was appointed commander of United States

troops in Alaska.19 Two weeks later the new Army garrison was redesignated

the Alaska Defense Force, and on 1 September 1940 its commander was

promoted to brigadier general. Further evidence of the expansion of defense

activities in Alaska during 1940 was the establishment by the Navy in midsummer of the Alaskan Sector as a subordinate command within the Thirteenth

Naval District.20 The Fourth Army, also commanded by General DeWitt,

assumed the Ninth Corps Area's tactical responsibilities in October 1940.

In February 1941 the War Department created the Alaska Defense Command. Like its predecessor, the Alaska Defense Command was a subordinate

command of the Fourth Army, and it also came under the newly established

Western Defense Command.21

In April 1941 the General Staff raised the question of whether it would

be desirable to make Alaska a separate overseas department, because of

the greatly increased size of the garrison, its distance from the continental

United States, and the mission of the forces stationed there.22 Two sharply

divergent views were expressed in response to this inquiry. This difference

of opinion stemmed as much from disagreement over who was to command

the air defense as it did from the intrinsic merits of establishing Alaska as

an independent command. General DeWitt objected strongly to separating

Alaska from the Western Defense Command. He argued that if Alaska

were made a separate department it would make the Army defense of the

Pacific coast including Alaska more difficult. He recommended that all

18

 Hist of WDC, vol. I, ch. 2, p. 4. 19

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 17 Jun 40; Ltr, CG Fourth Army to Col Buckner, 9 Jul 40. Both in

WPD 3512-62. 20

 Telg, CNO to Commandant, Thirteenth Naval District, 1 Aug 40, WPD 4156-4. 21

 See ch. II. 22 Memo, WPD for TAG, 16 Apr 41, WPD 4480.
232 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

air and ground units in the Alaska Defense Command and the Western

Defense Command be integrated under him. To facilitate this integration,

he proposed that an air force command with headquarters adjacent to the

headquarters of the Western Defense Command and operating under his

authority be established to control all air forces on the Pacific coast.23 Brig.

Gen. Carl Spaatz, Chief of the Air Staff, opposed General DeWitt and

favored the creation of an Alaskan Department. He argued that it was as

illogical to have Alaska under the Western Defense Command as it would

be to have Hawaii under General DeWitt's authority. He recommended

instead that the War Department divide the north Pacific triangle into three

sections—the Pacific coast of the United States, Alaska, and Hawaii—and

make each section a separate theater of operations. He thought that since

it was impossible to integrate the ground defense plans for the three areas,

each theater commander should have complete responsibility for the ground

defense of his section. But, he argued, since it was not only possible but

necessary to co-ordinate air plans for operations from the three areas, air

defense of all three theaters should be placed under a single commander

responsible to the Army Air Forces and independent of the theater commanders.24

 In mid-August the War Plans Division and GHQ, both initially

in favor of a separate Alaskan department, swung over to General DeWitt's

point of view.25 Alaska was not to become a separate Army command until

late 1943.26

Making Ready To Defend the Navy's Bases

As the Navy launched its construction of air and submarine bases at

Sitka, Kodiak Island, and Dutch Harbor, the Army embarked on preliminary

planning for the defense of these bases. Since the problems involved were

essentially interservice ones and not the province of the Army alone, the

Joint Board referred the subject to the Joint Planning Committee in February 1940 and instructed it to study the problems of construction, financing,

site selection, and garrisoning at the naval bases as a part of the whole

Alaskan defense problem. While waiting for the Joint Planning Committee

to act the Army grew increasingly concerned over the security of the naval

bases, for without adequate protection from ground troops they would

23

 Ltr, Gen DeWitt to TAG, 16 May 41, AG 320.2 (4-16-41). 24

 Memo, CofAS for WPD, 4 Aug 41, AG 320.2 (4-16-41). 25

 Memo, DCofS GHQ for WPD, 11 Aug 41, WPD 4175-18, sec. 1. 26

 See ch. XI.
THE GARRISONING OF ALASKA, 1939-41 233

VIEW OF DUTCH HARBOR, with typical overcast.

become tempting prizes for an enemy.27 In May 1940 General DeWitt proposed that the force about to depart for Anchorage should be ready at all

times to dispatch combat teams for the protection of Dutch Harbor and

Kodiak in an emergency.28 This proposal, reflecting the lingering notion

that a reserve force in the Anchorage area could be rushed to the defense of

a threatened outlying base, found some support in the War Department;

but difficulties of transportation and lack of shipping made it unworkable.

After an inspection trip to Alaska in June, General DeWitt abandoned the

idea of a mobile force, proposing instead that a garrison be sent to Kodiak

as soon as housing was ready.29

In August 1940 the Joint Planning Committee finally completed and

submitted to the Joint Board a basic directive for the defense of naval bases

in Alaska. The Joint Planners recognized the possibility of "surprise aggression against Alaska by either Japan or Russia," but assumed that major land

27

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 20 Apr 40, WPD 3512-59. 28

 1st Ind, CG Fourth Army to WPD, 31 May 40, WPD 4297. 29

 Ltr, CG Fourth Army to CofS, 28 Jun 40, OCS 14943-24.
234 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

operations in the Alaskan area were unlikely. They concluded that control

of the important strategic locations of Anchorage, Fairbanks, Kodiak, Sitka,

and Dutch Harbor would meet the principal requirements for the defense

of Alaska as a whole. The Joint Board placed responsibility for the defense

of the naval bases squarely on the Army, emphasizing that the "local defense of Kodiak, Sitka, and Unalaska is but an element of the defense of

Alaska as a whole, which is a responsibility of the Army." It approved the

establishment of Army garrisons at each of the naval bases, and proposed that

these consist of an infantry battalion with artillery attachments at Kodiak

and Dutch Harbor, and of an infantry company with similar artillery support at Sitka. The Board recommended that marines be used to guard the

naval installations until Army facilities could be completed and troops moved

to their stations. It further recommended that, in addition to ground troops,

the Army eventually should provide defensive pursuit aviation at Kodiak and

possibly at Dutch Harbor. The Joint Board's action, approved on 15 August,

provided that details were to be worked out by the Commanding Officer,

Alaska Defense Force, in direct collaboration with the Commander, Alaskan

Sector, Thirteenth Naval District.30

During the following six months, Army and Navy officers worked together on the common problems of locating the sites for the Army garrisons,

constructing facilities for the Army's use, and financing the projects. They

soon decided that both services should use the same facilities as much as

possible. They further agreed that if additional construction were needed

for the Army, it should follow the Navy's pattern and be done by Navy

contractors with funds provided by the War Department. Ultimately all

Army construction at Sitka, Kodiak, and Dutch Harbor was performed under

contracts let by the Navy Department. A naval officer was directly in charge

of each project, but General DeWitt exercised supervisory control.31 Although

the Army and Navy quickly agreed on these general matters, they found

that it took much longer to thresh out the specific problems involved in selecting sites for Army posts. Each location presented special problems requiring

independent study, and conflicts between Army and Navy plans had to be

adjusted before construction could begin.

The Army program for defending the Alaskan naval bases gave priority

to Kodiak Island because of its strategic position, but disagreement between

30

 JB 312, ser 650, 15 Aug 40. 31

 Memo, G-4 for CofS, 17 Sep 40, and subsequent papers in AG 600.12 (8-24-39); Memo,

Col Stephen J. Chamberlin, Chief, Construction Br, for ACofS G-4, 18 Oct 41, WDC-ADC 686,

vol. II.
THE GARRISONING OF ALASKA, 1939-41 235

the services delayed the start of Army construction there for several months.

In June 1940 General DeWitt had disapproved of the site initially proposed

by the Navy for the Army post, north of the Buskin River, because it contained swampy ground which would require a great deal of filling and

grading before it could be used and because it was too far removed from

the Navy's installations for economical construction. His recommendation

that the Army garrison be located on a site south of the Buskin River, onehalf mile from its mouth, was opposed by the Navy since an Army post

south of the river would interfere with the construction of a naval airfield on

which work had already begun.32 Finally, at a conference held on 19 November, General DeWitt and Rear Adm. Charles S. Freeman, the commandant of

the Thirteenth Naval District, agreed that the Navy's contractors should

undertake new surveys for an Army post north of the Buskin River. Construction of the Army's Fort Greeley, with facilities adequate to accommodate 236

officers and 5,592 enlisted men, was at last begun on 1 February 1941.33

At Sitka, the most southeasterly of the naval stations, there was no room

for an Army post on Japonski Island in Sitka Sound where the Navy was

building its installations. After surveying the Sitka area, General Buckner

recommended in October that the shoals connecting Japonski Island with

three smaller islands adjacent to it—Charcoal, Alice, and Harbor—be filled

in and the Army garrison built on Charcoal Island and the surrounding

filled-in land. His recommendation received the approval of the commander

of the Alaskan Sector, General DeWitt, and Admiral Freeman. In November

the War Department authorized Navy contractors to survey Charcoal Island.

Congress appropriated $625,000 for the fill, and construction was started on

9 January 1941.34

Within a month the Sitka project was subjected to a complete re-examination. The crowding of the Army garrison on two tiny islands—one, 200 by

100 yards, and the other still smaller—aroused sharp criticism. General

DeWitt returned from an inspection of Sitka in May 1941 convinced that

32

 Ltr, CG Fourth Army to CofS, 28 Jun 40, OCS 14943-24; Ltr, CG Fourth Army to TAG,

2 Jul 40; Rad, TAG to CG Fourth Army, 7 Sep 40; Memo, CNO for CofS, 22 Oct 40; Last

three in AG 600.12 (8-24-39). 33

 Memo of Conf, 19 Nov 40, WDC-ADC 381 Def of Alaska, vol. III; Ltr, CG WDC to

TAG, 8 Sep 41, AG 600.12 (8-24-39); Memo, Col Chamberlin for ACofS G-4, 18 Oct 41,

WDC-ADC 686, vol. II. 34

 Ltr, Gen Buckner to Gen DeWitt, 9 Oct 40, WDC-ADC 381 Def of Alaska, vol. II; Ltr,

COMALSEC Thirteenth Naval District to CNO, 29 Oct 40, WDC-ADC 381 Def of Alaska, vol.

II; Memo of Conf, 19 Nov 40 WDC-ADC 381 Def of Alaska, vol. III; Ltr, Gen DeWitt to Gen

Marshall, 4 Jun 41, WDC-ADC 381 Def of Alaska, vol. IV; Ltr, CG WDC to TAG, 8 Sep 41,

AG 600.12 (8-24-39).
236 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

construction of housing on the fill would result in dangerous congestion.

He sought authorization to abandon the fill project and to substitute instead

the construction of an 8,100-foot causeway connecting the southernmost tip

of Japonski Island and Makhnati Island by way of eight intermediate islands.

He argued that the causeway could be completed sooner than the fill, that

it would facilitate communications, permit the dispersion of housing and

of tactical units, provide all-weather accessibility to gun batteries and searchlight positions, and generally give greater elasticity to the defense. Bidding

for Navy support for the change, he added that the causeway would make

Whiting Harbor secure and thus permit the establishment of a section base

for naval patrol craft nearby. His recommendation received naval support

and was approved by the Chief of Staff. On 7 June 1941 the War Department directed the Chief of Engineers to proceed with the causeway project

utilizing funds available for the previously authorized fill. Although the

principal Army post at Sitka, Fort Ray, remained on Charcoal Island, the

congestion and crowding in the Japonski Island area was relieved by housing

the additional elements of the garrison on the small islands between Japonski

and Makhnati.35

At Dutch Harbor, where the Navy began construction of a combined

air and submarine station in 1940, the Navy's original plans left no room

for an Army post on Amaknak Island where naval construction was concentrated. The Army rejected proposals to place its garrison on a nearby

island since reconnaissance of the area revealed that the only feasible location for a ground garrison was on Amaknak. After many months of discussion, the Navy agreed in November 1940 to survey land on an adjacent area

near Margaret Bay on Amaknak for an Army installation. The result was

the construction of the Army's Fort Mears at Dutch Harbor, begun on

25 January 1941. There, as at Sitka and Kodiak, the Army post was placed

as close to Navy facilities as possible without being immediately adjacent

to or combined with naval construction.36

The Army's responsibility for the local air defense of the Navy's new

bases was a more difficult problem to solve. Local air protection for Sitka

was provided by building a concrete runway similar to the deck of an aircraft

35

 Ltr, Gen DeWitt to Gen Marshall, 4 Jun 41, WDC-ADC 381, Def of Alaska, vol. IV;

Memo, TAG for CofEngrs, 7 Jun 41, AG 600.12 (8-24-39); Memo, Col Chamberlin for

ACofS G-4, 18 Oct 41, WDC-ADC 686, vol. II. 36

 Ltr, Gen Buckner to CG Fourth Army, 9 Oct 40, WDC-ADC 381 Def of Alaska, vol. II;

Memo of Conf, 19 Nov 40, WDC-ADC 381 Def of Alaska, vol. III; Memo, Col Chamberlin, for

ACofS G-4, 18 Oct 41, WDC-ADC 686, vol. II; Ltr, CG WDC to TAG, 8 Sep 41; Ltr, CG

Fourth Army to DCofS, 3 Dec 40. Last two in AG 600.12 (8-24-39).
THE GARRISONING OF ALASKA, 1939-41 237

carrier and with the same devices for arresting planes. This was used by

carrier and not Army planes. After protracted debate the Navy agreed to

extend the runways of its fields at Kodiak to 6,000 feet in order to permit

the operation of Army bombardment as well as pursuit aviation in the area.37

A solution of the even more complex problem of the air defense of the

naval station at Dutch Harbor was not found until November 1941.38

Although plans for sending troops to Sitka, Kodiak, and Unalaska had

been drafted before construction started—indeed, before the Joint Board had

issued its directive—the War Department as well as General DeWitt and

General Buckner had agreed that no troops should be sent until housing at

the naval bases was ready. The Navy estimated that this housing would not

be ready until mid-summer 1941. Nevertheless, in early 1941 the War Department, responding to the increasing tension in American-Japanese relations, partially reversed its policy and directed General DeWitt to arrange

for the immediate, but piecemeal, deployment of troops to the naval bases.39

Naval authorities concurred in the decision, and General DeWitt acted

promptly. In March 1941 he had forces for Kodiak, Sitka, and Dutch Harbor

concentrated on the west coast, and at the end of the month these troops

began moving toward Alaska. By June elements of the garrisons were at all

three stations. Then, on 26 June, G-2 informed the War Plans Division that

Japan might well take advantage of the new conflict between the Soviet

Union and Germany to move against Alaska and urged the War Department

to increase the Alaska Defense Command to its full strength as soon as

possible. Washington, convinced that the threat was real, agreed to strengthen

the command. Accordingly, throughout the summer troops in great numbers

and at an accelerated rate continued to move to the naval bases, to Seward

in order to protect the southern terminus of the Alaska Railroad, and to

Anchorage, despite the fact that housing was not ready. By the end of July

the movement of the authorized emergency garrisons for the Sitka, Kodiak,

and Dutch Harbor areas—approximately 70 officers and 1,950 enlisted men

for Sitka, 235 officers and 5,600 enlisted men for Kodiak, and 225 officers

and 5,200 enlisted men for Dutch Harbor—was nearing completion.40

37

 Memo, WPD for G-4, 27 Jun 41, WPD 3512-100. 38

 See below, p. 244. 39

 Watson, Prewar Plans and Preparations, pp. 124-25. 40

 Ltr, CG Fourth Army to TAG, 28 Feb 41, WDC-ADC 381/32, pt. I; Memo, SGS for

CofS, 11 Mar 41, OCS Conf, binder 11; Ltr, CG WDC to CG ADC, 22 Mar 41, WDC-ADC

381/32, pt. I; Memo, G-2 for WPD, 26 Jun 41, OPD Exec 8, bk. A; Rad, CG Fourth Army to

Commandant, Thirteenth Naval District, 8 Jul 41, WDC-ADC 381 Def of Alaska, Gen, vol. IV;

Ltr, TAG to CG's, 15 Jul 41, AG 320.2 (5-6-41).
238 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

The rapid increase in the size of the Alaska garrison during the summer

of 1941 made it necessary to house several thousand of the newly arrived

soldiers in tents at the Kodiak, Anchorage, and Seward bases. This development led to sharp criticism by Senator Ralph Owen Brewster, a member of

the Special Committee Investigating Defense Contracts (the Truman Committee) who toured the principal Alaskan bases during August, and subsequently by a number of other congressmen as well. Senator Brewster in

his report noted that the Army planned to house a good many troops in tents

during the fall and winter months, particularly at Kodiak; and he commented that "this seems in flat contravention of the legislative provision

that the soldiers should be adequately housed."

 41

 Admiral Stark and General

Marshall took personal note of this criticism, and the Chief of Staff called

upon General DeWitt to give his "immediate and personal attention" to seeing that everything possible was done toward making the troops housed in

tent camps comfortable. General DeWitt reported that Army tent camps

were being fully winterized and were well heated, and that troops would

be removed from them as rapidly as new barracks became available. As the

War Department pointed out to Senator Harley M. Kilgore, the word

"Alaska" tended to make the situation sound worse than it actually was,

since the average winter temperatures on Kodiak, where the largest number

of troops were in tents, were approximately the same as those at Wheeling

in the Senator's own state of West Virginia.42

The dispatch of protective forces for the naval bases was the principal

factor in the threefold increase in the strength of the Alaska Defense Command between the end of June and the end of September 1941—from 7,263

to 21,565. The original authorization of May 1940 for an emergency garrison of 3,100 had grown by July 1941 to one of 24,000 so that (by September) the actual strength in Alaska was not far short of that contemplated as

long as the United States remained at peace in the Pacific. The ground combat elements that had been sent were generally well equipped, and included

four infantry regiments, three and one-half antiaircraft regiments, a 155-mm.

gun mobile coast artillery regiment, and a tank company. In ground defenses

Alaska was no longer the exposed and undefended continental salient that

it had been in 1939.43

41

 Rpt of Senator Brewster to Senator Harry S. Truman, 5 Sep 41, copy in AG 600.12

(8-24-39). 42

 Various papers, dated Sep and Oct 41, in AG 600.12 (8-24-39). 43

 Ltr, TAG to CG's, 15 Jul 41, AG 320.2 (5-6-41); Memo, G-3 for SGS, 9 Sep 41, OCS

18251-63. The actual strength figures cited are those compiled by the Machine Records Branch,

AGO, 30 Nov 45, in OPD file, Pearl Harbor Misc Corresp.
THE GARRISONING OF ALASKA, 1939-41 239

The Air Defense Problems

In contrast to the rapid increase in Army ground force strength, the

Alaska Defense Command's air strength remained notably weak in the fall of

1941. To a certain extent the lack of aircraft controlled Washington's policy

toward Alaska. Throughout 1941, but particularly in the three months before

Pearl Harbor, increasing tension in many parts of the world, the demands

of the lend-lease program, and inadequate plane production forced the War

Department to adhere to a rigid system of priorities in allocating the limited

number of aircraft at its disposal, and Alaska held a priority for aircraft far

below those of Panama, Hawaii, and the Philippines. But the unresolved

question of what part Army Air Forces were to play in the total scheme of

Alaskan defense also governed the allotment of planes. This question in

turn was linked to an even more fundamental controversy within the War

Department itself between the initial prewar theory of Alaskan defense and

a new concept of the Army's mission in Alaska.

The initial theory had emphasized a defense of the Seward-Anchorage

area, supplemented by a joint Army-Navy defense of Kodiak. According to

its premises, the Aleutians were primarily a Navy sphere of operations. This

theory was adequate so long as a serious attack on Alaska seemed unlikely

and the problem was merely one of local defense. By the beginning of 1941

the relative weakening of the American naval position in the Pacific, and the

increasingly hostile attitude of Japan, indicated the need for consideration of

offensive action. As a result, a new theory of Alaskan defense, based on a

concept of an aggressive defense, gradually developed. Since ground force

garrisons were virtually tied to their stations, aggressive defense, under

Alaskan conditions, would depend on the striking power of ground-based

aviation. In view of the possibility of using Alaska as a base for an attack

against Japan if it were to go on a rampage in the Pacific, it was now considered vital to keep control of the Aleutians at least as far west as Dutch

Harbor, and preferably in their entirety.44 The growing importance of retaining control over the Aleutians was reflected in revised war plans which stated

the mission of Army forces in Alaska as follows: "To defend United States

military and naval installations in Alaska, including Unalaska, against sea,

land and air attacks and against sabotage; to deny use by the enemy of sea

and land bases in Alaska and the Aleutian Islands; to support the Navy."

 45

44

 AAF Hist Study 4, Alaskan Air Defense and the Japanese Invasion of the Aleutians, copy in

OCMH, p. 24. 45

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 16 Jan 41, AG 320.2 (9-3-40).
240 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

The new theory of an aggressive defensive for Alaska had appeared first

in an analysis by General Buckner which he submitted to General DeWitt

on 3 September 1940. Some facets of this analysis conformed to earlier assessments. General Buckner agreed that an enemy could seriously threaten

Alaska only if the United States Fleet lost control of the North Pacific. He

agreed, too, that the difficult terrain and lack of overland transportation

virtually precluded a major land invasion. He recognized the need for a large

measure of local autonomy for the isolated garrisons in the interior and at

the widely separate strategic spots along the coast. But, despite these similarities, General Buckner's estimate of the situation differed significantly from

previous ones of War Department planners in two respects. First, he gave

greater emphasis to the threat which air power posed to the security of the

territory, accepting it as axiomatic that an attack against Alaska would probably be launched without warning—a sudden air strike against the vulnerable

coastal area. Second, he thought in terms of an aggressive concept of defense

under which Alaska would be used as a base for the projection of American

military power into the western Pacific. He concluded that not only the successful defense of Alaska but also any value it might have as a staging area

for Pacific warfare would depend on superiority in the air, backed by adequate land bases strongly protected by ground troops. In other words General Buckner, although a ground officer, visualized Alaska as an air theater.

Consequently, without minimizing the need for strong ground forces, he

gave the air arm a place of primary importance and outlined a program

which emphasized strengthening the air defenses of the territory.46

General Buckner's plan called for building advanced operating bases

for bomber planes in western Alaska, including the Aleutian chain; constructing auxiliary fields near the existing main bases to prevent the undue

massing of aircraft with consequent danger from bombing attack; connecting

the United States and Alaska by a chain of landing fields; developing intermediate bases to facilitate the movement of aircraft to and within the territory; establishing an aircraft warning service; and maintaining in the United

States a reserve of both combat and transport aircraft equipped for cold

weather flying for the prompt reinforcement of Alaska in an emergency. It

followed that the remainder of his program was designed primarily to protect

and support the air arm. He recommended stationing a balanced defensive

garrison at each main base, advanced base, and important link in the chain

46

 Ltr, Hq ADF to CG Ninth Corps Area, 3 Sep 40, and 2d Ind, CG Fourth Army to TAG,

27 Sep 40, AG 320.2 (9-3-40).
THE GARRISONING OF ALASKA, 1939-41 241

of fields from Seattle; storing sufficient supplies at each base to last at least

three months; constructing bombproof storage space for all vital supplies

and, where possible, planes; bombproofing the installations of the Alaska

Communication System and furnishing each station with generators which

would make it independent of local power plants; arranging for the movement of ground troops, properly outfitted with cold weather clothing and

equipment, to Alaskan garrisons in an emergency; building a military road

connecting Anchorage with the Richardson Highway; and constructing the

railroad cut-off from Portage to the Passage Canal to eliminate dependence

on the most vulnerable portion of the Alaskan Railroad.47

General Buckner's recommendation in October 1940 that an Army air

base be established in the vicinity of Dutch Harbor was the first step toward

the projection of Army air power into the Aleutians. In submitting this recommendation, he observed that a limited reconnaissance had not revealed

a good site for an Army airfield in the immediate vicinity of the naval base,

but that a suitable site for an emergency field for pursuit planes existed at

Chernofski Bay on Unalaska.48

 The Navy objected to his proposal, arguing

that construction costs would be unduly high because of the rugged terrain;

that there would be no economy, since the Army and Navy air bases at Unalaska could not possibly be located close enough to use any of the same facilities or defenses; and that an Army air base on Chernofski Bay would be exposed to the same danger as Dutch Harbor, that is, quick raids from the sea.49

At the beginning of 1941 the War Plans Division was equally opposed

to the Unalaska project, maintaining that "aerial patrol along the Aleutian

chain can best be accomplished by tender-based aircraft and that, for the

present at least, responsibility for aerial surveillance of that area should

remain a Navy function."

 50

 And three months later the Army Air Corps also

agreed that under existing circumstances it was inadvisable to build an air

base near Unalaska.51

General Buckner and General DeWitt refused to acknowledge defeat.

They clung tenaciously to their position that air power based on Unalaska

was necessary for the Army to fulfill its mission. Since surveys revealed that

the terrain at Unalaska was not suitable for a landing field for the Army's

47

 Ibid. 48

 Memo, CG ADF for CG Fourth Army, 9 Oct 40, WDC-ADC 381, Def of Alaska, Gen

vol. II. 49

 Ltr, COMALSEC Thirteenth Naval District to CNO, 29 Oct 40, WDC-ADC 381 Def of

Alaska, Gen, sec. II. 50

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 8 Jan 41, WPD 4239-21. 51

 5th Ind, OCofAC for TAG, 8 Apr 41, on Memo, WPD for TAG, 8 Jan 41, WPD 4239-21.
242 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

heavy bombers, they proposed that an all-purpose Army air base be built

at Otter Point on Umnak Island, sixty-five miles west of Dutch Harbor, to

be supported by intermediate fields for fighter planes at Port Heiden and

Cold Bay on the Alaska Peninsula.52 General DeWitt, who had just returned

from an inspection trip to Alaska, informed the Chief of Staff that he felt

"if possible, stronger than ever that we must have our air field in the vicinity

of Dutch Harbor, and intermediate fields between Dutch Harbor and

Kodiak." He continued:

I am sorry that there is unanimity of opinion in the War Department against such

action, but I am quite sure that if those opposed would visit the area as I did and

visualize the conditions that can easily, and I feel sure will exist in case of war, that they

will come to the same conclusion. The recent operations in the Mediterranean area,

particularly Crete, involving the use of parachute and airborne troops, would seem to

clinch the argument.53

After additional surveys of the area, General Buckner submitted a request

for all-purpose air bases at both Otter Point and Cold Bay, with staging fields

at Port Heiden and Sand Point.54 General DeWitt indorsed General Buckner's recommendation (except as to the Sand Point field), and in doing so

noted: "I look upon this paper as the most important paper I now have to

act upon in connection with the defense of Alaska."

 55

The urgency of General DeWitt's request arose from an acute concern

for the security of Alaska following Germany's attack on the Soviet Union,

and the attendant uncertainty of Japan's future moves as an Axis partner.

Japan itself appeared to be caught in a vise of conflicting interests and incompatible objectives. On the one hand, a nonaggression pact with the Soviet

Union bound Japan to remain neutral under the existing circumstances. On

the other hand, the Tripartite Pact might be used by Germany to persuade

Japan to furnish active aid to the Axis. And it was not inconceivable that

Japan in self-interest would construe the pact as a mandate for launching

an attack on its own. Although intelligence reports indicated that Japanese

forces were being deployed southward, away from Siberia, the moment

might seem propitious to the Japanese for realizing their long-standing ambition to acquire the Russian maritime provinces. G-2 urged the War Plans

Division to make provision for a long-range air patrol over the waters north

52

 Ltr, Gen DeWitt to CofS, 2 Jun 41, WDC 381 Dutch Harbor, Unalaska. 53

 Ltr, Gen DeWitt to Gen Marshall, 4 Jun 41, WDC-ADC 381 Def of Alaska, Gen, vol. IV. 54

 Exhibits B, C, and F, Ltr; Hq ADC to CG ADC, 5 Jul 41, WDC-ADC 686, vol. III; Rad,

CG ADC to CG Fourth Army, 9 Jul 41, WDC-ADC 381 Def of Alaska, Gen, vol. IV. 55

 Memo, Gen DeWitt for DCofS WDC, 18 Jul 41, WDC-ADC 686, vol. III.
THE GARRISONING OF ALASKA, 1939-41 243

of the Bering Strait, and also recommended that, if possible, arrangements

be made with the Soviet Union for the joint use of naval and air bases at

Petropavlovsk, the Komandorski Islands, and Anadyr Bay.56 Pending a clarification of the new situation as it might affect the Pacific area, General

Marshall, after conferences with his principal staff officers, limited immediate War Department action to an alert of the Alaska and Panama commands

on 3 July. General DeWitt passed on word to General Buckner to alert all

of his garrisons against the "increasing danger of total Russian collapse

and subsequent possibility of Axis operations in direction of Alaska"; and,

as already noted, the Army built up its ground force strengths as rapidly as

it could during the summer.57

One step taken by General Buckner after he received the alert was an

offshore patrol by Army planes from Bristol Bay to Point Barrow, and he

asked the Navy to perform a similar mission from Ketchikan to Dutch

Harbor. When informed that the means for a naval patrol was lacking—

at the time the Navy had only three patrol planes in Alaskan waters—General Buckner decided to maintain a patrol himself insofar as his means permitted.58

 His actions were contrary to current doctrine for the employment

of air power by the services, which delegated the mission of offshore reconnaissance to the Navy. Even though the Navy was unable to fulfill its mission and the local naval commander raised no objections to General Buckner's

course of action, it aroused some criticisms in Washington.59 General DeWitt

vigorously defended the establishment of an Army offshore patrol as "not

only a proper military precautionary measure but a necessary one," and added

that "the action demonstrated the pressing need for additional Army air

units and modern planes (which have been repeatedly requested) and for

adequate Naval forces (which are not now assigned to Alaska) for offshore

and inshore patrol."

 60

One consequence of the July alert and of General Buckner's decision to

patrol the waters north of Bering Strait was the development and garrisoning of an air base on the Seward Peninsula at Nome much earlier than had

56

 Memo, G-2 for WPD, 26 Jun 41, OPD Exec 8, bk. A. 57

 Gerow Diary, entry of 3 Jul 41, OPD Exec 10, item 1; Rad, TAG to Fourth Army, 3 Jul

41, and Rad, CG Fourth Army to CG ADC, 4 Jul 41, both in AG 580.81 (7-30-41). For the

Panama alert, see ch. XIII below. 58

 Rad, CG ADC to CG WDC, 11 Jul 41, and Rad, CG WDC to CG ADC, 14 Jul 41, both

in WDC-ADC 381 Gen, vol. IV. 59

 Memo, CNO for CofS, 21 Aug 41, and other papers, in AG 580.81 (7-30-41). 60

 2d Ind, CG WDC to TAG, 11 Sep 41, on Ltr, TAG to CG Fourth Army, 4 Sep 41, AG

580.81 (7-30-41).
244 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

previously been planned. The Nome airfield was scheduled to be built by

the Civil Aeronautics Authority, but on orders from Washington the Army

Engineers moved in and began construction on 23 July. A ground garrison

of 9 officers and 221 enlisted men arrived on 3 September to protect the

Nome base.61

The July alert exposed the weakness of Alaska's air defenses, and three

months later General DeWitt found them in no better shape. The authorized

airfields were not ready, none of the units of the approved aircraft warning

system was in operation, and not a single modern Army plane had been

sent to Alaska. General DeWitt summarized the situation very bluntly when

he wrote: "Our mere establishment of Army garrisons in Alaska with no

means for them to know what may lie just over the horizon, does not conform to any known principle of strategy, military or naval."

 62

In October General Buckner submitted to General DeWitt a general plan

for the employment of aviation in Alaska which contained another strong

plea for "a chain of advanced air bases, generally south along the coast of

Alaska from Nome to Naknek, thence westward on the Alaskan Peninsula

to Umnak Island and from Kodiak generally east to Annette Island."

 63

 The

Army Air Forces and the War Department General Staff finally agreed on

21 November to go ahead with the Aleutian airfield project, and on their

recommendation, the Joint Planning Committee proposed to the Joint Board

that the Army "proceed with the construction of port facilities, airdromes

and defenses at Umnak, Port Heiden, and Cold Bay." The Joint Board approved this recommendation on 26 November, and on 11 December, four

days after the Pearl Harbor attack, General DeWitt was directed to build

the Umnak field and related facilities as quickly as possible.64

Airfields, Radar, and the Construction Program

While the question of extending Army airfields into the Aleutian Islands

was under consideration, the remainder of the airfield construction program

went forward as planned, though more slowly than anticipated. The Army

61

 Memo, TAG to CG Fourth Army, 18 Jul 41, AG 600.12 (8-24-39); Memo, WPD for

CofAAF, 19 Jul 41, WPD 4297-3; Official Hist of the Alaskan Dept, ch. XXI. 62

 Ltr, CG WDC to TAG, 27 Oct 41, WPD 4414-7. 63

 Ltr, CG ADC to CG WDC, 1 Oct 41, WDC 381/32 ADC, pt. I. 64

 Memo, ACofS WPD for Exec Officer WPD, 21 Nov 41, and Ltr, JPC to JB, 24 Nov 41.

Both in WPD 4503. Min, JB Mtg, 26 Nov 41 (in re JB 312, ser 718), Pearl Harbor Attack,

pt. 15, p. 1641; Rad, TAG to CG WDC, 11 Dec 41, WDC file, Construction of Umnak Airfield.
THE GARRISONING OF ALASKA, 1939-41 245

was concerned during 1941 over progress at the supplementary airfields

being constructed by the Civil Aeronautics Administration. This organization

shared responsibility for the military development of these airfields with the

Army, and this division of responsibility did not work out entirely satisfactorily. As a result, the Corps of Engineers was asked to investigate the possibility of taking over the supplementary airfield construction program.65

In conjunction with the investigation Mr. Marshall Hoppin, the administration's local superintendent of airways, stated that contracts had been let

for Boundary, Big Delta, Cordova, Juneau, Ruby, and Nome and that completion of these fields was expected prior to 1 January 1942. Plans and

specifications had been prepared for Bethel, Gulkana, McGrath, and Naknek.

He anticipated that these fields would be well along toward completion by

1 January 1942, if fiscal year 1942 funds were made available immediately.

He added that single runways 300 by 3,500 feet were under construction,

or would be under construction shortly, at Farewell, Kenai, Lake Minchumina, Seward, Homer, Nenana, and one or two other locations. He believed

that all of these runways, except Homer, would be completed by the fall of

1941. Engineer officers who were studying the merits of the proposed change

concluded that, since all Army first priority fields were either under construction or would soon be under contract, sufficiently good progress had been

made to warrant continuing civilian control of the program.66

The Army had intended to develop an aircraft warning system in Alaska

as soon as it could. Signal Corps and Engineer officers began planning for

such a system during the summer of 1940. Well aware of the fact that both

equipment and funds were limited, the planners proposed that it be completed in two stages. They recommended that initially detector stations be

established to warn of the approach of hostile planes toward the naval bases

at Sitka, Kodiak, and Dutch Harbor and either by land or sea toward

Anchorage. They suggested that at a later date the War Department provide

means for the protection of Fairbanks and to detect the approach of hostile

planes over Norton Sound and up the Yukon and the Kuskokwim River

valleys.67

The initial aircraft warning plan called for the construction of 8 detector stations and one information center in Alaska at locations to be proposed

by General DeWitt, and on 2 August General Marshall approved the over65

 1st Ind, CofEngrs for G-4, 20 Jun 41, AG 600.12 (8-24-39). 66

 Memo, Lt Col W. F. Tompkins, for G-4, 28 Jun 41, AG 600.12 (8-24-39). 67

 2d Ind, OCSigO for WPD, 31 Jul 40, on Memo, WPD for CofEngrs and CSigO, 18 Jul 40,

WDC-ADC 660.2.
246 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

all project.68 Only 3 of the 8 specific locations for detectors originally proposed proved acceptable, and additional surveys had to be made to determine

the best location for the other 5 stations.69 In the course of this study, it

became evident that 8 stations would not provide adequate coverage for

Alaska, since the original recommendation had been based on an overoptimistic estimate of the capacity of the early radar sets which experience did not

substantiate. General DeWitt accordingly submitted a revised aircraft warning project to the Chief of Staff which called for at least 10 and preferably

14 detector stations. On 28 January 1941 the Secretary of War approved a

project for the establishment of 12 such stations in Alaska, all south of Cape

Prince of Wales.70 Subsequently, in October, the Alaskan commander recommended and the War Department approved an enlargement of this

project to 20 stations. None of them was complete or in operation before the

outbreak of war, principally because of equipment shortages and construction difficulties.71

There was widespread criticism during 1941 of the whole military construction program in Alaska. This criticism was only partially justified.

While it is true that a number of projects were not completed on schedule,

unusually difficult and highly complex problems were involved. The undeveloped state of Alaskan resources, the small civilian labor force, and the

poor interior transportation system meant that almost all supplies and most

workmen had to be brought in from the United States. The job of transporting material from the ports to inland construction projects was prodigious.

The Alaska Defense Command also suffered from a chronic lack of strategic

materials and construction equipment. The priorities system established by

the War Department early in 1941 benefited Alaska little since it held a very

low priority until September 1941. Furthermore, in many places construction had to be confined to the short summer season. Varying and harsh

weather lessened the efficiency of both men and machines.

A cumbersome and unwieldy administrative system also hampered construction. Design and procurement were carried on thousands of miles from

the site of the work. Local commanders lacked the authority to make changes

in these plans, and all field requests for modifications had to be referred to

headquarters for approval. Initially the area engineer and the Alaskan com68

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 31 Jul 40, AG 660.2 AA. 69

 Note for Rcd on Memo, WPD for TAG, 28 Jan 41, WPD 3640-6. 70

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 28 Jan 41, WPD 3640-6. 71

 Ltr, TAG to CG WDC, 7 Jan 42, and other papers, in WDC-ADC 660.2 AWS-46.
THE GARRISONING OF ALASKA, 1939-41 247

mander at Anchorage, the district engineer at Seattle, and the Ninth Corps

Area commander at San Francisco had to approve all plans. In an effort to

simplify this procedure, the War Department in December 1940 placed all

Alaskan military construction directly under the supervision of General

DeWitt.72 Nevertheless, the construction program remained bogged down

in administrative red tape. On 28 November 1941 General Buckner, replying

to an inquiry from the Chief of Staff as to how best the War Department

could facilitate construction in Alaska, wrote as follows:

The most effective measure of assistance which you can render us in our building

program is a greater degree of decentralization. In many cases it takes a great deal longer

to get a construction measure approved after the appropriations are made than it does to

do the actual building. Our Area Engineer here put it very aptly when he said that

quick-drying cement did him very little good in speeding up construction unless some

quick-drying ink was used on the approval of his plans.73

General Marshall referred General Buckner's comment to G-4 for study and

review. War gave new urgency to the construction program, and in late December the Chief of Staff informed the Alaskan commander that "both the

Commanding General, Western Defense Command, and the Chief of Engineers have been instructed to take such steps as may be necessary to decentralize control of all construction matters to the greatest possible extent."

The Chief of Staff added that "construction directives are also specifying

[that the] greatest possible latitude should be given to local commanders

in the matter of layouts and type of structure, compatible with procurement

and shipping dictates."

 74

Reinforcing the Air Defenses

Alaska was the last of the overseas departments to receive Army combat

planes. As late as August 1940 General Arnold said that there was no prospect of sending any planes at all to Alaska during that year. Subsequently,

Generals Buckner and DeWitt argued vehemently for deployment of some

defensive air power to Alaska. On 5 September General Arnold agreed to

send one pursuit squadron, one bombardment squadron, and one-half of

the base group of the 28th Composite Group to Alaska. This force was

scheduled to arrive at Elmendorf Field about 15 November.75 The day after

72

 Memo, Col Chamberlin, for ACofS G-4, 18 Oct 41, WDC-ADC 686, vol. II. 73

 Ltr, Gen Buckner to Gen Marshall, 28 Nov 41, AG 600.12 (11-28-41). 74

 Ltr, Gen Marshall to Gen Buckner, 29 Dec 41, AG 600.12 (11-28-41). 75

 Memo, Lt Col Orlando Ward, SGS for WPD, 5 Sep 40, OCS 20834-36.
248 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

General Arnold made this decision he was obliged to announce that, because

the planes he proposed to send were not ready, "he had arranged with the

GHQ Air Force to send two groups from the GHQ Air Forces, and the

Alaska squadrons, when ready, would be assigned to the GHQ Air Forces."

 76

Actually, no Army combat planes reached Alaska until after the decision

by President Roosevelt in January 1941 to stand on the defensive in the

Pacific with the fleet based on Hawaii.77 In February Secretary Stimson publicly announced some of the measures being taken by the United States to

strengthen the Panama-Hawaii-Alaska defense line, and stressed preparations under way to send three new units of Army aircraft to Alaska. And,

Mr. Stimson added, "from my knowledge of what is going on in Japan, I

think this reinforcement of the northwest frontier will be of interest to the

Japs."

 78

As a result the Alaska Defense Command received its first combat aircraft. At the end of February the 23d Air Base Group, the 18th Pursuit

Squadron equipped with 20 P-36's, and the headquarters squadron of the

28th Composite Group reached Elmendorf Field. This force was followed

in March by the 73d Bombardment Squadron, Medium, and the 36th Bombardment Squadron, Heavy, equipped with a total of 12 B-18A's. On 29

May the Air Field Forces, Alaska Defense Command, was formed from these

units.79 This was a token force, wholly inadequate to perform its assigned

mission, a fact duly noted at the time of the July alert. The entire Army air

force in Alaska then consisted of 38 planes, and all of its combat planes were

obsolescent or obsolete.80

During the July emergency General Buckner argued vehemently, but

unsuccessfully, for air reinforcements, writing:

My immediate concern is to build up an air force sufficiently strong to make any

hostile expedition against Alaskan shores so hazardous a venture as to remove it from

the realm of probability. This accomplished, our Navy can be released from the task of

furnishing us with constant protection and will be free to operate elsewhere.

At the present time, all of our coastal stations can be taken one by one by hostile

expeditions outnumbering them, since there is no way of reinforcing them during an

attack except by air. Our air strength is at present negligible and the prospects for

prompt reinforcement somewhat scant. I am informed that we are soon to be reinforced

by ground troops but that Air Corps reinforcements are not contemplated in the near

future. Under present conditions, I would rather have an additional heavy bombardment

76

 Min, Conf in Office of DCofS, 6 Sep 40, OCS Misc Conf, binder 3. 77

 See Conn and Fairchild, Framework of Hemisphere Defense, p. 95. 78

 Stimson Diary, entry of 27 Feb 41. 79

 Craven and Cate, eds., Plans and Early Operations, p. 166. 80

 Memo, CofAS for WPD, 20 Aug 41, WPD 4464-7.
THE GARRISONING OF ALASKA, 1939-41 249

squadron than a division of ground troops. The time to strike hostile expeditions is

when their troops are crowded in transports and their planes on the decks of carriers. I

have communicated this desire to General DeWitt and he is of similar opinion.81

Although General Buckner's request received the sympathetic approval of

the Air Staff, the War Department, for a variety of reasons, was unable to

take action. The continuously expanding Army air program was making

heavy demands on existing forces for training purposes. Army air units stationed in Newfoundland and Iceland competed with the Alaskan air force for

the few winterized planes on hand. Neither the Air Staff nor the other sections of the War Department considered the threat to Alaskan security in

July 1941 sufficiently acute to deploy air units earmarked for other overseas

outposts to the Alaska Defense Command. The War Department's point of

view was expressed in a letter from General Marshall to General Buckner in

which the Chief of Staff said:

The War Department is appreciative of the importance of your problem and is

doing everything, consistent with the general situation, to meet your needs. Your command has been given a high priority for aircraft and we are trying to find ways and

means to meet your needs in this respect. Deliveries to Alaska have been delayed because

of more pressing demands in the Philippines, which, due to the critical situation in the

Orient, have been placed in a higher priority than Alaska. I am advised today of the

following proposed schedule of deliveries of aircraft to Alaska:

Bombardment (M) B-26 Series

Sep 1941—18

Mar 1942—3

May 1942—5

Bombardment (H) B-17 Series

Feb 1942—8

Jun 1942—5

Oct 1942—3

Pursuit Interceptor P-40 Series

Sep 1941—4

Oct 1941—21

Aug 1942—6

I am sorry that existing circumstances prohibit some expeditious actions on your

requests.82

Nor were the planes scheduled for delivery in 1941 actually sent before the

war began.

In the fall of 1941, the Navy's air power in the Alaskan area was even

more meager than the Army's. At the end of October 1941 General DeWitt

reported that "there is an OS2U-2 plane at Sitka, a J2F at Kodiak, and an

81

 Ltr, Gen Buckner to Gen Marshall, 24 Jul 41, AG 452.1 (7-24-41). 82

 Ltr, Gen Marshall to Gen Buckner, 23 Sep 41, OCS 14943-60.
250 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

OS2U-1 awaiting transportation to Dutch Harbor. From time to time a

squadron of five or six patrol planes have been based in Alaska for training

purposes, but these are not permanent. . . ."

 83

 Capt. Ralph C. Parker, commander of the Alaskan Sector, appealed to the Navy Department for dive

bombers to reinforce his air component. Since the Army could not secure

air reinforcements, General Buckner endorsed the request with the admission

"We swallow our pride . . . and like it."

 84

 The Navy Department, as short

of planes as the Army, had to reject Captain Parker's request. Throughout

1941 naval air forces in Alaska remained wholly inadequate to perform their

mission of long-range offshore patrol.

As the prospect of war between the United States and Japan increased

in November 1941, all agencies responsible for Alaskan defense stepped up

their request for air reinforcements, but the War Department was unable

to take any action. As General Arnold said: ". . . we are doing everything

possible we can to increase the number of trained squadrons and groups

available for these missions. At the present time we have just about hit

bottom."

 85

On the Alert

The Joint Board's decision on the extension of Army air power into the

Aleutians came on the very eve of the War Department's warning that Japan

was likely to begin hostilities soon. General DeWitt promptly ordered General Buckner to put the Alaska Defense Command on a full alert.86

Thanks to what had been done in the preceding year and a half, General

Buckner now had available a sizable ground force of approximately 20,000

men. Fort Richardson, the main Army base, had been completed. The four

major airfields in southeastern and central Alaska—Annette Island (Metlakatla), Yakutat, Elmendorf, and Ladd—were in operation. Army posts

had been established for the protection of the naval installations at Sitka,

Kodiak, and Dutch Harbor. There were garrisons at Seward and Nome, and

a small force still remained at Chilkoot Barracks near Skagway. A beginning,

at least, had been made in improving communications both within and to

Alaska. Improvements to the Alaska Railroad were being pushed. The Can83

 Memo, CG WDC for TAG, 27 Oct 41, WPD 4414-7. 84

 1st Ind, Hq ADC to COMALSEC, Seventeenth Naval District, 14 Nov 41, on Memo,

COMALSEC, Thirteenth Naval District, for CG ADC, 14 Nov 41, ADC 452.2. 85

 Memo, DCofS for Air for WPD, 1 Dec 41, WPD 4464-7. 86

 Rad, CG WDC to CofS, 28 Nov 41, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 14, p. 1330.
THE GARRISONING OF ALASKA, 1939-41 251

NAVAL BASE AT KODIAK

adian Government, as part of its collaboration in the defense of North

America, had undertaken to provide aircraft staging facilities between

Alaska and the continental United States; by December 1941 five airfields

along this Northwest Staging Route, as it was called, were usable under

optimum conditions.87

The most serious weakness of the Alaskan defenses was the lack of air

power. Alaska still had only the 12 B-18 bombers and 20 P-36 pursuit

planes provided in the spring of 1941, and only 6 of these planes were ready

for combat action on 7 December 1941.88 The aircraft warning system, also,

was far from complete. Although the program had been under way for

almost a year, the original goal had been too optimistic. No one had realized

what a tremendous job it would be to install and maintain detector sets in the

rugged, isolated locations which had been selected for most of them.89 Other

major flaws in the defenses, noted by two representatives of War Plans Divi87

 See Conn and Fairchild, Framework of Hemisphere Defense, ch. XIV. 88

 Craven and Cate, eds., Plans and Operations, pp. 170, 276. 89

 Hist of WDC vol. III, ch. 10, Incl. 8, pp. 1-2.
252 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

sion only three days before the Pearl Harbor raid, were the vulnerability of

housing to aerial bombing, the inadequacy of antiaircraft artillery, insufficient access roads, shortages of certain types of ammunition, and the lack

of adequate local storage facilities. The War Plans Division inspectors

recommended that the War Department review Alaskan defense projects

with a view toward remedying these deficiencies as soon as possible.90

When the assault on Pearl Harbor brought war to the United States, the

Alaska Defense Command was ready for a minor enemy attack, though not

for a surprise raid. It would have been unable to resist a major enemy assault,

but a major assault was not to be expected.

90

 Memo, Col Tully for Gen Gerow, WPD, 4 Dec 41, WPD 3512-148; Memo, Lt Col Nelson

M. Walker for ACofS G-3, 5 Dec 41, AG 381 (12-5-41).
CHAPTER X

Alaska in the War, 1942

The slashing Japanese attack in the western and central Pacific in December 1941 opened the prospect of a more active military role for Alaska,

especially if the Soviet Union became involved in the new Pacific war. Even

before the Japanese struck, the United States had been hoping to obtain

the use of Soviet air bases in the Vladivostok area, and, if Japan now

attacked the maritime provinces of Siberia, the military collaboration of

American and Soviet forces in the North Pacific appeared inevitable.

The Soviet Union, desperately involved against Germany in Europe, had

neither the desire nor the resources for a two-front war if it could be avoided,

although Marshal Joseph Stalin at first indicated that the Russians might

be ready for some sort of positive action against Japan by the spring of 1942.1

As the new year opened, both General Buckner in Alaska and the military

planners in Washington wanted to push the development of an air route

through Alaska that would permit the operation of American aircraft from

Russian bases against Japan, and President Roosevelt himself was keenly

interested in the proposal.2 The President was also concerned about the

danger of a Japanese raid on the new military installations in Alaska, more

concerned, indeed, than were his military advisers. In mid-February he indicated his desire for a "complete plan" for establishing a striking force in

Alaska and the Aleutian Islands and in pushing the execution of this plan

as far as possible by midsummer.3

Taking into account the military situation in the western Pacific at the

end of January 1942, the Army and Navy commanders in Alaska recommended a more specific plan for attacking Japan by way of the North Pacific.

Noting that the other approaches to Japan were already protected by land1

 Notes on Conf in OCofS, 10 Dec 41, OCS Conf, binder 29; Memo, G-2 for CofS, 20 Dec 41,

WPD 4557-35. See also Matloff and Snell, Strategic Planning, 1941-42, pp. 142-46. 2

 Notes on Confs at White House, 28 Dec 41 and 28 Jan 42, in WDCSA 334 Mtgs and Confs

(1-28-42); Memo, CG ADC for CG WDC and Fourth Army, 3 Jan 42, AG 381 (12-5-41) (2);

various papers, dated 9-27 Jan 42, in WPD 4557-43. 3

 Memo, CofS for President Roosevelt, 21 Jan 42, WPD 3512-151; Memo of Harry Hopkins,

16 Feb 42, Calendar of Hopkins Papers, bk V, item 7.
254 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

based aviation, they advocated the establishment as soon as possible of striking bases on the Siberian mainland and Sakhalin Island, and the development of a secure convoy route to the Russian naval base at Petropavlovsk on

the Kamchatka Peninsula. Their plan would involve rushing work on the

airfields already under construction in Alaska, improving the air route via

Nome and across Bering Strait, and establishing a string of seaplane bases,

to be protected by Army garrisons, in the Aleutians beyond Dutch Harbor

and Umnak. It would also require a large air and ground reinforcement of

Alaska, and immediate negotiation with the Russians to permit the development and use of Siberian bases.4

General DeWitt, in forwarding this proposal to Washington, concurred

in its general concept, but he noted that the better part of a year would be

needed to construct the facilities necessary for executing the plan and that,

before Alaska could become a useful base for offensive operations, its successful defense must be assured. In Washington, Admiral King observed that

the development of aviation facilities in Alaska was already well ahead of

the ability of the War and Navy Departments to supply them with aircraft

and that new and undefended air bases would be more of a liability than

an asset. For the time being he was firmly opposed to the extension of aviation

facilities in the Aleutians beyond Umnak, and indeed to any other preparations for offensive operations from Alaska until the Russians indicated a

willingness to permit the operation of American planes from Siberian bases.5

While the plan of the Alaskan commanders for an offensive from Alaska

was still under review, the President in early March asked for further study

of the feasibility of opening the Aleutian route to Siberia, so that it could be

used if Japan attacked the Soviet Union.6 By March it was fairly evident that

the Russians were not going to enter the Pacific war on their own initiative

as long as they were heavily engaged in Europe, and therefore that they were

very unlikely to give the Japanese cause for attack by opening their Far

Eastern bases to American ships and planes, or even by letting Americans

reconnoiter these bases as a step toward future offensive action from them.

By the end of the month the Army and Navy had concluded, and so advised

the President, that while the Alaskan air route via Nome might be used to

deliver planes and other supplies to the Soviet Union, or to reinforce Russian

air forces in Siberia if the Japanese attacked, it would be futile to do any more

4

 Paper, prepared by CG ADC and COMALSEC Thirteenth Naval District, 31 Jan 42, title:

Joint Army-Navy Plans for Alaska, WDCSA 381 War Plans. 5

 Memo, CG WDC for CG FF, 21 Feb 42; Memo, COMINCH for CNO, 21 Feb 42. Both in

OPD 381. 6

 Memo, President Roosevelt to Adm Stark and Gen Marshall, 4 Mar 42, ABC 381 (1-23-42).
ALASKA IN THE WAR, 1942 255

planning toward these ends until the President was able to conclude an

agreement with Marshal Stalin for military collaboration. General Buckner

was informed that for the present his forces would have to remain on the

strategic defensive and that he could expect only a modest augmentation of

these forces and for defensive purposes only.7

Reinforcement

Alaska became part of a designated theater of operations with the activation of the Western Defense Command on 11 December 1941, although

under the restriction that General DeWitt as theater commander could not

move major ground or air units from the west coast to Alaska without War

Department consent. Before the month was over General Buckner had recommended that he be given unity of command over all military forces in

Alaska, and the Army Air Forces had proposed that General Buckner be

replaced by an Air Forces general officer since the Alaskan Defense Command area would be predominately an air theater so far as the Army was

concerned. Neither proposal was approved, and the command of Alaskan

forces remained unchanged until an active enemy threat developed in May

1942.8

At the outbreak of war the Army garrison in Alaska numbered about

21,500 officers and enlisted men. During the next five months this total nearly

doubled, to a strength of 40,424 by the end of April 1942, considerably

more than had been planned in the first wartime troop basis for the Alaska

Defense Command.9 A considerable proportion of this total was accounted

for by engineer troops needed to rush construction work at the new Alaskan

air bases. Getting combat planes to these bases was a more difficult matter.

As noted in the preceding chapter, Alaska had no Army planes fit for

combat when the Pacific war began. By 11 December a squadron each of

modern pursuit and medium bombardment planes was being winterized for

flight to Alaska, and the planes began to move at the beginning of January

by way of the Northwest Staging Route of airfields built by the Canadians

from Alberta northward. A number of these planes crashed en route, princi7

 Incl A, JCS 16/2, 19 Jun 42, and other papers in ABC 381 (1-23-42); Memo, WPD for

TAG, 24 Mar 42, WDCSA 381 War Plans. 8

 Memo, OCofS for TAG, 11 Dec 41, AG 320.2 (12-11-41) (2); Rad, CG ADC to CG

WDC, 22 Dec 41, ADC 381, vol. II; Memo, ACofAS for CofS, 27 Dec 41, and other papers in

AGF 320.2 Alaska, binder 1. 9

 Strength of the Army, 1 Nov 47, p. 42; Troop Basis Chart, ADC, 26 Jan 42, AG 320.2

(2-3-42).
256 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

pally because of the inexperience of the pilots who flew them, and in early

March only half the pursuits and a quarter of the bombers that had been

sent were in shape for combat duty. The losses sustained in this emergency

movement were primarily responsible for President Roosevelt's decision in

early February to build a highway to Alaska by way of the airfields of the

Northwest Staging Route.10

In response to General DeWitt's pleas for a much larger air reinforcement, the War Department in March announced plans for providing Alaska

as soon as possible with five combat squadrons equipped with modern planes,

two each of pursuit and medium bombardment and one of heavy bombardment planes. The actual strength in Alaska by the end of April was about

a squadron each of pursuit and medium bombardment, and one B-17 heavy

bombardment plane. These planes were all stationed at the Anchorage and

Kodiak airfields and could not be moved westward to the new Alaska Peninsula and Umnak air bases then nearing completion without stripping the

heart of the Alaskan military establishment of its means of air defense.11

The relative weakness of Army air forces in Alaska was compounded by

slow progress in installing an aircraft warning service. In late 1941 the War

Department had approved a plan calling for 20 radar sets so arranged as to

guard all vital military installations in Alaska, but commitments to other

areas after the fighting started made it necessary to reduce this number at

first to 10 and in March to 5 sets. Brig. Gen. William C. Butler, commanding the newly designated Eleventh Air Force, was then called upon to submit a more modest air defense plan to match this allotment. General Butler

pointed out that an integrated air defense of Alaska controlled from one

headquarters was not feasible because of the large area to be protected, the

many mountain ranges which form natural barriers and divide Alaska into

isolated areas, and the lack of roads and internal communication networks.

He proposed therefore to organize a series of self-sufficient local air defense

areas for the protection of the more important airfields and bases. Air defense for other Alaskan installations would be provided after the defense

of the three primary areas—Anchorage-Kodiak, Umnak-Dutch Harbor,

Dixon Entrance-Sitka—and been insured. He therefore proposed to install

the three detector sets en route at Sitka, at Lazy Bay on Kodiak Island, and

10

 1st Ind, CG WDC to TAG, 11 Dec 41, on Ltr, TAG to CG WDC, 4 Sep 41, ADC 381

Def Plans, bk. 3; Memo, CG WDC for CG FF, 4 Mar 42, AG 452.1 (7-24-41); Conn and

Fairchild, Framework of Hemisphere Defense, p. 394. 11

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 5 Mar 42, WPD 4464-7; OCofS Interoffice Memo, 27 Apr 42,

WDCSA 452.1. See also Craven and Cate, eds., Plans and Early Operations, pp. 303ff.
ALASKA IN THE WAR, 1942 257

at Cape Wislow, Unalaska Island. One SCR-270 (mobile) was in operation

at Anchorage and an SCR-271 was in operation at Cape Chiniak, Kodiak

Island, at the time he made this proposal.12

A month later the War Department again increased the number of longrange radar sets to be allocated to Alaska to ten for planning purposes, and at

the beginning of May General DeWitt reported a revised air defense plan for

locating the detectors and establishing a central information center at Anchorage and ten regional filter centers to co-ordinate radar and pursuit aircraft operations. This was little more than a plan when the Japanese attacked

in early June, and apparently the only radar operating at that moment was

the one at Cape Chiniak on Kodiak Island.13 The arrival in May of four

radar-equipped heavy bombers made offshore aerial patrols more efficient

and gave the Army an alternate means of detecting enemy movements on

the eve of the Japanese approach to the Aleutians.14

The Attack on the Aleutians

The Aleutian Islands extend in a long, sweeping curve for more than

a thousand miles westward from the tip of the Alaska Peninsula. All of the

islands are mountainous with no trees and little level ground suitable for

the construction of airfields. From the shore line jagged peaks rise abruptly

to an elevation of several thousand feet. The empty trough-shaped valleys

are covered by tundra, a spongy mat of dead grass, on top of a layer of

volcanic ash which when wet quickly churns into mud. Aleutian weather is

notorious. Although the islands are not excessively cold, since they lie well

below the Arctic Circle, rain, snow, and mist are the rule rather than the

exception. These bare and almost unpopulated islands are also battered by

violent winds and are hidden for much of the time in swirling fog.

On the globe the Aleutian chain appears to provide a natural route of

approach toward either the continental United States or Japan. But the forbidding weather and wretched terrain made this seemingly natural route all

but impracticable in 1942. Nevertheless, neither the United States nor Japan

could afford to assume that the other would reject it as impracticable.

It will be recalled that the Joint Board in late November 1941 had approved the construction of an Army airfield on Umnak Island, not only to

12

 Memo, CG Eleventh Air Force for CG ADC, 24 Mar 42, WDC-ADC 381-32, pt. 1. 13

 Memo, CG WDC for TAG, 1 May 42, and other papers in WDC-ADC 381/32, pt. I. The

Anchorage set was being reinstalled at Cape Cleare on Montague Island. 14

 Craven and Cate, eds., Plans and Early Operations, p. 309.
258 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

provide local air protection for the naval base at Dutch Harbor, but also

for the broader purposes of blocking a Japanese advance toward the mainland and permitting the projection of Army air power into the more distant

Aleutians. Army Engineers under the command of Col. Benjamin B. Talley

began the construction of a runway at Otter Point on the northeastern end

of Umnak in mid-January 1942 and soon thereafter undertook similar work

on an intermediate base at Cold Bay near the tip of the Alaska Peninsula,

where construction of an airfield had been started in 1941 by the Civil Aeronautics Administration. The Umnak base became the Army's Fort Glenn,

and the Cold Bay base Fort Randall, with Fort Mears, the Army garrison

for Dutch Harbor, in between. Both of the new fields were usable by 1 April,

although just barely so. When the enemy approached two months later,

Umnak had a garrison of about 4,000, Fort Mears of over 6,000, and Cold

Bay of about 2,500, including engineer troops, but also including balanced

complements of infantry and of field and antiaircraft artillery units. Generals Buckner and DeWitt had wanted a much larger combat force for the

forward base on Umnak but had to be content with the 2,300 or so combat

troops that the War Department had authorized.15

While the Umnak and Cold Bay airfields were being rushed to completion, the Japanese High Command was planning to attack and occupy points

in the Aleutian Islands as part of their "second phase" offensive. By April

Japanese planners had agreed on the main features of the operation. Japanese task forces were to undertake a two-pronged drive against Midway and

the Aleutian Islands in the early part of June. Aside from its diversionary

aspect to cover the Midway strike, the Aleutian phase of the operations was

to be purely defensive. After capturing Midway and Kiska, the Japanese

intended to use them as bases for an aerial patrol of North Pacific waters.

The islands would also be outposts in a new defense perimeter that would

be extended in due course to the Samoan and Fiji Islands and New Caledonia.16

The enemy knew little of American activities in the Aleutians since the

war's beginning. The Japanese planners thought the United States had extensive military installations at Dutch Harbor and smaller garrisons on Adak,

Kiska, and Attu. They also believed that there were one or two small air15

 Ltr, CG ADC to CG WDC, 22 Dec 41, and 2d Ind to same, GHQ to TAG, 19 Feb 42,

AGF 320.2 Alaska, binder 2; Memo, WPD for SW, 3 Jun 42, WDCSA 000.7 Alaska; Dod,

"Operations in the War Against Japan," ch. VI, p. 8. 16

 Japanese Monograph 45, pp. 50-53; Japanese Monograph 88, pp. 1-6; Far East History,

II, 124-25.
ALASKA IN THE WAR, 1942 259

craft carriers as well as cruisers and destroyers operating in Aleutian waters.

But they knew nothing of the new airfields east and west of Dutch Harbor

then nearing completion.17 The Japanese plan for operations issued on

5 May 1942 reflected this faulty knowledge. Under the plan the Northern

Area Force, commanded by Vice Adm. Boshiro Hosogaya, was to contain

three separate task forces to carry out the operation. Leading the attack would

be the Second Mobile Force, Rear Adm. Kakuji Kakuta commanding, built

around the two small carriers Junyo and Ryujo, and including two heavy

cruisers and three destroyers, with the mission of bombing shipping, planes,

and shore installations at Dutch Harbor and on Adak. It would also provide

cover for the landing forces, the Adak-Attu Occupation Force consisting of

an Army detachment of approximately 1,200 troops with naval escort, which

was first to occupy Adak and destroy United States forces found there, and

then to withdraw and assist in the occupation of Kiska and Attu, and a

second group, a special naval landing force of 550 combat and 700 labor

troops, which was to occupy Kiska. By destroying American bases and

occupying islands in the outer Aleutians, the Japanese hoped to prevent the

Americans from launching a sea and air offensive by way of the North Pacific

and to obstruct military collaboration between the United States and the

Soviet Union.18

From the beginning of hostilities the War Department had recognized

the vulnerability of the new bases in southern Alaska and particularly of the

exposed installations in the Dutch Harbor area. Temporarily, Japan's uninterrupted drive into southwestern Pacific and Indian Ocean areas eased concern over Alaska, but it soon revived. In mid-March G-2 warned that a

Japanese attempt to seize the Aleutians or raid the mainland of Alaska in

order to prevent the United States from using the northern approach to Japan

and to obstruct communication between the United States and the Soviet

Union could be expected at any time.19 After the Doolittle raid on Tokyo in

April, it was generally expected in Washington that the Japanese would

retaliate by raiding the west coast or Alaska.

The first definite indication that Alaska would be among the targets in a

new Japanese offensive eastward was obtained from intercepts in late April.

These revealed that the Japanese were concentrating striking forces at Truk

17

 Japanese Monograph 46, p. 10; Japanese Monograph 88, pp. 3-4. 18

 Japanese Monograph 46, p. 7; Japanese Monograph 88, pp. 7-8, 20; Morison, Coral Sea,

Midway and Submarine Actions, pp. 168-69. 19

 MIS, WD Estimate 2, 19 Mar 42, OPD Exec 10, item 29.
260 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

and in home waters, and that the admiral in command at Truk "had just

requested information and charts from Tokyo on the close-in waters along

the Aleutians and as far eastward as Kodiak Island and to the north a little

short of Nome."

 20

 While Washington interpreted this information as a

definite threat to Alaska, it also concluded that at least another month would

pass before the Japanese could attack. On 3 May General DeWitt relayed the

information to General Buckner and renewed his plea for the assignment of

a pursuit squadron to the airfield at Umnak, which was now operational.21

More intercepts in May pinpointed the Japanese objectives as Midway Island

and Dutch Harbor, and by 21 May the United States knew fairly accurately

what the strength of the Japanese Northern Area Force would be and when

it would strike—1 June, or shortly thereafter.22

The Army and Navy took quick steps to counter the anticipated Japanese

blow. As a precaution the War Department directed that the Umnak field

and other facilities in danger of capture be prepared for demolition, but in

transmitting this order General DeWitt assured General Buckner that

additional means for defending Fort Glenn would be provided.23 The Navy

prepared to reinforce its existing minuscule "Alaskan Navy" by establishing

a new Task Force 8, under the command of Rear Adm. Robert A. Theobald,

and assembling its principal components (five cruisers, fourteen destroyers,

six submarines, and auxiliaries) off Kodiak as rapidly as possible.24 On 21

May General Marshall and Admiral King declared a state of fleet-opposed

invasion prospectively in effect "until and if invasion in force of Kodiak or

Continental Alaska become imminent." At the same time they directed that

all Army and Navy air units then in Alaska should be put into a task force to

be commanded by the Army's General Butler, who in turn would report to

the new Task Force 8 commander on his arrival in Alaska. Army ground

forces were kept under Army command, and General Buckner was to coordinate their employment with those of naval forces by mutual co-operation.25

 When Admiral Theobald reached Kodiak on 27 May, he and General Buckner agreed to maintain these command relationships unless the

20

 Pers Ltr, Gen Marshall to Gen DeWitt, 29 Apr 42, WDC-ADC 384-7 Separate Envelope. 21

 Rad, CG WDC to CG ADC, 3 May 42; Pers Ltr, Gen DeWitt to Gen Marshall, 3 May 42.

Both in WDC-ADC 384-7 Separate Envelope. 22

 Memo, G-2 for CofS, 17 May 42, OPD 381-42 WDC; Rad, COMINCH to CINCPAC

(Info copy to CofS), 21 May 42, OPD Exec 8, bk. 5. 23

 Rad, CG WDC to CG ADC, 20 May 42, ADC 381 Def Plans, bk. 4. 24

 Morison, Coral Sea, Midway and Submarine Actions, pp. 165-74. 25

 Rad, COMINCH to CINCPAC, 21 May 42; Rad, CINCPAC to COMALSEC, et al., 23 May

42. Both in WDCSA 000.7 Alaska.
ALASKA IN THE WAR, 1942 261

Japanese captured a base in the Umnak-Dutch Harbor-Cold Bay area, in

which event an invasion of the mainland might be deemed imminent and

unity of command over land and shore-based defense forces might therefore

be vested in the Army.26 These preparations and command arrangements

reflected a widespread belief among American planners and commanders

that the Japanese were bent on capturing Dutch Harbor.

Before Admiral Theobald reached Kodiak, General Butler had begun to

move Army planes forward to the new Cold Bay and Umnak air bases, where

adequate supplies of gasoline and bombs had already been stockpiled. By

1 June 1 heavy and 6 medium bombers and 17 pursuits (now called fighters)

had reached Fort Glenn on Umnak, and 6 medium bombers and 16 fighters

were at Cold Bay—all the planes their unfinished airfields were believed

able to accommodate. On the same day the Navy had 8 radar-equipped patrol

planes operating from Dutch Harbor. Air reinforcements, including extra

pilots, were being rushed from the continental west coast to Alaska, to bring

its strength in modern Army combat planes to 10 heavy and 34 medium

bombers and 95 fighters. All these planes were for use at Elmendorf Field

and beyond, since by this time the Royal Canadian Air Force had two squadrons of fighter planes at the Annette Island base in southeastern Alaska (and

near the British Columbia port of Prince Rupert) and the intermediate

Yakutat base had no planes assigned. The total Army strength in Alaska

by 1 June was about 45,000 officers and enlisted men, of whom about 13,000

were at Fort Randall and the Aleutian bases.27

On 25 May the enemy carrier force for the Dutch Harbor assault sortied

from Ominato in northern Honshu, and thick weather protected its approach

to the target. A naval patrol plane spotted the enemy about 400 miles south

of Kiska in the early afternoon of 2 June, and unusual radio activity later on

the same day also helped to alert the defenders. In the early morning hours

of 3 June, Admiral Kakuta's Second Mobile Force was in launching position

south of Dutch Harbor, but less than half the planes launched reached their

objective. Starting about 0545, seventeen bombers and fighters from Ryujo

attacked Fort Mears and naval installations at Dutch Harbor, inflicting some

damage on barracks and other facilities and killing about twenty-five soldiers

and sailors. The Japanese lost two planes to antiaircraft fire. At 0900 the

enemy launched a second strike aimed at a group of five American destroyers

26

 Rad, CTF 8 to CINCPAC, 28 May 42, OPD Exec 8, bk. 5. 27

 Memo, Col Sherrill, OPD, for CofS, 1 Jun 42, WDCSA 000.7 Alaska; Memo, Admiral

Willson, OCNO, for Gen Marshall, 2 Jun 42, OPD Exec 8, bk. 5; Memo, WPD for SW, 3 Jun 42,

WDCSA 000.7 Alaska; Strength of the Army, 1 Nov 47, p. 42.
262 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

sighted by one of the planes of the first attack force, but the weather closed

in and concealed the American ships and the enemy could not find them.

Four Japanese seaplanes that were launched from cruisers flew over Umnak.

P-40 fighters from the new Otter Point airfield attacked them and destroyed

two. Overcast hid the field, and not until the following day did the Japanese

discover the existence of the new American forward air base.28

After recovering its planes, the enemy task force moved off in a southwesterly direction. During the night Admiral Kakuta changed course for

Adak, which he had been ordered to soften up. But the weather was so bad

that Kakuta decided to cancel the Adak attack and return for a second

assault on Dutch Harbor. Late on 4 June Japanese planes struck again and

destroyed four oil storage tanks, demolished a wing of the naval hospital,

and partially destroyed the beached barracks ship Northwestern. Army and

Navy casualties at Dutch Harbor for the two days were forty-three killed

(thirty-three of them Army) and about fifty wounded. Both Dutch Harbor

attacks were opposed by intense antiaircraft fire from land artillery supported

by the naval guns fired from ships in the harbor. And, however startling they

were, the attacks had little effect on the use of Dutch Harbor as a forward

naval base.

While Army planes based on Umnak and at Cold Bay were not able to

prevent the enemy from bombing and strafing Dutch Harbor, planes from

Umnak did intercept 8 of the Junyo planes returning from the second day's

attack and shot down 4 of them while losing 2 of their own. Army and Navy

efforts on 3 June to locate and attack the enemy carrier force were fruitless.

The next morning a Navy patrol plane spotted the enemy, and several flights

of Army planes attacked during the day. In the early afternoon a medium

bomber dropped a torpedo on or beside one of the carriers, but it failed to

explode. Six heavy bombers were flown forward from Kodiak on 4 June,

and 2 of them succeeded in locating and bombing the enemy force. Before

the day was over, other medium bombers from Umnak fired two torpedoes at

an enemy cruiser. Contemporary claims by flight crews of explosions and hits

were all denied by the Japanese after the war, and apparently the enemy surface ships escaped unscathed. During the whole action the Japanese lost about

10 planes, the Army 5 (and at least fifteen airmen), and 6 Navy patrol planes

were put out of action.

28

 This paragraph and the two following are based principally on: Ltr, Hq Eleventh Air Force

to CG ADC (about 10 Jun 42), sub: Summary of Operations to June 10th, WDC-ADC 384-7,

vol. II; Morison, Coral Sea, Midway and Submarine Operations, pp. 175-78; Craven and Cate,

eds., Plans and Early Operations, pp. 462-69.
ALASKA IN THE WAR, 1942 263

In the much larger action off Midway to the south, the Japanese suffered

a severe setback, and momentarily they suspended their plans for landings

in the western Aleutians and turned the Northern Area Force task forces

homeward. Then, on 5 June, with the Adak landing abandoned for the time

being, Admiral Hosogaya ordered the Adak-Attu Occupation Force to proceed to Attu, where its 1,200 troops began to land on 7 June, the day before

the special naval force landed on Kiska. At the time of the landings the enemy

intention was to stay only temporarily, and to withdraw before winter. Kiska

without Midway no longer had any value as a base for patrolling the ocean

between the Aleutian and Hawaiian chains; but Kiska and Attu in Japanese

hands did block the Americans from using the Aleutians as a route for

launching an offensive on Japan, and holding them had at least a distinct

nuisance value. Before the end of June, therefore, the Japanese decided to

stay and to build airfields on both islands.29

The Army's Reaction

After the Dutch Harbor raid the Navy sent the patrol tender Gillis forward to Atka Island, and a Navy plane operating from Atka discovered the

Japanese occupation of Kiska on the afternoon of 10 June. During the next

three days Army bombers from Cold Bay and Umnak and Navy planes from

Atka bombed the Kiska landing area as best they could through heavy overcast, but without much visible effect. A threatened counterattack by Japanese

flying boats against Atka led to the withdrawal of the Gillis, and thereafter

the bombing of Kiska was left to Army planes. Only about half the missions

flown by them during June and July were able even to locate the target, and

those that did inflicted comparatively minor damage. Weather was the great

enemy in Aleutian air operations during the summer and fall of 1942; only

nine of the seventy-two planes lost by the Eleventh Air Force through 31

October were destroyed in combat. The evident impossibility of bombing the

enemy out of Kiska from the air persuaded the Navy to attempt a surface

bombardment. After two tries in late July had been frustrated by dense fog, a

naval force headed by four cruisers succeeded in bombing Kiska for half an

hour on 7 August and inflicting considerable damage, but not enough to

budge the Japanese. It became evident that only a joint and fairly large-scale

29

 Japanese Monograph 45, pp. 51-53; Japanese Monograph 88, pp. 26, 33; USSBS, Interrogations of Japanese Officials, Intervs, 99, Comdr Nifumi Mukai, 22 Oct 45; 101, Capt Taisuke Ito,

11 Oct 45; and 367, Vice Adm Sentaro Omori, 15-16 Oct 45.
264 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

operation to recapture the enemy-held islands would get the Japanese out of

the Aleutians.30

The Joint Chiefs of Staff had decided as much on 15 June, in their first

discussion of the enemy occupation of Attu and Kiska. They also agreed that

the sooner a determined effort was made to oust the Japanese from the Aleutians, the lesser the means that would be required to do it. At this time they

considered it likely that the Aleutian attack and occupation was part of a

holding action designed to screen a northward thrust by Japanese forces into

Siberia's maritime provinces and the Kamchatka Peninsula. Following this

discussion Admiral King and General Marshall sent warnings to the theater

commanders that a Japanese attack on the Soviet Union might also include the

occupation of St. Lawrence Island and of Nome and its adjacent airfields on

the Seward Peninsula.31

The Chief of Staff took a personal hand in ordering the rush movement of

reinforcements to Nome, then guarded by a single infantry company. He

directed General Buckner to transfer twenty antiaircraft guns with their

crews by air from Anchorage to Nome, where they had arrived by 21 June.

During the succeeding two weeks 140 additional planeloads of men and

equipment were flown in. Supplementing the air movement, ships from

Seward carried troops, guns, ammunition, and vehicles to Nome, and by early

July it had a garrison of more than 2,000 men. Far to the south of Nome, the

Army on 17 June established a garrison of 1,400 officers and enlisted men at

Port Heiden on the north side of the Alaska Peninsula, with the mission of

developing and holding an air base intermediate between the Kodiak and

Cold Bay fields, this new garrison becoming the Army's Fort Morrow. By

mid-July the Army was also maintaining intelligence detachments on St.

Lawrence Island and in the Pribilofs to keep track of enemy movements.32

The striking power of the Eleventh Air Force substantially increased

following the enemy attack in early June, which occurred as air reinforcements

were being rushed to Alaska and its forward bases. On 30 June the War

30

 Official Hist of the Alaskan Dept, ch. III; Samuel Eliot Morison, Aleutians, Gilberts and

Marshalls, June 1942-April 1944 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1951), pp. 3-12; Wesley

Frank Craven and James Lea Cate, eds., "The Army Air Forces in World War II," vol. IV, The

Pacific—Guadalcanal to Saipan, August 1942 to July 1944 (Chicago: The University of Chicago

Press, 1950), pp. 359-66. 31

 Min, JCS 20th Mtg, 15 Jun 42, ABC 370.2 Alaska (5-19-42); paraphrase of Rad,

COMINCH to CINCPAC, 15 Jun 42, sent by CofS to CG WDC, 16 Jun 42, OPD 381 Japan

(3-7-42), sec. 1. 32

 Various messages, dated 15-18 Jun 42, in OPD 381 ADC and AG 381 (12-5-41) (2);

Gen Council Min, 23 Jun 42; Memo, Maj Joe E. Golden, OPD, for ACofS G-2, 15 Jul 42, OPD

384 WDC (3-17-42); Official Hist of Alaskan Dept, chs. III and XXI.
ALASKA IN THE WAR, 1942 265

Department allotted the Alaskan air forces 2 heavy and 2 medium bombardment squadrons and one fighter group of 4 squadrons, all equipped with

modern planes suitable for the Alaskan environment, and with substantial

overstrengths in planes and crews to take care of operational losses. During

the summer and fall of 1942 this strength was fairly well maintained. The

new tactical air units sent to Alaska also had the support of a greatly

increased flow of service units and supplies, including much more adequate

radar equipment, and they were reinforced by the forward movement in June

of 2 squadrons of Royal Canadian Air Force planes to Anchorage and beyond.

Thereafter, air operations in the Aleutians became an Allied effort. The

ground strength of the Alaska Defense Command was also substantially

increased during the summer of 1942, and by the end of August its forces

numbered about 71,500 officers and enlisted men.33

Both General DeWitt and General Buckner interpreted the Japanese

occupation of Attu and Kiska and especially the enemy build-up on the latter

island as preparation for an offensive eastward with the capture of Dutch

Harbor as the initial objective. Both wanted to use Army and Marine Corps

forces available in Alaska and on the west coast to mount an expedition

against Kiska as soon as possible, and they wanted to cover this operation

and perhaps draw the enemy into a decisive naval engagement by using

American naval power in Hawaiian waters as well as that in Task Force 8.

General Buckner's more specific plan called for an initial occupation of

Tanaga Island and the quick construction of an airfield there to provide close

support by land-based aviation during the Kiska operation.34

As the theater commanders were preparing these recommendations, they

were disturbed by a visit from Brig. Gen. Laurence S. Kuter, Deputy Chief

of the Air Staff, who rather bluntly informed them that the War Department

considered the Aleutian situation of little consequence and Alaska a minor

theater of operations that should be kept strictly on the defensive with no

further Army air reinforcements. The Chief of Staff promptly disavowed

General Kuter as a spokesman for the War Department on such matters as

these, but the latter's views did reflect a growing disinclination in Washington

to commit large forces in an Aleutian offensive. Instead, the Army and Navy

decided, as stated in a joint directive of 2 July, to undertake limited offensive

33

 Rad 1628, CofS to CG WDC, 12 Aug 42, AG 452.1 (7-24-41) (1); Strength of the Army,

1 Nov 47, p. 42; Craven and Cate, eds., The Pacific—Guadalcanal to Saipan, pp. 366ff; Dziuban,

Military Relations Between the United States and Canada, 1939-45, pp. 252-54. 34

 Rad, CG WDC to CofS, 14 Jun 42; Memo, CG WDC for CofS, 21 Jun 42; and Ltr, CG

ADC to CG WDC, 30 Jun 42. All in WDC-ADC 384-7, vol. III.
266 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

operations in the southern Pacific, a decision that virtually ruled out the use

of major Pacific Fleet forces, including the Amphibious Force, in North

Pacific operations, at least during 1942. Admiral King personally communicated this decision to General DeWitt on 6 July. In effect, it meant that any

Aleutian offensive would have to be confined to what could be done with

Army and Navy forces already in Alaska, bolstered by such units as General

DeWitt could spare from west coast ground forces already under his command.35

Command Problems

Operations in Alaska during and after the Japanese attack and landings

revealed a certain amount of interservice discord. The lack of co-ordination

between the services can in part be attributed to the physical separation of the

Army and Navy headquarters. Navy headquarters were located on Kodiak

Island, and Army headquarters were at Fort Richardson near Anchorage,

nearly three hundred miles away. The joint operations center previously set

up by the Army at Anchorage proved practically worthless and had to be

replaced by a similar establishment at Kodiak. Until the new center began

functioning in August, the exchange of intelligence information between

Navy and Army was slow and faulty.36

The control and conduct of air operations provided another source of

friction. General Buckner was highly incensed by a complaint, attributed to

a naval officer in Alaska and transmitted to the general by the War Department, that Army air units had been slow in responding to Navy requests for

air support during the Dutch Harbor raid because of the Army's lack of

understanding of command arrangements. He informed General DeWitt

that the delays had been caused by limited communications, lack of sufficient

bombardment aviation, and the exhaustion of pilots and crews who had been

forced to fly in fog and the almost continuous daylight then prevalent, rather

than any misunderstanding about command.37 In fact, the directive to place

35

 Rad, CG WDC for CofS, 23 Jun 42; Ltr, CG ADC to CG WDC, 23 Jun 42. Both in

WDCSA 000.7 Alaska. Memo, CG WDC for CofS, 16 Jul 42, ADC 381 Def Plans, bk. 4; Matloff

and Snell, Strategic Planning, 1941-42, pp. 258-62. 36

 Memo, Maj Golden, OPD, for ACofS G-2, 15 Jul 42; Memo, Col Francis G. Brink, MIS,

for Chief, Intelligence Group G-2, 25 Jul 42; and Memo, OPD for DCofS, 8 Aug 42. All in

OPD 384 WDC (3-17-42), sec. I. 37

 Memo, OPD for WDCMS, 6 Jun 42; Rad 072140, CG ADC to COMALSEC, 7 Jun 42.

Both in OPD 384 WDC (3-17-42), sec 1. Rad 583, Gen DeWitt to Gen Marshall, 8 Jun 42,

OPD Log File; paraphrase of Rad, Adm Theobald to Gen Buckner (about 12 Jun 42), WDCSA

42-43 Alaska.
ALASKA IN THE WAR, 1942 267

both Army and Navy air units under the command of the senior Army air

officer in Alaska, General Butler, was not put into full effect until peremptory orders from Washington required that it be done.38

 The situation was

aggravated by a lively personality clash among the senior Alaskan commanders, which tended to undermine the formal command arrangements

that had been made.39

War Department officials were cognizant of the discord in Alaska and

endeavored to rectify the situation without fanfare. In June, when General

Kuter visited Alaska, he investigated the controversial air command question

and was authorized to take such remedial action on the spot as he could. And

when, in August, Col. Carl Russell of the Operations Division set out for

Alaska as the military representative on a Senate investigating committee, he

was asked "to unofficially familiarize himself with the relations between the

Army and Navy in Alaska."

 40

 Governor Ernest Gruening, the Alaska War

Council, and the Senate's Chandler Committee were less patient. They urged

the War Department to establish a unified command in Alaska at once in

order to meet the potential threat of an enemy invasion. As a result the

matter was referred to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for consideration. After careful study, they decided against any change in the command arrangements

in Alaska. Ultimately, as a result of a discreet transfer of personnel, interservice friction and discord largely disappeared.41

Until these transfers had been effected, command relationships were an

important factor in reopening for discussion two proposals argued during

1941. The one was whether the commanding general in Alaska ought to be

an air officer. The other was the closely related question of whether the Alaska

Defense Command ought to be detached from the Western Defense Command and established as a separate theater of operations.

The Chief of Staff informed General DeWitt in September 1942 that

the War Department contemplated replacing General Buckner by a senior

air officer and establishing an Alaskan Department in the near future. The

38

 Rad, Gen Buckner to Gen Marshall, 20 Jun 42, OPD Log File; Memo, Col Deane, SGS,

for CofS, 21 Jun 42, WDCSA binder, Notes on War Council; Min, War Council Mtg, 22 Jun 42,

SW Conf, binder 2. 39

 Rad 172, Gen Marshall to Gen Buckner, 17 Jun 42; Rad 661, Gen DeWitt to Gen Marshall,

17 Jun 42. Both in OPD Log File. Memo, Gen Marshall for Adm King, 28 Sep 42, WDCSA

42-43, Alaska. 40

 Memo, ASGS for CofS, 21 Jun 42, WDCSA binder, Notes on War Council; Memo, OPD

for DCofS, 8 Aug 42, OPD 384 WDC (3-17-42). 41

 Rad 212455, Gov Gruening et al. to Secy Interior, 20 Jun 42, OPD Log File; various papers,

dated 9-28 Sep 42, in ABC 680 Alaska (9-7-42); Memo, Col Henry A. Barber, Chief, North

American Theater Group, OPD for Brig Gen Wilton B. Persons, 19 Apr 43, OPD 384 WDC

(3-17-42).
268 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

professed reason for the change was that Army planners had "always had in

mind that after the ground forces were well established in the Aleutians the

command should pass to an air man as that would be the principal arm of

operation."

 42

 It is far more likely that the real reason General Marshall proposed to make the change in command was to permit a quiet shift in personnel that would eliminate one basic cause of friction between the services. At

any rate, after the Alaskan naval commander had been replaced, and after

a close and harmonious working relationship developed between his successor and the commanding general of the Alaska Defense Command, the

matter was not pressed.

Once again General DeWitt argued vigorously against the proposal to

separate Alaska from the Western Defense Command, reviewing in detail

the reasons he had given in the spring of 1941. He maintained that the

Alaska and Western Defense Commands were strategically interlocked by

a single mission. He also argued that supply and administrative matters

could be more effectively administered by a single command than otherwise.

Washington staff planners, on the contrary, favored an independent Alaskan

command. They felt that from the strategic point of view there was no more

reason for Alaska to remain under the Western Defense Command than for

Hawaii to be in the same subordinate relationship. They argued that because

of the improvement in supply procedures and communication facilities a

separate Alaskan theater was entirely feasible. They believed that the size

of Army forces in Alaska and the possibility of major operations in the area

justified the establishment of a separate command.43 For the time being

nothing was done to alter the chain of command, although the matter

remained a subject of staff study throughout the winter of 1942 and for most

of 1943.

Aid to the Soviet Union

As noted above, Japanese action against the Aleutians immediately

renewed American anticipation of Soviet involvement in the Pacific war, and

as late as 11 July Army intelligence was forecasting a Japanese attack on

Siberia in the near future as a virtual certainty.44 During May, Soviet interest

in the Alaskan air route to Siberia had also revived, and on 8 June Ambassador Maxim M. Litvinov told Mr. Harry Hopkins that the Soviet Government

42

 Ltr, Gen Marshall to Gen DeWitt, 3 Sep 42, WDCSA 42-43 Alaska. 43

 Ltr, Gen DeWitt to Gen Marshall, 11 Sep 42; Memos, OPD for CofS, 5 and 7 Oct 42. All

in OPD 384 WDC (3-17-42), sec. 1. 44

 Memo, G-2 for CofS, 11 Jul 42, OPD Exec 10, item 7c.
ALASKA IN THE WAR, 1942 269

"had agreed to our flying bombers to Russia via Alaska and Siberia." Mr.

Hopkins guessed that the real reason behind this Soviet agreement was to

prepare the way for the flight of American bombers to the Vladivostok area

in the event Japan attacked.45 After the discussion of the North Pacific situation by the Joint Chiefs on 15 June, they drafted a message to be sent by

President Roosevelt to Marshal Stalin, expressing the President's pleasure

with Soviet agreement to use the Alaska-Siberia air route for ferrying lendlease planes to Europe, and proposing the immediate exchange of detailed

military information and staff conversations to prepare the way for collaboration against Japan in the North Pacific. Marshal Stalin's response suggested

that American planes being sent to the western front be taken over by Soviet

flyers at Nome or elsewhere in Alaska, and, while agreeing to staff conversations in Moscow he was very noncommittal about military collaboration in

the Far East.46

Following this exchange the United States sent Maj. Gen. Follett Bradley

to Moscow for staff conversations, and the Army Air Forces began to prepare Ladd Field at Fairbanks (rather than Nome) as the delivery point for

lend-lease planes destined to the Soviet Union.47 When General Bradley

reached Moscow at the end of July, he found Russian officials primarily

interested in the ferrying project. They professed no alarm over a Japanese

threat to Siberia and were evidently as determined as ever to avoid a twofront war as long as they were hard-pressed by the Germans in Europe.

The planes for the Soviet Union were flown by way of the Northwest

Staging Route to Ladd Field at Fairbanks, which was designated an exempt

station under Army Air Forces' control, although support of the ferrying

operation became one of the principal missions of the Alaska Defense Command. The first planes from the continental United States reached Fairbanks

in September 1942 and, after inspection and acceptance by the Russians,

were flown off by them before the end of the month. For the first six months

many difficulties plagued the operation, but eventually the Alaskan air route

became the principal means for delivering aircraft to the Soviet Union. The

45

 Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History (rev. ed., New York:

Harper and Brothers, 1950), p. 584. 46

 Min, JCS 20th Mtg, 15 Jun 42, ABC 370.2 (5-19-42); Draft message, Roosevelt to Stalin,

16 Jun 42, and Rad 227, Ambassador William H. Standley to Dept of State, 2 Jul 42. Both in

WDCSA 42-43 Russia. The Soviet response states the President's message was delivered on 26

June.

47

 See Matloff and Snell, Strategic Planning, 1941-42, pp. 342-46; Wesley Frank Craven and

James Lea Cate, "The Army Air Forces in World War II," vol. VII, Services Around the

World (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1958), ch. VI.
270 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

route to Fairbanks also provided a means for delivering planes to the Eleventh

Air Force, and transport service along the route gave some essential support

to military operations in the Aleutians and beyond. But the air route operated

by the Army through northwestern Canada and across Alaska served principally and very largely the purpose of delivering airplanes to the Russians,

an activity which continued unabated until the summer of 1945.48

The Advance Westward

With the decisions on Pacific strategy that Admiral King had communicated to him in mind, General DeWitt on 16 July submitted a more

modest plan for a joint offensive in the Aleutians. Engineer reconnaissance

in late June had indicated the feasibility of constructing an airfield quickly

on Tanaga Island, located about 400 miles west of Umnak and 200 miles

from Kiska, and it was this survey that had prompted General Buckner to

recommend the occupation of Tanaga as the first step in a drive on Kiska.

General DeWitt now proposed it as "the next best step to the occupation of

Kiska to thwart the enemy's eastward movement," and as an essential move

toward the capture of Kiska eventually. He planned to send an initial garrison of 3,200 Army troops to Tanaga, including infantry and artillery elements from the west coast, and to do so during August if the Navy's Alaskan

forces were prepared to cover the landing.49

In Washington, discussion of this proposal developed a preference of the

Navy for a landing on Adak Island, about sixty miles east of Tanaga. Adak,

the Navy believed, had a better and less exposed harbor; on the other hand,

the information then available to the Army indicated it would take much

longer to build an airfield there. A directive of the Joint Chiefs, announced

on 5 August and confirmed five days later, apparently settled the argument in

favor of Tanaga. But, on 15 August, Admiral Theobald reported that his

survey board had advised that an occupation of Tanaga would present the

Navy with serious navigational hazards, and Admiral King thereupon withdrew his approval of the Tanaga operation. Confronted with the choice of

Adak or no forward advance, General DeWitt agreed to go along with the

Navy and occupy Adak. The revised joint directive for this operation, dispatched on 22 August, suggested a supporting occupation of Atka Island to

the east of Adak to provide an intermediate emergency landing field for

48

 For details, see Craven and Cate, eds., Services Around the World, ch. VI. 49

 Memo, CG WDC for CofS, 16 Jul 42, ADC 381 Def Plans, bk. 4.
CONSTRUCTION ON ADAK. Airport and harbor (top). Dredging sand from an

inlet to fill in the airfield (bottom).
272 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

fighter planes, and a skeleton movement of Army troops to Tanaga at the

time of the Adak landing to deceive the enemy. The theater commanders

considered the Tanaga suggestion impracticable, but the Atka occupation

was carried out by an Army force of 800 men on 16 September.50

In the meantime, preliminary reconnaissance landings on Adak on 26 and

27 August had failed to discover any enemy forces on the island, and three

days later an Army force of about 4,500 began to come ashore. The fortuitous

discovery that a tidal basin near the landing area could be used as an airfield

site solved anticipated construction problems on that score. Army engineers

installed an ingenious drainage system which with fills provided a usable

airfield in less than two weeks, instead of the two or three months that had

been forecast. The Army planned to increase the Adak garrison to more than

10,000 men by mid-October, and thus to make it the strongest as well as the

most advanced of the Alaskan bases.51

A few days after the Adak landing General DeWitt ordered the Alaska

Defense Command to send an Army detachment to St. Paul and St. George

Islands in the Pribilofs, from which the native population had been evacuated

in June. A Joint Chiefs directive of 6 September confirmed this move, which

in transmission crossed a vigorous message of protest from Admiral Theobald. At his insistence the operation was briefly deferred, an Army force of

800 finally landing on St. Paul on 19 September, where it was housed in the

abandoned civilian dwellings and where it built a fighter strip that was

ready for use by the end of October.52

The new base at Adak soon proved its worth. On 14 September a force

of twelve B-24 heavy bombers accompanied by twenty-eight fighters from

Adak delivered a strong attack on Kiska. The planes encountered intense

fire from Japanese antiaircraft guns whose numbers had been increased by

the withdrawal of antiaircraft forces from Attu only four days before.

Nevertheless, the attack was highly successful. While fighters of the 42d

and 54th Squadrons strafed installations, shelled three small submarines, and

left a large four-motor flying boat burning in the harbor, the B-24's were

50

 Rads, COMINCH to CINCPAC, 5 and 22 Aug 42, both in WDC-ADC 384-7, vol. IV,

contain the JCS Dirs on Tanaga and Adak; Rad, CTF 8 to CINCPAC, 15 Aug 42, WDCSA

42-43 Alaska; Memo, COMINCH for CofS, 18 Aug 42, OPD Exec 10, item 67a; Ltr, Gen

DeWitt to Gen Marshall, 7 Sep 42, WDCSA 42-43 WDC; Official Hist of the Alaskan Dept,

ch. XXI. 51

 Rad 3616, CG WDC to CofS, 8 Sep 42, WDC-ADC 384-7, vol. IV; OPD interoffice

Memo, 9 Sep 42, OPD 381 Alaska, sec. I. 52

 OPD Diary, 4 Sep 42; Memo, CofS for OPD, 8 Sep 42, and attachments, OPD Exec 10,

item 67b; Official Hist of the Alaskan Dept, chs. III, XXI.
ALASKA IN THE WAR, 1942 273

chalking up hits on enemy shipping and on base installations. Two mine

sweepers and three cargo vessels were considered sunk or badly damaged,

several other seaplanes were destroyed, and fires set on shore. Losses among

the attackers were limited to two P-38 fighters that collided in midair while

chasing the same enemy fighter. Then a long spell of bad weather intervened.

The attack was resumed on 25 September, when a combined United StatesCanadian force struck another hard blow against Kiska. Nearly every day

for the next three weeks, and sometimes twice a day, American and Canadian

planes shot up the Japanese installations or bombed shipping in Kiska Harbor.

During September slightly more than 116 tons of bombs were dropped on

the enemy, almost twice as much as in the entire period up to 1 September;

and in the following month, October, 200 tons of bombs were dropped. On

14 October a particularly strong formation exploded a supply dump on Kiska

and started large fires in the Japanese camp area. Two days later a flight of

six medium bombers sank one Japanese destroyer and damaged another.

Then, beginning in November, bad weather and the withdrawal of heavy

bombers from action restricted air operations until February to reconnaissance

and occasional bombings.53

The repeated bombings of Kiska during the summer had persuaded the

enemy that the Americans aimed to recapture it, and in order to strengthen

Kiska the Japanese on 24 August put all of their Aleutian forces under naval

command and ordered the Army garrison on Attu to move to Kiska. The

movement was completed by 16 September, after destruction of the defense

installations so laboriously undertaken on Attu. Following a second reorganization of the enemy's North Pacific forces in late October, the Japanese Army

increased its garrison in the Kuril Islands and reoccupied Attu. By early

November enemy forces on Kiska numbered about 4,000 and those on Attu

about 1,000. The Japanese counted on darkness and the weather to protect

them from any serious American attack before the following March, and in

the meantime they hoped to complete airfields for land-based planes on

Kiska and on Shemya Island near Attu, something they were never able to

do. Throughout the Aleutian Campaign the Japanese had to depend either on

carriers, which made their last visit in July 1942, or on planes that could be

floated; and weak air attacks on Adak during October did little more than

illustrate the ineffectiveness of enemy air power. The Japanese also hoped to

occupy Amchitka Island, about eighty miles southeast of Kiska, to bar another

53

 Craven and Cate, eds., The Pacific—Guadalcanal to Saipan, pp. 370-71; Official Hist of the

Alaskan Dept, app. B, Summary of Air Operations; OPD Diary, Sep-Oct 42; The Aleutians

Campaign (Washington, 1945) (ONI Combat Narrative), pp. 18-22.
274 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

American move westward. While enemy orders referred to Kiska as "the

key position on the northern attacking route against the United States in the

future," it is fairly evident that the Japanese had no such design and were

attempting only to block the American advance.54

United States Army and Navy leaders were in agreement by October that

the only satisfactory solution of the Aleutian situation would be to launch

an amphibious assault on Kiska. They assumed that the core of the assault

force would have to be an infantry division or its equivalent and that this

division would need at least three months of special training. The division

and its supporting forces could not be made ready for the operation before

March 1943 at the earliest, and in any event the Aleutian environment during

the intervening months would be at its worst. These considerations, coupled

with a crisis in the Guadalcanal operation in the South Pacific, led in November to the stripping of Task Force 8, and it would not be able to command

and cover an assault on Kiska until its strength was restored. In the meantime,

the most the Army and Navy could do in the Aleutians would be to expand

and strengthen their forward bases.55

As soon as the airfield on Adak was in operation, General Buckner and

Admiral Theobald began preparations for the occupation of Tanaga, which

they planned to do by the end of October.56 As originally conceived, this was

to be a defensive measure intended to thwart a Japanese move in the direction

of Adak. For the purpose of supporting an assault on Kiska, Tanaga offered

no particular advantage over Adak.

In Washington Army and Navy planners since August had been considering an occupation of Amchitka, and at the War Department's suggestion a

reconnaissance of Amchitka was carried out at the end of September to

determine how long it would take to construct an airfield there. The reconnaissance indicated that the construction would be difficult, and therefore

General DeWitt strongly objected when General Marshall asked him

whether Amchitka could be substituted for Tanaga, especially since the

Chief of Staff in the same message warned that Alaskan naval strength

might be drastically reduced in the near future. When General Marshall

54

 The quotation is from a paraphrase of the Army Imperial GHQ order of 25 Aug 42 (24

August, Alaskan dating), in Japanese Monograph No. 46. This monograph, and Nos. 45 and 88,

are the principal sources for the above summary. 55

 Memo, Adm King for CofS, 12 Oct 42, OPD Exec 10, item 67b; Ltr, Gen Marshall to

COMINCH, 17 Oct 42, WDCSA 42-43 Alaska; Morison, Aleutians, Gilberts and Marshalls,

pp. 14-15. 56

 Memo, OPD for CofS, 28 Sep 42, OPD 381 Alaska, sec I; Memo, Gen Marshall for Adm

King, 1 Oct 42, WDCSA 42-43 Alaska.
ALASKA IN THE WAR, 1942 275

repeated the Amchitka proposal at the end of October, General DeWitt

postponed the Tanaga operation, which was to have started on 1 November,

and directed General Buckner to arrange with Admiral Theobald for a new

survey of Amchitka. The appointed survey party remained at Fort Glenn for

more than a month, with General DeWitt's concurrence, because Admiral

Theobald thought its transport by Navy plane to Amchitka too risky in view

of the increased enemy strength on Kiska and enemy patrol activity in its

vicinity.57

Then, on 13 December, General DeWitt discussed the situation in the

Aleutians with Rear Adm. Thomas C. Kinkaid, who was on his way to

Alaska to relieve Admiral Theobald as commander of Task Force 8. Admiral Kinkaid, who had recently commanded a carrier group in the Solomons,

was fully acquainted with Japanese capabilities as well as the course of the

war in the South Pacific. Having been briefed by Admiral Nimitz on the

Aleutians, he had reached the conclusion that an airfield had to be built on

Amchitka to prevent the Japanese from building one there. In a discussion

with Admiral Kinkaid, General DeWitt agreed to call off the occupation

of Tanaga and to substitute the Amchitka operation. Admiral King, who was

also in San Francisco conferring with Admiral Nimitz, immediately concurred. The reports from San Francisco led to the prompt dispatch of the

Amchitka reconnaissance party, which visited the island on 17-19 December.58

On his return to Washington Admiral King submitted the draft of a

joint directive to General Marshall, calling not only for the occupation of

Amchitka immediately if the new survey proved to be favorable, but also

for the selection of Army forces for the Kiska assault and initiation of their

training. General Marshall agreed, on condition that the reconnaissance of

Amchitka indicated that an airfield could be built there within a reasonable

time and provided, further, that no definite target date was set for the invasion of Kiska. These conditions were acceptable to Admiral King, and on

18 December the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a directive to this effect. Two

days later General DeWitt reported that the reconnaissance party had returned with news that a fighter strip could be built on Amchitka in two or

three weeks and a main airfield with a 5,000-foot runway in three or four

57

 Memo, CofS for SW, 12 Jan 43, WDCSA 42-43 Alaska (a review of the proposals and

actions leading up to the occupation of Amchitka); Rad 2062, CofS to Gen DeWitt, 15 Oct 42,

WDCSA 42-43 Alaska; Rad, Gen DeWitt to Gen Marshall, 17 Oct 42, OPD Exec 10, item 67b;

Rad, CG WDC to CG ADC, 1 Nov 42, ADC 381 Def Plans, bk. 5. 58

 Rad 223, CG WDC to CofS, 18 Dec 42, OPD Log File; Memo, CofS for SW, 12 Jan 43,

WDCSA 42-43 Alaska.
276 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

months. He assumed, therefore, that, in accordance with the joint directive,

the Amchitka landing should be made as soon as possible.59

Bad weather frustrated the first attempt to land troops on Amchitka on

9 January 1943, but during the night of 11 January a small security detachment was put ashore from the destroyer Worden. The next morning a combat team of nearly 2,000 men, under the command of Brig. Gen. Lloyd E.

Jones, disembarked without opposition. The only enemies were the weather, the unpredictable current, and the rock-studded waters through which

the landing was made. The Worden, after landing the security party, ran

onto a rock pinnacle and sank with the loss of fourteen men. The first night

the main body of troops were on shore a gale blew up that smashed a considerable number of the landing boats and swept the transport Arthur Middleton aground. The second day brought a blizzard. And so it went for almost two weeks. When the weather cleared, the Japanese discovered what

was happening on Amchitka. Beginning on 24 January, Japanese planes

made a number of light bombing and strafing attacks on the island but

failed to halt work on an airfield. By 16 February, the fighter strip was

ready for limited operation. On that day eight P-40's arrived on Amchitka,

and within a week they were running patrols over Kiska.60

The stage was now set for the next phase of operations, amphibious attacks to eject the Japanese from their Aleutian footholds.

59

 Memo, Adm King for CofS, 15 Dec 42; Memo, Gen Marshall for Adm King, 16 Dec 42;

and Memo, CofS for SW, 12 Jan 43. All in WDCSA 42-43 Alaska. Rad 244, CG WDC to CofS,

20 Dec 42, OPD Log File. 60

 Official Hist of the Alaskan Dept, ch. III; Morison, Aleutians, Gilberts and Marshalls, p. 18;

Craven and Cate, eds., The Pacific—Guadalcanal to Saipan, pp. 374-76.
CHAPTER XI

Clearing the Aleutians

As soon as the decision to occupy Amchitka was taken in December

1942, preliminary planning to drive the Japanese out of the Aleutians was

set in motion. Initially Kiska, the nearer, more strongly fortified of the

enemy-held islands, and offering a more satisfactory harbor and better airfield sites, was the objective of the counterassault. As a starting point, General DeWitt proposed to organize and train a task force built around one

infantry division and totaling 25,000 men. For commander and assistant

commander he recommended Maj. Gen. Charles H. Corlett and Brig. Gen.

Eugene M. Landrum, both of whom had participated in joint amphibious

exercises and were familiar with conditions in the Aleutians. Although

Admiral Nimitz, estimating Japanese strength on Kiska at 10,000 men,

suggested that two divisions might be required, the War Department concurred in the outline plan presented by General DeWitt. In place of the

35th Division, originally recommended, the War Department proposed, and

General DeWitt agreed, to employ the 7th Division, since it was in a better state of training and readiness, was scheduled for early "demotorization" and could be brought up to full strength more readily, was stationed

near Fort Ord, where the amphibious training was to be conducted, and was

more ably led and staffed.1

A joint Army-Navy planning staff was set up at San Diego under Rear

Adm. Francis W. Rockwell, commander of the Amphibious Force, North

Pacific, who was designated to command the assault force for the actual

operation. Maj. Gen. Albert E. Brown, commanding general of the 7th

Division, was named commander of the landing force. While Admiral

Rockwell and a group of officers from the Western Defense Command were

making plans, with the help of several Alaskan experts from General

Buckner's headquarters, General Brown was leading his troops through the

1

 Rad, Gen DeWitt to Gen Marshall, 18 Dec 42; Rad, DeWitt to Marshall, 19 Dec 42; Rad,

Marshall to DeWitt, 21 Dec 42; Rad, DeWitt to Marshall, 21 Dec 42. All in OPD Log File,

Dec 42. Rad, Marshall to DeWitt, 23 Dec 42, OPD 381 Alaska/52; unsigned Memo for Rcd,

20 Dec 42, sub: Offensive Operations in Aleutians, OPD 381 ADC (12-20-42).
278 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

amphibious training course directed by Maj. Gen. Holland M. Smith, USMC.

By the beginning of February the forces training at Fort Ord for the descent

on Kiska included, in addition to the 7th Division, the 184th Infantry Regiment, the 78th Coast Artillery (AA) (less one battalion), and the 2d Battalion, 501st Coast Artillery (AA).2

Meanwhile, in the Aleutians the Eleventh Air Force had been sending

its planes over Kiska whenever the weather permitted, which in December

and January was not often. Fog and foul weather held the planes to the

ground during most of January, and the few missions that were flown

proved more costly to the Eleventh Air Force than damaging to the enemy.

Only about 101⁄2 tons of bombs were dropped—the lightest since the beginning of the air assault—and at least ten planes were lost, none of them by

enemy action. Partly because the weather improved, and partly because P-38

and P-40 fighter-bombers were now based on Amchitka, February and

March were much better months. In February Army planes attacked Kiska

on nine separate days, flying twenty-four missions (not including twenty

weather and reconnaissance missions), and dropping about 150 tons of

bombs. The attacks continued with equal vigor and intensity during March.3

There was, to be sure, no comparison between the air assault on Kiska and

the huge raids taking place against German-occupied Europe, but it is to be

noted that in the South Pacific the Allied air forces loosed 197 tons of bombs

on Rabaul during the month of December.

On 26 March a solid opportunity came to the Eleventh Air Force to

strike a major blow, when a naval task group cruising off the Komandorski

Islands under Rear Adm. Charles H. McMorris intercepted a strong Japanese

force that was attempting to run reinforcements into Kiska and Attu. But the

opportunity was lost. When Admiral McMorris' report of contact reached

Adak, the bombers loaded with antipersonnel bombs were poised for an

attack on Kiska. Although General Butler estimated that it would take at

least an hour or so to unload the light bombs and replace them with heavy,

armor-piercing ones, it seemed logical to accept the delay and make the

change.4 Admiral Kinkaid therefore sent a message to McMorris suggesting

that he fight a retiring action to the eastward in order to get under cover of

2

 Capt Nelson L. Drummond, The Attu Operation (2 vols.), I, 30, MS in OCMH. Drummond,

a historical officer, prepared this account from official records and interviews with participants. 3

 Craven and Cate, eds., The Pacific—Guadalcanal to Saipan, pp. 375-76; Official Hist of the

Alaskan Dept, app. B, Summary of Air Operations; Navy Dept Communiques for Jan and Feb 43,

in G-2 Study on Aleutians, by Maj G. Dorrance, copy in OCMH. 4

 Ltr, Adm Kinkaid to Actg Chief of Military History, 11 Apr 59, OCMH files.
CLEARING THE ALEUTIANS 279

the bombers, but McMorris at that point was completely cut off by an enemy

force twice the strength of his own. Furthermore, the shift of bomb loads

took much longer than anticipated, and by the time the planes were ready

a snow storm had closed in the field. When they finally took to the air,

they were unable to reach the scene of action before the Japanese had retreated beyond range. Although Admiral McMorris succeeded in thwarting

the enemy attempt at reinforcement, the support of Army bombers might

have enabled him to turn the engagement, brilliant as it was, into an unmistakable disaster for the Japanese.5

Attu Retaken

By this time the plans and preparations in motion on the west coast had

been given a new objective. Realizing that not enough shipping would be

available for the Kiska operation, Admiral Kinkaid had recommended early

in March that Attu be substituted as the target, for, in comparison with

Kiska, Attu appeared to be weakly defended. Estimates based on air photographs placed the Japanese strength on Attu at only 500 men, of which

three rifle companies constituted the effective tactical strength, the remainder being antiaircraft and labor troops. Instead of the reinforced division

called for in the Kiska plans, one infantry regiment plus the 7th Division's

mountain artillery was considered by Admiral Kinkaid and General Buckner as probably sufficient for the capture of Attu. Only four attack transports (APA's) and two or three cargo ships (AKA's) would be required.6

Also in capturing Attu and with an airfield in operation there, American

forces would be astride the Japanese line of communications between the

home islands and Kiska. The latter, cut off from supply and reinforcements,

would "wither on the vine." On 10 March Admiral King notified Admiral

Nimitz and General DeWitt that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had approved the

projected change of plan, provided the operation could be carried out with

only those means that Admiral Nimitz could spare and those already on

hand for the assault on Kiska, which was now deferred. The approval of the

Joint Chiefs, Admiral King made clear, extended only to planning and

training; it was not to be considered as a directive to execute the operation.7

This would hinge upon the outcome of the discussions on Pacific strategy

5

 See Morison, Aleutians, Gilberts and Marshalls, ch. II. 6

 Rad, CTF 8 to CINCPAC, 7 Mar 43, OPD 381/39. ONI Combat Narrative, Aleutians Campaign, pp. 69-70. 7

 Rad, COMINCH to CINCPAC and CG WDC, 10 Mar 43, OPD 381/39.
280 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

about to begin in Washington. When the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 21 March

agreed to postpone any major offensive in the South Pacific, the way was

cleared for the reduction of Attu. Information received by the Navy that

the Japanese were establishing an airfield on Attu offered an additional

reason for putting the plans into execution. Therefore, on 22 March, General Marshall and Admiral King decided that the operation should proceed

"as soon as practicable."

 8 The shift of objective did not upset the training

program or make an appreciable difference in the preliminary planning

activity of Admiral Rockwell's joint staff in San Diego. A new estimate of

the situation, including a study of the shipping that would be available and

the forces required, was necessary. This was prepared by the joint planning

staff; and, after the decision to go ahead with the operation was reached,

General Brown's staff, in co-operation with Admiral Rockwell's joint planners, began drawing up the detailed tactical plans.9

Seldom has an operation been planned with less knowledge of the

conditions the troops would have to face. From Cape Wrangell in the west

to Chirikof Point in the east, the fog-surrounded island of Attu is about

forty statute miles in length. Its greatest width is about twenty miles. At

the head of the deep coastal indentations lie narrow beaches, from which

small, snow-fed streams lead back into the jumbled, barren mountain-mass

of the interior, a desolate region of twisted, precipitous crags, whose snowcapped peaks mount upwards to heights of two and three thousand feet.

The valley floors are carpeted with tundra: the black muck, covered with a

dense growth of lichens and moss, which is characteristic of the far North.

On the northern mainland, in Alaska and northern Canada, the tundra is

frozen solid during most of the year; but in the outermost Aleutians the

Japan Current has a moderating effect on temperatures and much of the

time the tundra is barely firm enough for a man to cross it on foot. The same

Japan Current accounts for the pea-soup fogs, the constant pervading wetness, and the frequent storms that help to make the outer Aleutians so in8

 Memo, Adm King for CofS, 22 Mar 43, with proposed dir COMINCH to CINCPAC, and

Memo, OPD for COMINCH, 22 Mar 43, OPD 381/54. For accounts of the Pacific Military Conf

in Washington, see Maurice Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1943-1944,

UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1959), pp. 91-99, and, in the

same series, John Miller, jr., CARTWHEEL: The Reduction of Rabaul (Washington, 1959),

ch. II. 9

 Lt Col Lynn D. Smith, Asst ACofS, G-3, WDC and Fourth Army, Preliminary Report on

Attu Landing, 30 May 43, OCMH. First Information and Hist Service, G-2 Hist Subsec, The

Attu Operations, p. 7, Monograph, OCMH. This account, The Attu Operations, was prepared by

General Brown in late 1943 and edited by him in Feb 1946. It should not be confused with

Drummond's narrative bearing a similar title.
CLEARING THE ALEUTIANS 281

hospitable. To the soldiers who had to fight not only the Japanese but the

weather and terrain of the island, it must have seemed that the Creator of

the universe was an unskilled apprentice when He brought Attu into existence.

The eastern end of Attu, indented by four bays, is roughly shaped in the

form of a trefoil: the northern lobe lies between Holtz Bay and Sarana Bay;

the elongated midsection, terminating in Chirikof Point, is shaped by

Sarana and Massacre Bays; and the southern lobe lies between Massacre Bay

and Temnac Cove. (Map III) From Holtz Bay in the north and Temnac

Cove in the south, steep-walled valleys run back in a generally westward

direction until they disappear in the mountainous maze of the interior. The

Massacre Bay valley, about a mile and a quarter wide at the beach, is soon

divided into two by a hogback, which, although rather steep on the sides,

slopes gradually along its length to an elevation of about 550 feet at the

upper end. At Holtz Bay, likewise, a ridge divides the valley into two; but

here the central ridge projects into the bay for a distance of nearly a mile,

and its highest, steepest sides face the water. About a mile and a half up the

west arm of the valley a low pass crosses this ridge into the eastern Holtz

Bay valley, from which, at this point, over a 600-foot saddle, it is possible

to cross into the head of West Massacre Valley. A slightly lower saddle

separates the head of East Massacre Valley from the valley leading out of

Sarana Bay.10

Only the bare details of the topography were known to those planning

the assault. The only available map of Attu was a Coast and Geodetic Survey chart showing the terrain back to approximately one thousand yards from

the shore line, and warning all shipping not to approach closer than two and

one-half to three miles. Very little was known about the harbors. Oblique

aerial photographs filled in a few gaps, but, because of the prevailing fog,

the coverage was far from complete. A terrain model was constructed of

the eastern portion of the island, east of a line running from Temnac Cove

to the ridge north and west of Holtz Bay, but the model did not clearly delineate the key passes or the areas behind Henderson Ridge (the southwestern wall of Massacre Valley) and in the interior, west of Holtz Bay.11

The American planning staff had only scant information concerning the

Japanese defenses. During late fall and early winter the Attu garrison had

10

 The following maps of Attu have been used: AMSQ 831, Type C (AMS-2) 1947, Scale

1:25,000; and AMSQ 501, First Edition 1953, Scale 1:250,000. 11

 Drummond, Attu Operation, I, 43-44; Smith, Preliminary Rpt on Attu Landing, p. 2.

282 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

been gradually reinforced. A redeployment of naval forces ordered by

Admiral Kinkaid shortly after he took command and the subsequent battle

off the Komandorskis put an end to the process, but in the meantime the

Japanese strength had been increased to a total of approximately 2,400 men.

The nucleus of combat troops included about one and a half battalions of

infantry, three antiaircraft batteries armed with 75-mm. dual-purpose guns

and lighter weapons, and two platoons of a mountain gun battery armed

with 75-mm. pack howitzers. In addition to medical and other service detachments there were several engineer units whose primary mission was to

construct an airfield at the head of the East Arm of Holtz Bay. The whole

force was commanded by Col. Yasuyo Yamazaki, with headquarters at

Chichagof Harbor, a small bay midway between Holtz and Sarana Bays.

The bulk of the garrison was concentrated in the vicinity of Holtz Bay and

around Chichagof Harbor, where the strongest positions had been installed.

One of the antiaircraft batteries, consisting of four guns, commanded the

West Arm of Holtz Bay; another was placed at the head of the East Arm

of the bay; and the third was part of the Chichagof Harbor defenses. The

pass between Holtz Bay and Massacre Valley was guarded by the mountain

artillery, one platoon of which was in position to enfilade Massacre Valley

itself. Along the ridges flanking Massacre Valley and overlooking Sarana

Bay the Japanese had built machine gun and mortar positions.12 The plans

being developed in California took note of the fact that Holtz Bay and

Chichagof Harbor were the most heavily defended of the possible landing

places. Reconnaissance planes had noted signs of Japanese activity in the

vicinity of Temnac Cove, Sarana Bay, and at the head of Massacre Valley,

but it was almost impossible to spot the cleverly concealed emplacements

along the ridges. Additional details kept coming to light with the result

that the original estimate of Japanese strength was progressively raised. By

the time General Brown and his staff had completed the operational planning, it was estimated that the enemy garrison amounted to something

between 1,600 and 1,800 men, of whom one battalion or its equivalent was

composed of infantry and troops available for infantry service. Aerial photographs received from the planning staffs in early April indicated that a number of Japanese positions existed in the lower part of Massacre Valley commanding the beaches and the bay, but, because there was no sign that these

12

 Drummond, Attu Operation, I, 8-9, 12-15; Japanese Monograph 46, pp. 111 ff., and Map

3, Disposition of Troops (Japanese) on Attu.
CLEARING THE ALEUTIANS 283

positions were occupied, the assumption was that they had been built and

abandoned the year before.13

As soon as it was clear that the Japanese garrison exceeded the first

estimate of 500 men, General Brown's landing force was increased by an

additional battalion combat team. Thus, for the initial attack, the following

troops would be available: one regimental combat team built around the

17th Infantry and a field artillery battalion; one battalion combat team from

the 32d Infantry and including a battery of field artillery; the 7th Division

Reconnaissance Troop; one battalion of antiaircraft artillery; and one battalion of combat engineers. The remainder of the 32d Infantry, with reinforcements similar to those of the 17th Infantry combat team, was to be

held at Adak as a floating reserve and was expected to be available at Attu

on D plus 1. The total strength of the assault force and floating reserve

amounted to approximately 11,000 men.14 Admiral Kinkaid, as commander,

North Pacific, was in command of the entire operation. Under his direct

command were the shore-based air group, the naval escort, cover, supply,

and service groups, the floating Army reserve, and a force consisting of the

4th Infantry and one engineer regiment which, after Attu had been taken,

was to occupy Shemya Island and construct an airfield there. Under the direct

command of Admiral Rockwell was the assault force, which consisted of

the naval air and fire support group, the transport group, a mine sweeper

group, and the landing force under General Brown, who was to assume tactical command ashore from the time of landing.15

The lack of information on topography and offshore hazards made it

necessary to prepare several optional plans. By the time the main assault

force sailed from San Francisco on 24 April five different plans of operation

had been worked out. Under Plan A the major landing was to take place in

Massacre Bay and a secondary one was to be made at a small beach (Beach

Red) 600 yards west of the entrance to Holtz Bay. Under Plan B the major

assault was to be launched from Sarana Bay. Plan C was based on landing

the entire force in Massacre Bay. In Plan D as in Plans A and B, two landings were to take place: the major one in the West Arm of Holtz Bay and

the other at Beach Red. Plan E provided for three landings: one at either

13

 Hq Landing Force (TF 51.4) FO 1, 17 Apr 43, with Intelligence an. 3 and app. 1 to an. 3,

(Study of JACKBOOT as known 15 April 1943). 14

 Rad, CINCPAC to CG WDC and COMINCH, 25 Mar 43, OPD 381/54; Attu Operations

(Gen Brown's account), p. 9; ONI Combat Narrative, Aleutians Campaign, p. 76. 15

 Morison, Aleutians, Gilberts and Marshalls, app. I; Ltr, Adm Nimitz to Gen DeWitt, 22

Mar 43, OCMH files.
284 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Beach Red or the West Arm of Holtz Bay, another in Massacre Bay, and

a third in Sarana Bay.16 Final decision as to which plan to adopt was postponed until the arrival of the force at its rendezvous at Cold Bay, where it

was hoped more reliable information as to navigable waters could be obtained from Aleutian pilots. Admiral Rockwell was inclined to view Plans

B and D with disfavor, and General Brown preferred not to depend on a

single effort, as in plan C.17 At Cold Bay, a revised Plan E was, after considerable discussion and study, adopted as the plan of attack. Sarana Bay

was ruled out entirely. The major landing was to take place at Massacre Bay,

and a landing on the north side of the island was to be made wherever it

proved most feasible by a reconnaissance on the morning of D-day. The

main force, landing at Massacre Bay, was to "advance rapidly" up the valley, seize the passes leading to Holtz and Sarana Bays, and then move into

the Holtz Bay area where it was to join the northern force in destroying the

enemy in that vicinity. As soon as this had been done, the main force was

to advance against Chichagof Harbor, while the northern force secured the

valley running west from Holtz Bay.18 The assumption apparently continued

to be that not more than three days would be required to take the island.19

Delayed twenty-four hours because of weather, the attack force headed

out of Cold Bay on 4 May and turned westward through chill rain and a

stormy sea toward Attu. D-day was set for 8 May. As the force drew near

the run-in point 115 miles off the north shore of Attu, the weather grew

even worse. Admiral Kinkaid ordered Admiral Rockwell to postpone the

landing a day. While Admiral Rockwell took his battleships off to the west

on the strength of a rumor that a strong Japanese force was approaching

from that direction, the transports and a destroyer screen circled eastward in

the dense fog, rain, and rough seas. With the weather continuing foul and

reconnaissance planes reporting that a heavy surf was running on the landing beaches, Admiral Kinkaid again postponed D-day. Finally, as there

16

 Hq Landing Force, FO No. 1, 17 Apr 43, incorporates all five plans. The plan E included

in the field orders is, however, a later, although not the final version. The original Plan E, to

judge from its Engineer Annex, dated 17 April, was in general as given above. 17

 Memo, Adm Rockwell for Gen Brown, 29 Apr 43, sub: FO 1, in OCMH files; undated

summary of the operation by General Brown in same file; Attu Operations (Gen Brown's account),

pp. 16-17. 18

 Hq Landing Force (TF 51.4), FO 1, Plan E (corrected copy), 2 May 43; and G-3 Journal

Vouchers, 16 Apr-10 May 43. The Journal Voucher file was the daily message and memoranda

file, usually designated "journal file" as distinct from the bare record of incoming and outgoing

messages and memorandums usually designated the "journal," but which in the case of TF 51.4

was termed the "journal file." 19

 Attu Operations (Gen Brown's account), p. 8.
CLEARING THE ALEUTIANS 285

seemed to be no prospect of the weather clearing, he ordered the attack to

proceed, on 11 May. In the midst of the fog the battleships made rendezvous with the transports on the evening of 10 May, and the force split into

two groups for the approach.20 General Brown, who had his headquarters

on board the transport Zeilin, accompanied the group heading for Massacre

Bay. Admiral Rockwell, in Pennsylvania, remained off the northern coast.21

The weather had helped to frustrate plans of the Eleventh Air Force for

softening up Attu before the assault. The Army had concentrated about two

dozen of its most efficient fighter-bombers on Amchitka for preinvasion

bombings of the island, and during the ten days preceding the landings

Army planes dropped 95 tons of bombs on Attu. But the foul weather that

forced the postponement of the landings for four days stopped all attack

missions against Attu during the same period, and also most of the more

elaborate air support measures planned for D-day.22

The assault opened according to plan, quietly, like a commando raid,

when the 7th Scout Company paddled ashore from submarines in the predawn darkness on a small beach (Beach Scarlet) about four miles northwest

of Beach Red, on the north shore of the island. This unit, the 7th Scout

Company, was part of a Provisional Battalion commanded by Capt. William H. Willoughby, the remainder of which consisted of the 7th Division's

Reconnaissance Troop (minus one platoon). The Reconnaissance Troop, on

board the destroyer Kane, was scheduled to follow the Scout Company

ashore immediately, but a blanket of fog had again descended on the entire eastern end of the island and the Kane lost its bearing. As a result, the

Reconnaissance Troop did not land until nearly noon. By then, the Scout

Company had moved well up a steep valley that led south from the beach.

At the head of the valley was a pass which gave access to one of the valleys

leading back from Holtz Bay, and from which it was hoped the Scout

20

 Hq TF 51.4, G-3 Journal Vouchers, 16 Apr-10 May 43 (entries for 4-10 May); Morison,

Aleutians, Gilberts and Marshalls, pp. 40-41; ONI Combat Narrative, Aleutians Campaign,

pp. 76-77. 21

 Experience during the North African landings, six months earlier, had demonstrated the illadvisedness of establishing force headquarters on a vessel that might be called away on tactical

missions. (See Morison, Operations in North African Waters, pp. 104-105.) Before leaving San

Francisco, Admiral Rockwell had urged General Brown to establish himself aboard the battleship

Pennsylvania, but General Brown had rightly insisted that to do so might prevent him from going

ashore at the proper time, if for any reason the battleship had to leave the actual scene of landing.

One solution, adopted at Guadalcanal, was to establish force headquarters on a transport. The

Zeilin, however, according to Admiral Rockwell, was not large enough to accommodate both

headquarters. Later a special class of amphibious command ships (AGC), designed before the

war but not yet in service in 1943, was used for this very purpose. 22

 Craven and Cate, eds., The Pacific—Guadalcanal to Saipan, pp. 380-83.
ATTU LANDINGS. Massacre Bay, as the 4th Infantry moved inland (top). The west

arm of Holtz Bay viewed from the ridge over which the troops advanced (bottom). Note

crashed Japanese Zero.
CLEARING THE ALEUTIANS 287

Company could attack the enemy in the rear. Meanwhile a reconnaissance

party of Alaskan Scouts and Company A, 17th Infantry, had groped its way

through the pea-soup fog to a landing on Beach Red. Its mission was to explore the feasibility of using this beach to land the entire northern force, a

combat team (BCT 17-1) built around the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry.

Two obstacles presented themselves: a rock-studded approach that prevented more than two or three boats from unloading at one time; and a

steep escarpment that began about 75 yards from the water's edge and rose

to a height of 200 or 250 feet above the beach. From the top of this bluff, a

fairly level, but broken, tableland stretched south along the coast to the

heights overlooking Holtz Bay. The Navy beachmaster and Col. Frank L.

Cullin, commanding officer of the 32d Infantry who had gone ashore with the

reconnaissance party, reported that a landing on Beach Red was feasible, and

at 1230 Lt. Col. Albert E. Hartl, commanding officer of BCT 17-1, requested General Brown's permission to land the rest of his troops. On board

the Zeilin off Massacre Bay, General Brown had been waiting impatiently

for the fog to lift enough to permit the main landings to take place. The

first assault waves had been on the water since shortly after 0800, awaiting

better visibility and a signal to proceed, while H-hour was twice postponed.

Finally, at about the same time that he received Colonel Hartl's request,

General Brown received a message from Admiral Rockwell advising him

that, since the weather now promised to improve, the boats should be sent

off as soon as they could feel their way into Massacre Bay. When General

Brown was assured that the landing craft could return to the transports for

a second trip, he recommended that the Massacre Bay assault begin at 1530

and that Colonel Hartl land his force on Beach Red as soon as he was ready.

At 1615, Company B, 17th Infantry, set foot on Beach Red. Minutes later,

advance elements of the 2d and 3d Battalions, 17th Infantry, landed on

Beaches Blue and Yellow, in Massacre Bay.23

No enemy opposition was encountered at any of the landing beaches.

The fog, which hampered the landings, likewise concealed them from the

enemy. For several weeks the Japanese had known that an attack on their

Aleutian outposts was in the offing, although until the end of April they

thought Kiska would be the target. Their first intimation of the American

approach to Attu came at 0200 on 11 May, when planes from the carrier

23

 The foregoing is based on messages recorded in Hq TF 51.4, G-3 Journal File, and G-3

Journal Vouchers (entries for 11 May); on Smith, Preliminary Rpt on Attu Landing, pp. 6-7;

ONI Combat Narrative, Aleutians Campaign, pp. 79-81; Attu Operations (Gen Brown's account),

p. 20.
288 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Nassau combined a bombing and strafing run over Chichagof Harbor with

the dropping of leaflets demanding surrender. At 1000, Colonel Yamazaki

was informed of American shipping offshore and he ordered combat positions strengthened. Shortly thereafter, battleships Pennsylvania and Idaho

engaged in a radar-controlled bombardment of the Chichagof area. The

enemy responded by strengthening the defensive positions that guarded the

passes leading out of Massacre Valley.24

By 2130, five hours after the main landings commenced, a total of 3,500

men had gone ashore; 400 at Beach Scarlet, 1,100 at Beach Red, and 2,000

at Massacre Bay. The Northern Landing Force, BCT 17-1, had made contact with the enemy at about 1800, when a patrol party that was moving

along the beach at the foot of the escarpment encountered four unsuspecting

Japanese about a mile southwest of Goltsov Point. Two of the Japanese

were killed; the other two escaped. Soon afterward the beach patrol came

under the fire of the dual-purpose guns at the head of Holtz Bay, and its

advance slowed. The main body of BCT 17-1, on the tableland above the

escarpment, had continued on apparently undetected. Its objective was Hill

X, an 800-foot camel back about two miles south of Beach Red, which

dominated the Japanese positions at the head of Holtz Bay. By 2230 the

gathering darkness merged with the thick fog to disguise the lay of the land

completely. BCT 17-1 dug in for the night, not quite sure where it was, but

hoping that the hill on which its outpost positions were placed was Hill X.25

The Provisional Battalion, which had landed on Beach Scarlet, had been

climbing most of the day up a steep watercourse. By midafternoon the advance unit, the 7th Scout Company, had reached an elevation of nearly 2,500

feet, at what appeared to be the summit of the pass. But from here on the

only maps the men had were blank. Rather than risk getting thoroughly

lost in the uncharted jumble of peaks, ridges, and canyons that lay beyond,

Captain Willoughby ordered his men to bivouac for the night.26

The Southern Landing Force, advancing in Massacre Valley, had come

under enemy fire shortly after 1800. BCT 17-2, which was moving up along

24

 Japanese Monograph 46, pp. 111-18; Morison, Aleutians, Gilberts and Marshalls, p. 43. 25

 BCT 17-1, Unit Journal for 11 May; Smith, Preliminary Rpt on Attu Landing, pp. 6-7;

ONI Combat Narrative, Aleutians Campaign, p. 81. The Smith report places the first encounter

with the Japanese at 1900, which does not quite correspond with the unit journal. 26

 Maj Gen Eugene M. Landrum, CG Landing Force, Rpt of Operations—Attu, 22 Jun 43,

pp. 3-4; ONI Combat Narrative, Aleutians Campaign, pp. 78-79; Drummond, Attu Operation,

I) pp. 99-102; Personal Narrative by 1st Sgt. Fenton Hamlin, in the War Department's The

Capture of Attu: As Told by the Men Who Fought There (Washington: Infantry Journal Press,

1944), pp. 64-68. The narrative introducing this volume provides an excellent summary of tactical

operations on Attu.
CLEARING THE ALEUTIANS 289

the right side of the hogback and along the floor of the valley to the east,

had advanced approximately 2,500 yards when it was stopped by rifle and

machine gun fire coming from the high ridge, later named Gilbert Ridge,

that formed the east rim of the Massacre Valley. After being pinned down

for about forty-five minutes, the battalion began working forward, although

it was still under scattered rifle fire. Immediately the enemy fire became

more intense, mortars and light artillery joined in, and BCT 17-2 was again

stopped. Unable to move in any direction, at 2100 the battalion dug in for

the night along the east slope of the hogback about 3,000 yards from the

beach which it had left almost five hours earlier.27 On the left flank, west

of the hogback, BCT 17-3 had made about the same progress. Somewhat behind in the early stages of the advance, BCT 17-3 caught up with BCT 17-2

when the latter was stopped. It was now 2030. The two battalions, BCT 17-2

on the right side of the hogback and BCT 17-3 in the west arm of the valley, were abreast of each other, with the enemy in front of them firing from

the heights that guarded the passes to Holtz Bay and Sarana Bay and from

the ridges on both sides of the valley. At the request of BCT 17-3 the 105-

mm. guns back at the beachhead delivered a concentrated fire against the

high ground at the head of the valley, and the battalion then attempted to

resume its advance. But as soon as the artillery fire ended and the troops

began to move forward, the Japanese again opened up. BCT 17-3 again

halted and dug in somewhat ahead of BCT 17-2 on the other side of the

hogback.28

While the two battalions had been moving up Massacre Valley, two

small detachments had been sent out on each flank to secure the ridges, Gilbert Ridge on the right and Henderson Ridge on the left. One of these

detachments, a platoon of the 7th Reconnaissance Troop, landed on Alexai

Point about four miles east of Massacre Bay Beach and halfway out the

peninsula toward Chirikof Point. It was assigned the mission of establishing

an outpost line across the peninsula from Alexai Point to Sarana Bay, of

reconnoitering "to the west to include area between Lake Nicholas and

Massacre Bay," and of afterwards reconnoitering the peninsula to the east,

in the direction of Chirikof Point. It was to "make contact and co-ordinate

efforts" with a platoon of the 17th Infantry in the pass between Sarana Bay

and Massacre Bay. After landing on Alexai Point, the platoon from the 7th

Reconnaissance Troop was out of contact with the main landing force for

27

 BCT 17-2, Action Rpt, and Unit Journal (11 May); RLG 17, Action Rpt (11 May). 28

 BCT 17-3, Action Rpt, and Unit Journal (11 May).
290 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

two days. During this time it encountered none of the enemy and played no

direct part in the battle. Had the Japanese attempted to infiltrate across Gilbert Ridge, the platoon might have played a more active role, even though

its position was far to the east of any probable point of counterattack. The

other platoon was from Company F, 17th Infantry. Reinforced with a light

machine gun section and a 60-mm. mortar squad, this platoon had moved

east along the shore of Massacre Bay and up into a steep pass leading over

Gilbert Ridge to Sarana Beach. Its mission was to seize this pass and the

"high ground along right flank" (i. e., Gilbert Ridge), to establish defensive

positions in the Sarana end of the pass from which Sarana Beach and Lake

Nicholas could be fired upon, and to "clear the ridge of enemy." It was to

assist BCT 17-2, "if practicable," in the capture of the important pass at the

head of Massacre Valley by firing on enemy installations at the western end

of Gilbert Ridge. The platoon climbed all night and on the morning after

D-day it was on the Sarana Beach side of the mountains. There it was discovered by the Japanese. For two days the men fought off strong enemy

patrols, while they struggled westward along Gilbert Ridge. They finally

managed to rejoin the main force in Massacre Valley near the point where

BCT 17-2 had established itself on the night of D-day. The full story of

their experience is one of the minor epics of Attu.29 Meanwhile, the detachments which had been sent out on the left flank of the Southern Landing

Force to secure Henderson Ridge and the country beyond had likewise run

into difficulty. A platoon of Company I, 17th Infantry, which on landing

at Massacre Beach had been dispatched to secure the valley side of the ridge,

found rough going along the lower slopes. When fog and darkness finally

halted the platoon, it had reached a point approximately 700 yards short of

the position where BCT 17-3 had established itself in the valley. A week

later, on 18 May, the platoon was only some 500 yards beyond its original

positions. Further out on the left flank, behind Henderson Ridge, Company

F of the 32d Infantry ran into several blind alleys after reaching its first objective, Temnac Cove. Although delayed by having landed farther to the

east than it should have, Company F reached Temnac Cove by nightfall of

D-day. There an enemy outpost was discovered and destroyed before the

defenders were aware of the approaching Americans. Company F reported

that its first mission, that of clearing the Temnac Cove area, was accom29

 RLG 17 Action Rpt, Overlay 11-14 May; Personal Narratives by Lt Charles K. Paulson,

Cpl Mike M. Brusuelas, and Cpl Paul H. Doty, in The Capture of Attu, pp. 27-31. The quotations

are from Field Order No. 1, Plan E (corrected copy), 2 May 43, in Landing Force (Task Force 51.4)

G-3 Journal Vouchers (2 May).
CLEARING THE ALEUTIANS 291

plished. The next morning the company proceeded on its second mission, to

move northeast toward Holtz Bay, under orders to clear, as it went, all

enemy installations from the flank of the main landing force advancing up

Massacre Valley. It made no progress, however. Everywhere it turned it

found itself in a cul-de-sac, and finally General Brown ordered the company

to retrace its steps to Massacre Beach.30

When General Brown went ashore toward the end of D-day the tactical

situation was far from clear, but what information was available would not

have indicated that a long drawn-out struggle was in prospect. The Southern Landing Force appeared to be close to its immediate objective—the

passes leading from the head of Massacre Valley to Holtz Bay and Sarana

Bay. BCT 17-3 reported that its position was about 600 yards short of the

Holtz Bay pass, and BCT 17-2 was believed to be within 1,000 yards of the

pass leading to Sarana Bay. There was a possibility that, on the northern

front, BCT 17-1 had reached its first objective, Hill X. BCT 32-2, except

for Company F, had not yet been committed, and the other two battalions

of the 32d Infantry were due to arrive from Adak within twenty-four hours.

If additional reinforcements were needed, General Buckner was willing to

release for this purpose the 4th Infantry, which was being held in readiness

to occupy Shemya Island as soon as Attu was secured.31 Everything considered, it would not have been unreasonable to suppose that within a few

days the island would be taken.

Unfortunately, things were not entirely as they seemed. When the situation began to unfold on the morning of D plus 1, it became apparent that

a long, hard fight was in store. In Massacre Valley, BCT 17-2 was at least

500 yards further from its objective than it had supposed, and BCT 17-3,

apparently having mistaken a blind valley (Zwinge Valley) for the Holtz

Bay pass, was a good 2,000 yards south of its immediate objective. Since

neither Gilbert Ridge nor Henderson Ridge had been cleared, both battalions came under fire from each flank as well as from the front. BCT 17-2,

which had been ordered to consolidate and hold its position with mission of

blocking the Sarana-Massacre pass, thus found it necessary to move forward

over very rough terrain in the face of heavy fire. Among the casualties was

the regimental commander, Col. Edward P. Earle, killed by machine gun

fire while with one of the forward elements. His death was a severe blow

30

 RLG 17, Action Rpt, and Overlay (11 May); Hq Landing Force (TF 51.4), G-3 Journal

File and Journal Vouchers (11-12 May); Attu Operations (Gen Brown's account), pp. 22, 27, 28. 31

 On the eve of the Attu landing, on 4 May, Buckner was promoted to lieutenant general.
292 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

to the 17th Infantry, and, in appointing Col. Wayne L. Zimmerman to take

his place, General Brown deprived himself of the services of an extremely

able chief of staff. At the end of D plus 1 the battalion was in position to

block the pass, but the Japanese defenses were still intact. To the left of the

hogback, BCT 17-3 managed to move forward to the rising ground at the

mouth of the Holtz Bay-Massacre (Jarmin) pass, where it was pinned

down. Frontal attacks against the mouth of the pass failed completely on

each of the two days following, although BCT 17-3 now had the support

of BCT 32-2 (minus Company F). By the middle of D plus 3 (14 May),

it appeared that the Massacre Valley assault was stalemated.32 On the north

side of the island, BCT 17-1 was faring no better in its attack against Holtz

Bay. The height reached by the battalion on the night of D-day turned out

to be some 900 yards short of Hill X, which the Japanese had occupied during the night. After bitter day-long fighting, BCT 17-1 won its objective

during the early evening of D plus 1, but another two days passed before

it could force the stubbornly resisting Japanese off the reverse slope and the

shoulders of the hill. At the end of D plus 3, the battalion, now joined by

BCT 32-3, was only 300 yards nearer Holtz Bay, while the Provisional Battalion, which had moved down into the canyon leading to the rear of the

Holtz Bay positions, had been bottled up in the same position for nearly

three days, about a mile from the mouth of the canyon.33 In a memorandum

for Admiral Rockwell, General Brown summed up these first days of the

battle in the following words:

Reconnaissance and experience of four days fighting indicates Japanese tactics comprise fighting with machine guns and snipers concealed in rain washes or in holes or

trenches dug in each side and at varying heights of hill along narrow passes leading

through mountain masses. These positions are difficult to locate and almost impossible

to shoot out with artillery. They produce casualties in excess of casualties which can be

returned. Number of machine gun positions out of proportion to estimated enemy

strength. In addition, small infantry groups are dug in high up on sides of pass parallel

to axis of approach through pass as well as all commanding terrain features in passes.

Impossible to approach positions on sides of pass from above due to precipitous slopes

more or less snow covered and extremely slippery footing. Progress through passes will,

unless we are extremely lucky, be slow and costly, and will require troops in excess to

those now available to my command.34

32

 RLG 17, Action Rpt and Overlays (11-14 May); BCT 17-2, Unit Journal; and BCT 17-3,

Unit Journal. 33

 BCT 17-1 Unit Journal and Overlays; Smith, Preliminary Rpt on Attu Landing. 34

 Memo, Gen Brown for CTF 51 (Adm Rockwell), 14 May 43, Hq TF 51.4, G-3 Journal

Vouchers (item 35, 14 May).
CLEARING THE ALEUTIANS 293

After repeated inquiries on the part of General Brown, the two battalions of the 32d Infantry (BCT 32-3 and BCT 32-1) that constituted the

force reserve had arrived at Attu on 13 May (D plus 2). Although their

arrival greatly eased the solution, General Brown and his staff were of the

opinion that further reinforcements were necessary, specifically, part of the

501st AA Battalion, and a few miscellaneous units of the 7th Division,

which were at Adak, and the 4th Infantry, which General Buckner had

promised to make available for tactical employment on Attu if needed. At

a conference on board the Pennsylvania, on 15 May, Admiral Rockwell was

not at first convinced that these additional troops were necessary, but he

finally agreed to forward General Brown's recommendations to Admiral

Kinkaid with his concurrence.35 Upon his return from the conference aboard

Admiral Rockwell's flagship, General Brown drafted a message for General DeWitt, who was then at Adak, informing him that he had "made

frequent attempts to . . . procure additional troops but without success,"

and requesting General DeWitt's assistance in the matter.36

Both Admiral Kinkaid and Admiral Rockwell were becoming increasingly

concerned over the exposed position of the naval support forces. Japanese

submarines were in the area. A torpedo had just missed the Pennsylvania on

D plus 1 and on the morning of 15 May, soon after General Brown had

returned on shore from his conference with Admiral Rockwell, four torpedoes

narrowly missed one of the transports near the flagship. The other two battleships, Nevada and Idaho, had expended all their 14-inch high-capacity ammunition and, with their screen, had withdrawn to the northward to await

orders. In view of the submarine threat, Admiral Kinkaid thought that the

naval support group had tarried long enough in the dangerous waters of Attu.

Accordingly, Admiral Rockwell had informed General Brown during the

conference of 15 May that the ships would withdraw the next day, or in any

event no later than the 17th. The continued requests for reinforcements, a

long dispatch requesting large quantities of engineering and road building

equipment, and the lack of any positive indications of a speedy breakthrough

ashore persuaded Admiral Kinkaid that General Brown was bogged down.

General DeWitt and General Buckner, whom Kinkaid consulted, agreed with

him that it was necessary to relieve General Brown. Upon their recommendation, Admiral Kinkaid appointed General Landrum to take over the command of Attu. The new commander arrived on the scene during the afternoon

35

 Attu Operations (General Brown's account), pp. 35-36. 36

 A handwritten draft message, Gen Brown to CG WDC, in Hq TF 51.4, G-3 Journal

Vouchers (item 12, 15 May). The G-3 Journal File lists this message as dated and "IN" at 1020.
294 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

of 16 May and assumed command of the landing force at 1700, just as the

fighting for Holtz Bay was reaching its final stage.37

General Brown's relief coincided with an advance of the Northern Force

that broke the deadlock on Attu. Intense shelling by naval guns and bombardment from the air persuaded the enemy to start withdrawing from the West

Arm area at Holtz Bay on 14 May, and on the next two days the Northern

Force after making contact with the Provisional Battalion moved into the

West Arm area and, against hot resistance, on to the high ridge that separated

the two arms of the bay. The ridge itself was won during the night of 16 May.

This placed the Northern Force (BCT 17-1 and BCT 32-3) directly in the

rear of the Japanese defending the Massacre Valley pass, and on the morning

of 17 May the Japanese began to withdraw toward Chichagof Harbor. The

junction of the Northern and Southern Forces took place during the early

morning hours of 18 May (D plus 7), when a patrol from K Company of

BCT 17-3 met the 7th Reconnaissance Company on the western slope of the

Holtz Bay-Massacre Pass.38

The Japanese withdrawal and the junction of forces marked the turning

point of the campaign. Although nearly two weeks more of hard, costly fighting remained, the uncertainty and frustration of the first few days on Attu

never recurred. It was a slow business taking the machine gun and mortar

nests left on the heights by the retreating Japanese, but eventually the combined American force, reinforced with a battalion of the 4th Infantry, drew

a net around Chichagof Harbor.39 The end came on one phrenetic night when

most of the surviving Japanese, from about seven hundred to a thousand

strong, charged madly through the American lines, screaming, killing, and

being killed. The next day, 30 May, the enemy announced the loss of Attu,

and units of the 32d, 17th, and 4th Infantry cleared out pockets of surviving

37

 ONI Combat Narrative, Aleutians Campaign, pp. 84-88; Morison, Aleutians, Gilberts and

Marshalls, pp. 47-49; Attu Operations (Gen Brown's account), p. 35, and Rpt of Operations—

Attu (Gen Landrum's Rpt), p. 7; Ltrs, Adm Kinkaid to Actg Chief of Military History, 11 Apr

59, and Gen Brown to Chief of Military History, 26 Apr 62, in OCMH file.

General Brown has contended, with much justification, that the assumptions of conditions on

Attu upon which his relief was premised were not in fact correct, and he also believes that these

assumptions should have been checked before such an irrevocable step was taken. Before his new

appointment, General Landrum commanded the Adak base. He had been promoted to the rank of

major general in March. 38

 BCT 17-3, Action Rpt and Unit Journal (17-18 May); RLG 17, Action Rpt (17 May). 39

 For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action above and beyond the call of duty on

26 May, Pvt. Joe P. Martinez of Company K, 32d Infantry, was posthumously awarded the Medal

of Honor. For extraordinary heroism and inspiring leadership in a series of actions beginning on

16 May, the commander of the 17th Infantry, Colonel Zimmerman, was awarded the Distinguished

Service Cross. Twelve distinguished unit citations were also awarded after the Attu operation,

nine of them for unit actions after 17 May.
CLEARING THE ALEUTIANS 295

enemy troops as they advanced to occupy the Chichagof installations. Although

mopping-up operations continued for several days, organized resistance ended

with the wild charge of 29 May, and Attu was once more in American hands.40

Out of a force that totaled more than 15,000 men before the campaign

ended, 549 Americans had given their lives on Attu, 1,148 had been wounded,

and about 2,100 had been taken out of action by disease and nonbattle injuries.

Most of the nonbattle casualties were exposure cases, victims of the climate

and weather and of inadequate clothing. Trench foot was the most common

affliction.41 The Japanese lost their entire force: approximately 2,350 enemy

dead were counted and 29 taken prisoner.42 The price of victory was high.

In terms of numbers engaged, Attu ranks as one of the most costly assaults

in the Pacific. In terms of Japanese destroyed, the cost of taking Attu was

second only to Iwo Jima: for every hundred of the enemy on the island, about

seventy-one Americans were killed or wounded.

Kiska—Grand Anticlimax

Before the guns had ceased firing on Attu, preparations got under way

for the next moves against the Japanese in the Aleutians. An airfield was

begun on Alexai Point, scene of one of the Attu landings, and on 30 May

garrison troops and engineers landed on Shemya Island, thirty-five miles east

of Attu, to begin construction of a bomber field there. Fighter strips were

completed at both places before June ended, and in mid-July bombers from

the new Alexai Point field made their first strike against Japan, a raid against

the northern Kurils.

Even before the Attu landings took place preparations had been started

for assaulting Kiska.43 For this purpose on 4 May 1943 General DeWitt's

headquarters had authorized the activation of an amphibious training force

under General Corlett. Preliminary training was to be conducted at Fort Ord

and San Diego by the Joint Staff that had planned the Attu operation, but advanced training at Adak was also to be provided. As a result of the Attu

40

 RLG 17, Action Rpt (29-31 May) and overlays, and Rpt of Operations—Attu (Gen

Landrum's Rpt), pp. 12-13. 41

 Control Div, Surgeon General's Office, Medical Report of Attu Campaign, 6 Dec 44, in

OCMH. 42

 Official Hist of the Alaskan Dept, ch. IV. 43

 Unless otherwise noted, the sources of the following account of the Kiska operation are:

Official Hist of the Alaskan Dept, ch. V, and a draft narrative by Capt Nelson L. Drummond,

entitled History of Kiska Occupation, in OCMH. The two sources for the most part duplicate

each other.
296 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

experience and of revised estimates of the Japanese strength on Kiska, the

assault force was doubled in size over that originally planned and among

the additions were a mountain combat team, a regimental combat team from

the Alaska Defense Command, and the hard-bitten First Special Service Force,

all of them trained in the type of fighting that had developed on Attu. It was

decided also, after the Attu campaign ended, to substitute the battle-tested

17th Regiment for one of the infantry units from California. By the end of

July, about 34,000 Allied troops were assembled at Adak and Amchitka for

final training in preparation for the assault on Kiska. Included among them

was a Canadian brigade group numbering 4,800 officers and enlisted men,

and about 700 men of the First Special Service Force were Canadians.44 The

enemy's strength on Kiska was estimated at from 9,000 to 10,000 men.

Although some of the War Department planners favored postponing the

operation, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, upon the recommendation of the Joint

Staff Planners, gave their formal approval on 22 June.45 General DeWitt

and Admiral Nimitz designated 15 August as the target date. The force commanders, in conference at Adak on 30 July, decided that D-day ought to be

postponed until 24 August to permit further training and regrouping of

the battalion combat teams; but Admiral Nimitz was opposed to the delay,

and D-day was definitely set for 15 August.46

Unlike Attu, Kiska was subjected to a heavy preinvasion bombardment.

Reinforced during June and operating from the new airfields, the Eleventh

Air Force dropped a total of 424 tons of bombs on Kiska during the month

of July. On 6 July and 22 July, strong naval task groups blasted the island

with an additional 330 tons of explosives.47 On 2 August a strong force

consisting of two battleships, two heavy cruisers, three light cruisers, and

nine destroyers carried out another bombardment, supported by seventeen

bombers and eight fighters of the Eleventh Air Force. Over 200 tons of shells

and bombs fell on Kiska on that day. Two days later, on 4 August, the

Eleventh Air Force dropped a record-breaking 152 tons of bombs. Returning

fliers claimed excellent results and reported "only meager and inaccurate"

flak and small arms fire. Then, for several days while bad weather grounded

44

 Col Charles P. Stacey, The Canadian Army, 1939-1945: An Official Historical Summary

(Ottawa: King's Printer, 1948), pp. 290-97. See also, by the same author, Six Years of War:

The Army in Canada, Britain, and the Pacific, ch. XV. 45

 Memo, Brig Gen Albert C. Wedemeyer for Gen Hull, 31 May 43; Memo, Col John C.

Blizzard, Jr., for Gen Handy, 10 Jun 43. Both in OPD 381/132. 46

 ONI Combat Narrative, Aleutians Campaign, p. 101. 47

 OPD Diary, entry of 4 Aug 43; Craven and Cate, eds., The Pacific—Guadalcanal to Saipan,

pp. 387-88; ONI Combat Narrative, Aleutians Campaign, pp. 94-97.
CLEARING THE ALEUTIANS 297

the Army bombers, destroyers of the naval blockading force continued the

attack. On 10 August the Eleventh Air Force came back into the picture with

another hard blow, and between then and D-day it dropped 335 tons of

bombs on Kiska.48

Surprisingly enough, most pilots saw no signs of activity on the island;

a few reported that they had encountered light antiaircraft fire. Earlier, there

had been considerable success against Japanese submarines going to and

from Kiska; then the enemy submarine traffic seemed to stop. The reports

were the cause of considerable speculation at Admiral Kinkaid's headquarters. On one occasion, when someone raised the question whether the

Japanese might not have been evacuating troops by submarine, Admiral

Kinkaid, with a laugh, said he'd be glad to provide free transportation to

Japan for half their garrison. His serious opinion was that the enemy had

taken to the hills, as they had on Attu, and after wrecking all installations

not already destroyed by the air and sea bombardment, were digging in for

a last stand back from the beaches. The possibility of evacuation was not

ignored, however. Shortly before D-day the suggestion was made that a

small reconnaissance party be landed on Kiska by submarine in order to

clear up the situation, but it was vetoed by Admiral Kinkaid. His position

was that if the Japanese were still on the island the assault force was ready

for them, but a reconnaissance party might be wiped out; that if the Japanese

were not there, a landing would be a "super dress rehearsal, good for training purposes," and the only foreseeable loss would be merely the let-down

experienced by the highly keyed troops.49 With D-day only a few days away,

Admiral Kinkaid decided to let the assault proceed as planned, without

sending in a reconnaissance party.

Early on the morning of 15 August General Corlett's forces made a feint

toward the south shore of Kiska and then landed on the north and west sides

of the island. Not a shot was fired as the troops came ashore and moved

up into the mist-shrouded interior. As on Attu, complete surprise seemed

to have been achieved. All through the first night and the next day, and for

several days afterward, American and Canadian patrols probed deeper into

the island, occasionally hearing the noise of gunfire, but never encountering

any Japanese. Kiska was an uninhabited island. The only guns that fired

were those of friend against friend, and partly on that account casualties

ashore during the first four days of the operation numbered 21 dead and

48

 Craven and Cate, eds., The Pacific—Guadalcanal to Saipan, pp. 390-92. 49

 Ltr, Adm Kinkaid to Acting Chief of Military History, 11 Apr 59, in OCMH files.
298 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

121 sick or wounded. The Navy lost 70 dead or missing and 47 wounded

when destroyer Abner Read struck a mine on 18 August.50

The entire enemy garrison had slipped away unseen, as the remnants of

the Japanese Army on Guadalcanal had done six months earlier. To make

the embarrassment complete, the Kiska evacuation had been carried out as

early as 28 July, almost three weeks before the Allied landings. The original

plan of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters had been to withdraw

the garrison gradually, by submarine, but this scheme had been given up

late in June because of the loss or damaging of most of the submarines

assigned to the operation and because of some anxiety that, by weakening

the garrison over a prolonged period, the operation might fail. It was then

decided to evacuate the entire force at one time, in one movement, using

cruisers and destroyers as transports. The date, at first fixed for early July,

was postponed until 28 July.51 Between then and D-day Kiska had been

under attack and close surveillance by American naval units and the Eleventh

Air Force, but the reports of flak and Japanese activity when there was none,

which inexperienced observers brought back, obscured all the evidence from

which the proper deduction might have been drawn.52 Surprise was achieved,

but it was not the Japanese who were surprised.

The retaking of Attu was the high point of the war, as far as it concerned

Alaska. Kiska was anticlimactic, and what happened afterward was chiefly

a matter of tying up the loose threads of unfinished business: of deciding

upon the role that Alaska and the Aleutians could play in defeating Japan,

and of making the organizational changes that the situation seemed to require.

In ridding the Aleutians of Japanese invaders, the objective had been

partly to eliminate a potential military threat, but mostly to eradicate a

psychological blot. As for using the western Aleutians as steppingstones to

Japan, that idea had still to receive official imprimatur. General DeWitt and

others had from time to time urged an assault by this route, but commitments

to other theaters, and the desire of the Soviet Union not to have its neutrality

50

 Morison, Aleutians, Gilberts and Marshalls, pp. 63-64. 51

 Japanese accounts and documents relating to the Kiska evacuation are in the following

Japanese monographs: 46, Aleutians Operations Record, June 1942-July 1943 ch. 7; 47, Northern

Area Monthly Reports, Combat January-May 1943; 89, Northern Area Naval Operations, February 1943-August 1945. 52

 Japanese sources cited in the preceding footnote lend no support whatsoever to the suppositions in ONI Combat Narrative, Aleutians Campaign (page 104), and in Craven and Cate, eds.,

The Pacific—Guadalcanal to Saipan, p. 392, that a small rear guard was left behind to man light

AA weapons and was evacuated by submarine just before the Allied landings.
CLEARING THE ALEUTIANS 299

with Japan compromised, had precluded acceptance of the idea.53 With the

Aleutians cleared, and about 144,000 American and Canadian troops in the

Alaska-Aleutians area, a reconsideration of the strategic role of that area

seemed to be in order.54

An invasion of Shumushu and Paramushiro, the northernmost of the

Kuril Islands, was the substance of a plan that General DeWitt submitted

to General Marshall early in August. This plan contemplated using the

combined forces that had been engaged in the Attu and Kiska operations,

after they had been raised to a strength of approximately 54,000 men. It

proposed a reinforcement of the Eleventh Air Force in heavy and medium

bombers in order to provide the necessary long-range air support, and recommended organizing a North American theater to carry out the invasion in

April or May 1944. Neither the Army's Operations Division, nor the Navy

as represented by Admiral King and Admiral Nimitz, nor the Joint Staff

Planners saw any immediate possibility of implementing the plan. Pacific

Fleet forces were fully committed to operations in the Central and SouthSouthwest Pacific Areas; the creation of a North American theater in the

North Pacific was not acceptable to Admiral King; and the seizure of the

two northern Kurils without immediately pressing on toward Japan proper

would, according to the Operations Division, place the forces in a position

as hazardous as that of the Japanese in Kiska had been.55 In deciding against

an invasion of the northern Kurils in early 1944, the Joint Chiefs nevertheless held the door open to the possibility of the situation in the North Pacific

being altered, perhaps in favor of invading the Kurils, by the entry of the

Soviet Union into the war against Japan. The War Department accordingly

directed General Buckner to co-operate with Admiral Kinkaid in planning

an assault on Paramushiro with the target date, for planning purposes only,

set for the spring of 1945.56 By the time the target date rolled around, the

53

 Memo, COMINCH for JCS, 21 Sep 42, WDCSA 381, and notes on JPS Mtg, 2 Dec 42,

JPS 67/1 in ABC 381 Japan (5-31-42). 54

 Strength as of 4 Sep 43, as reported in Memo, CofS for JCS, 6 Sep 43, ABC 320.2 Alaska

(15 Aug 43). 55

 Plan for Suggested Offensive Operations in Northwestern Pacific, Incl to Ltr, Gen DeWitt

to Gen Marshall, 2 Aug 43, ABC 384 Northwestern Pacific (16 Aug 43); Ltr, CINCPAC to

COMINCH, 15 Aug 43, and Memo, COMINCH for CofS, 30 Aug 43. Last two in WDCSA 381.

Memo, Gen Handy for CofS, 23 Sep 43, OPD 381/206. 56

 Memo, COMINCH for CofS, 5 Nov 43; Rad, OPD to CG Alaskan Dept, 8 Nov 43. Both

in WDCSA 381.
300 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

American forces on Iwo Jima and Okinawa were only half as far away from

Tokyo as Paramushiro was.57

After August 1943, whatever plans were discussed or even drawn up

for assaulting the Kurils or Japan proper, Alaska like the Caribbean area

and the Atlantic bases, was actually called upon to retrench, to reduce the

strength of its garrison and curtail facilities. Within two weeks after the

reoccupation of Kiska, four bomber squadrons of the Eleventh Air Force

were designated for withdrawal, a reduction of the garrison strength to

80,000 by July 1944 was planned, the question of reducing the category of

defense was brought up, and the reorganization of the Alaska Defense

Command into a separate department was proposed. The cutback of bomber

strength was carried out in September. In the following month, October,

the separation of the Alaska Defense Command from the Western Defense

Command and its redesignation as the Alaskan Department was announced,

effective 1 November.58 Both the proposed cut in garrison strength and the

lowering of the category of defense were approved by the Joint Chiefs

before the end of October.59 By the end of 1943 Army forces in Alaska had

been reduced to about 113,000 men and General Buckner was notified to

prepare for a further cut—to a total strength of 50,000.60 This figure was

approximately reached by the end of 1944. In spite of the fact that at this

time the possibility of staging an offensive via the Aleutians began to revive,

the process of retrenchment continued, and no serious consideration of reversing the trend was entertained. Any danger to Alaska and the Western

Hemisphere had long since disappeared.

57

 For further details about planning for offensive operations against Japan via the North

Pacific from summer 1943 onward see Louis Morton, Strategy and Command: The First Two Years,

UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1962), ch. XXVI, and Matloff,

Strategic Planning, 1943-44, pp. 316ff. For air plans, preparations, and operations, see Craven

and Cate, eds., The Pacific—Guadalcanal to Saipan, pp. 392-401. 58

 Memo, OPD for TAG, 7 Oct 43; Memo, OPD for COMINCH, 11 Nov 43. Both in OPD

384.

59

 The Adak subsector of the Aleutians was reduced from category D to C, the Unalaska subsection from D to B, and the rest of Alaska from B to "modified A." Rad, COMINCH to

CINCPOA, 21 Oct 43, OPD Log file for October 43. For definitions of the categories of defense,

see ch. IV, above. 60

 OPD Diary, Entries of 24 Jan 44 and 28 Jan 44. The first of these items gives the garrison

strength as of 31 Dec 43.
CHAPTER XII

Forging the Defenses of the Canal

For many years the Western Hemisphere's outstanding characteristic

from the standpoint of defensive strategy had been the narrow inter-American

Isthmus that stretches from Mexico to Colombia. Even after the bulge of

Brazil caught the eye of Army planners the "wasp waist" of the hemisphere

continued to be the more important object of attention. Its strategic importance

came, however, not from its geographical position as a link between the

two continents but rather from the man-made ditch that cuts across the

Isthmus and links the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The mobility given to the

fleet by the Panama Canal is too obvious to require more than mention of

the fact and the observation that a sea-minded President considered it sufficient reason for acquiring the land and building the Canal. Keeping the

Canal open was a major aim of American military planners ever after.

The Prewar Defenses

During the 1930's, events and technological developments began to

challenge the old axioms on which the defense of the Canal had been based.

A crippling attack aimed at the locks and dams, and delivered either by an

act of sabotage or by naval bombardment, had always been considered the

only real danger to be guarded against. The possibility of hostile forces

establishing a beachhead and moving overland to the Canal was not entirely

discounted, but the absence of suitable landing places on the Atlantic side

and the thick jungle of the Pacific lowlands were counted on to discourage

any attack of this sort. The Army had disposed its defenses accordingly.

Each terminus of the Canal was heavily protected by a concentration of seacoast armament that at one time was regarded as the most powerful and

effective of any in the world. In addition, the lock areas—at Gatun, Pedro

Miguel, and Miraflores—were provided with field fortifications. The few

planes that constituted the air defenses of the Canal were based, until 1931,

on France Field, on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus. Then Albrook Field,

at the Pacific terminus, was opened; but it proved to be usable only during
302 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

the short dry season.1 Coast artillery continued to provide the principal defense. Then, during the 1930's new instruments for delivering an attack

emerged in the shape of the naval aircraft carrier and long-range bomber.

Potential air bases from which an attack against the Canal might be launched

came into being as a result of the growth of commercial aviation in South

and Central America. Experience in jungle maneuvers was beginning to

make a myth of the impenetrability of tropical forests. Finally, the Army's

ability to move outside the Canal Zone and take defensive measures within

the territory of the Republic of Panama was sharply curtailed by the changing relationship between the two countries. Although sabotage remained the

most likely danger, air strikes by either land-based or carrier-based planes

came to be regarded as the most serious threat because of the wider holes

in the defense against them.

At the beginning of 1939 the bulk of the garrison defending the Canal

was divided between two separate sectors that were about as far apart organizationally as they were geographically. The Pacific Sector had a slight preponderance of force. Assigned to it were the 4th Coast Artillery Regiment,

the 33d Infantry, and a battalion of the 2d Field Artillery. At the opposite

end of the Canal, in the Atlantic Sector, were the 1st Coast Artillery Regiment and the 14th Infantry. Antiaircraft units made up part of both coast

artillery regiments. In addition to these troops assigned to the sectors, certain

units were directly under the commanding general of the Panama Canal

Department. These department troops included air units—the 19th Wing

(composite), with about 28 medium bombers, 14 light bombers, 24 pursuit

planes, and a few trainers and utility planes—plus a regiment of combat

engineers, together with Signal Corps, quartermaster, and ordnance units,

and other service and administrative detachments. The total strength of

the garrison—sector as well as department troops—came to approximately

13,500 men.2 To the Army garrison had been given the mission of protecting the Canal against sabotage and of defending it from positions within

the Canal Zone. Close-in defense was thus an Army responsibility except

for two specific tasks: that of providing an armed guard on vessels passing

1

 AG Hist Sec, Panama Canal Dept, MS, History of the Panama Canal Department, I, 39-40,

67-69. 2

 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 1939, Table C; Hist of PCD, II, 207; Hq PCD

(Caribbean Defense Command), MS, Organization and Reorganization, p. 99; Hist Div, CDC,

MS, The Caribbean Theater in the Defense of the Americas (hereafter cited as Hist Div, CDC,

Hist of Caribbean Theater) OCMH, I, 66-70; USAF Hist Study 42, Air Defense of the Panama

Canal, 1 Jan 1939-7 Dec 1941, OCMH, pp. 11-12.
FORGING THE DEFENSES OF THE CANAL 303

through the Canal, and that of maintaining a harbor patrol at the entrances

to the Canal. Both of these tasks were entrusted to the Navy, along with its

primary responsibility for offshore defense. The Army air forces in Panama

were to be prepared to assist the Navy in its major task of detecting and

repelling enemy forces at sea, but only so far as air bases within the Canal

Zone would permit—and only to an extent agreed upon by the local Army

commander.3 At the top of the military hierarchy was the commanding general of the Panama Canal Department. Directly under him were the commanders of the 19th Air Wing and of the two sectors, each one of which

was independent of the other.

The recurrent crises in Europe during 1938 made the weak spots in the

defenses of the Canal seem glaring indeed. With respect to antiaircraft,

coast artillery, and air forces, the situation was particularly acute. The actual

strength of the two coast artillery regiments was inadequate for the proper

manning of the seacoast defenses, and as a result the infantry troops had to

be given double assignments and dual training. The existing system of fixed

antiaircraft batteries lacked, it was believed, sufficient depth and mobility

to offer an effective defense against high speed, high altitude bombers. The

air force was equipped with obsolete planes. France Field had been outgrown for some time, and room for expansion was lacking. The main runway

of Albrook Field was still under construction.4 Moreover, it had become

increasingly clear that by the time hostile planes came within range of the

existing Army defenses it would be too late to prevent them from delivering

an attack on the Canal. Effective air interception would require long-range

patrols, radar installations, and a screen of outlying bases. Not one of these

requirements was available. Potential bases existed in the Antilles, the island

chain guarding the Atlantic approaches. The Pacific approaches to the Canal

had no similar cover.

During 1939 plans and measures for reinforcing the defenses began to

overtake the circumstances that had set the plans on foot. In early January,

as soon as it appeared that Congress would authorize an increase in the garrison and provide the necessary funds, the War Department moved to reinforce the coast artillery and air defenses. The War Plans Division calculated at that time that approximately 6,580 coast artillery troops, divided

almost equally between antiaircraft and harbor defense, would become avail3

 Hq PCD, MS, Defense Plans, pp. 8, 35; Hist of PCD, II, 5. 4

 Hist of PCD, I, 60-61; Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 1938, pp. 5-6; USAF Hist

Study 42, Air Def of the Panama Canal, pp. 11-12.
304 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

able. This would make possible a reorganization of the coast artillery garrison

into two antiaircraft and two harbor defense regiments, one of each type

to be assigned to each of the two sectors. Maj. Gen. David L. Stone, in command of the Panama Canal Department, indorsed the proposal but urged

that no troops be sent until housing was available.5 In the meantime his

headquarters prepared a plan for organizing a separate coast artillery brigade

as soon as the reinforcements arrived. As for the air defenses, the problem

was primarily one of replacing the obsolete planes. But modern planes could

not use the old airfields. On 17 April the main runway and radio control tower

at Albrook Field were put in operation, and by mid-June the old, outmoded

B-10's had been replaced by thirty new B-18 bombers.

Early in January General Stone formally recommended extending the

defenses of the Canal westward into the Pacific. Only three possibilities

offered. The Galápagos Islands, belonging to Ecuador, were the most favorably placed. A group of five good-sized islands and ten small ones lying

about 1,000 miles southwest of Balboa, the Galápagos could be developed as

an advanced base and radar station. About 500 miles westward from Balboa

was Cocos Island, a possession of Costa Rica. Less than half the size of the

District of Columbia and lacking a good harbor, Cocos Island could have

but limited utility, chiefly as an advanced station for the Aircraft Warning

Service (AWS). Of even less potential usefulness was the tiny rock belonging to France and known as Clipperton Island, which jutted up out of the

open Pacific 2,000 miles to the northwest of Panama; but the fact that it was

a European possession made it of interest. Proposals that the United States

acquire Cocos Island and the Galápagos group had cropped up periodically

ever since 1917. Although not unfavorably disposed toward the idea, the

War Department during the early 1930's refrained from urging or even

recommending it, no doubt because the matter rested within the Navy's

sphere of primary interest. The delivery in 1937 of the Army's first B-17's

spurred advocates of a long-range bomber program to greater efforts toward

enlarging the role of the Air Corps in coastal defense to an extent commensurate to the range of its planes.6

 The airmen made little headway, and Army

officers in Panama continued to chafe under the necessity of depending upon

naval aviation for offshore reconnaissance. A survey party sent out by

5

 Memo, Lt Col Walton H. Walker for CG PCD, 5 Jan 39; Memo, Gen Stone for Col Walker,

16 Jan 39; Memo, Col Walker for WPD, 10 Feb 39. All in WPD 4124. Rad 161, WPD to CG

PCD, 11 Jan 39, AG 320.2 PCD (12-30-38), sec. 1. 6

 Hist of PCD, I, 59; Craven and Cate, eds., Plans and Early Operations, pp. 68-71.
FORGING THE DEFENSES OF THE CANAL 305

General Stone at the end of 1938, after rumors had circulated that the

government of Ecuador was considering selling the Galápagos, found sites

for airfields, seaplane bases, and AWS stations and reported suitable seaplane anchorages and radar sites on Cocos Island. This was the basis for

General Stone's recommendations of 5 January 1939 that steps be taken

to acquire the islands either by purchase or by an "exclusive" lease "for the

purpose of establishing thereon such advanced naval air bases and AWS

stations as may be necessary."

 7 He set forth his position as follows:

In order to take full advantage of the increase in our air power and enable it to

develop its full offensive and defensive strength, we must have outlying bases located

at a distance from the Canal in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Such bases will

enable our defensive air forces to engage an attacking air force before it can arrive

within effective bombing range of the Canal, and will also serve as advance AWS

stations and furnish the necessary warning to all components of our defense forces. . . .8

He was aware, General Stone continued, that his recommendations involved

. . . a strategic matter for which the Navy is primarily responsible, yet it is obvious that

the Army, which is primarily responsible for the close-in (tactical) defense of the

Panama Canal, is vitally interested in any measure which will strengthen the defense

of the Canal against air attack and, for this reason, I deem it incumbent upon me to

submit this matter for the earnest consideration of higher authority.9

General Stone's views were strongly reinforced by the fact that two resolutions were before Congress calling for the acquisition of the islands. Both

the War Department and the Navy began to take a more positive attitude.

The Navy Department, although not inclined to appear as sponsor of the

proposed measures, was willing to recommend their passage. The Army War

Plans Division got as far as preparing a statement for the Chief of Staff

recommending that the War Department indorse the proposals. But in the

meantime President Roosevelt had decided that the acquisition of any territory belonging to the other American Republics would not be in the public

interest, and on 2 June the War Department informed General Stone of

the President's decision.10 The question of whether or not to acquire the

islands thus passed beyond the province of the War Department, but it was

not a matter that the authorities in the Canal Zone were in haste to drop.

7

 Ltr, CG PCD to TAG, 5 Jan 39, WPD 3782-3. The italicizing is the author's. 8

 Ibid.

9

 Ibid.

10

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 13 Apr 39, AG 601.1 (10-4-34) and copy, stamped Not Used,

WPD 3782-11; Ltr, Under Secy State Sumner Welles to SW, 12 May 39; Ltr, TAG to CG PCD,

2 Jun 39. Last two in AG 601.1 (10-4-34). Copies of Under Secy State Welles' letter in WPD

3977, are dated 12 March 1939.
306 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

In a report to Washington in mid-June, General Stone referred to his letter

of 5 January and ended with the following:

Any plan of air defense . . . which fails to make provision for destroying the carrier

before its bombers are launched . . . is a defective plan. It is apparent therefore that,

until our Government obtains the use of the Galápagos and Cocos Islands as advanced

stations for both aircraft warning service stations and operating bases, the Panama Canal

will continue to be exposed to surprise raids from carrier-based aircraft on the Pacific

side.11

His suggestion that 999-year leases be negotiated for this purpose was considered by the War Department to be "tantamount to purchase," and therefore contrary to national policy, and to be inconsistent with the joint defense

plan drawn up by the local commanders in Panama. Operating airdromes in

the Galápagos Islands or on Cocos Island were not essential to the accomplishment of the Army's mission, the War Department now held; and as

for the new radar equipment for which funds had been appropriated, none

of it was to be installed in any foreign territory except the Republic of

Panama. Since overwater search was considered a Navy function, the War

Department decided that "provision of Army installations for that purpose

will not be considered at this time."

 12

 Less than a month afterward the

Germans invaded Poland and World War II had begun.

In the extension of the Canal's defenses into Panamanian territory just

as in the matter of acquiring the Galápagos Islands and Cocos Island, defense needs as viewed from Army headquarters in the Canal Zone ran into

the complications of national policy as laid down in Washington. In both

cases, the ends sought by General Stone were eventually achieved, but not

by the exact course he recommended.

By the beginning of 1939 the need of additional airfields in the vicinity

of the Canal had centered on a privately owned field at the beach and ranch

resort of Rio Hato, some fifty-five or sixty miles from the Canal Zone, on

the northwestern shore of the Gulf of Panama. As early as 1932 flyers from

the Canal Zone had discovered that the Rio Hato field offered a good opportunity for them to put in flying time while enjoying some pleasant recreation

too, and the place was soon leased by the Army for the nominal sum of one

dollar per annum.13 The increase in rental to $2,400 in 1937, and then to

11

 Ltr, CG PCD to TAG, 16 Jun 39, AG 660.2 (8-26-37), sec. 4. 12

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 28 Jul 39, WPD 3782-6; 1st Ind, TAG to Chiefs, Arms, et al.

and CofAC, 8 Aug 39, on Ltr, CG PCD to TAG, 16 Jun 39, AG 660.2 PCD (8-26-37), sec. 4. 13

 Hist of PCD, I, 71-73; CDC PCD, MS, Acquisition of Land, OCMH, pp. 106-09.
FORGING THE DEFENSES OF THE CANAL 307

$4,800, no doubt reflected the conversion of the field to more serious purposes, so that by the fall of 1938 General Stone could write as follows:

We see in Rio Hato all the basic requirements for operations of planes of all types

under any conditions of weather that we may expect. Its potentiality for expansion into

a very large field is such that I consider it indispensable to the contemplated Air Corps

expansion program in this Department.14

General Stone urged, as he had on previous occasions, that the field be

purchased outright and developed as an operating base. Early in January

1939 he informed the War Department that, if the Rio Hato field were

obtained, no other operating airfields would be needed outside the Canal

Zone. An official visitor from the War Plans Division concurred in General

Stone's estimate of the importance of the Rio Hato field, but the War Department took no action except to ask the general for a priority list of sites

that might be acquired if the Air Corps augmentation program received

Congressional approval. As was to be expected, Rio Hato headed the list,

followed by nine other possible sites of lesser importance.15 It was also to

be expected that as soon as the Army became interested in using Rio Hato

for official purposes the Panamanian Government would enter the picture.

As long as the tactical use of the field was merely incidental, the arrangements could be made informally, directly with the owner of the property;

but as the field became more important to the Army and the possibility of

buying it was raised, the negotiations became a matter of public, rather than

private, concern.

This particular point was one on which the treaty of 1936 made important concessions to Panamanian sovereignty. Under the old Hay-Varilla

Treaty of 1903 the United States had enjoyed plenary authority within the

Canal Zone and the right to acquire, control, and use any lands outside the

Canal Zone that might be required for the operation and protection of the

Canal. The procedures were entirely unilateral. In the case of public lands

the American authorities merely notified the Panamanian Government that

the land was being taken over; in the case of privately owned lands the

United States was given the right of eminent domain and the privilege of

acquiring the land at pre-1903 values. The new treaty, signed on 2 March

1936 but not yet ratified by the beginning of 1939, proposed to change the

old relationship to one of co-operation and partnership. Both countries recog14

 Ltr, Gen Stone to Gen Malin Craig, CofS, 19 Oct 38, quoted in CDC PCD, Acquisition of

Land, pp. 111-15. 15

 Ltr, CG PCD to WPD, 1 Feb 39, WPD 2674-22; Memo, Exec WPD for ACofS WPD,

10 Feb 39, WPD 4124.
308 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

nized "the maintenance, sanitation, efficient operation and effective protection of the canal" to be a joint obligation; and if, for this common purpose,

"some new unforeseen contingency" should make the use of additional lands

necessary, the two countries agreed to agree on the requisite measures. In the

economic and commercial field also, and in the matter of the Canal annuity,

the United States deferred to the sovereign rights and material interests of

the Republic of Panama. Consultation between the two countries, through

the normal channels of diplomacy, was provided for on questions of general

security. Under the old treaty, the United States had claimed the right to

employ its armed forces anywhere within Panamanian territory at any time

and in any way that seemed necessary. Article X of the new treaty, which

provided that in case of war or threat of aggression the two governments

would take action to protect their common interests and would consult each

other regarding any measure deemed necessary by either one but affecting

the territory of the other, was considered by the Army as setting aside the old

treaty prescription. Whatever might be permitted in an emergency, it was not

at all clear that, under the new treaty, maneuvers and training exercises could

be held outside the Canal Zone in time of peace. The Army objected to these

various limitations on its freedom of action, especially when aviation developments and what a predecessor of General Stone called "other possible

long range instrumentalities of offensive warfare" were making necessary an

outward thrust of the Canal's defenses. Reluctance on the part of the United

States Senate to accept the limitations of the treaty was at least partly responsible for the delay in ratifying it; and General Stone's desire to take

advantage of the delay was chiefly responsible for the urgency with which

he pressed the acquisition of the Rio Hato airfields.16

Although Secretary Cordell Hull had assured the War Department in the

spring of 1938 that the new treaty "in no way modified" the right of the

United States to employ its troops or acquire additional lands outside the

Canal Zone, the War Department made no effort to test Mr. Hull's interpretation until the treaty had been formally accepted by Panama through

an exchange of notes dated 1 February 1939.17 On 23 February the War

Department notified General Stone of its intention to request the State Department "to initiate action tending toward acquisition . . . of lands in

16

 A good summary of the treaty is in Norman Judson Padelford, The Panama Canal in Peace

and War (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1942), pp. 64-81. Pertinent documents include

Ltr, Brig Gen Lawrence Halstead to TAG, 10 Dec 35, AG 388.1 Panama (1-1-26), sec. 3; Ltr,

Gen Stone to Gen Craig, 19 Oct 38, and Memo, WPD for CofS, 10 Jun 39, WPD 1652-31. 17

 Ltr, Secy State to SW, 11 May 39, WPD 1652-29. Padelford, Panama Canal in Peace and

War, p. 77, gives the text of the note from the Panamanian Government.
FORGING THE DEFENSES OF THE CANAL 309

Republic of Panama needed for the defense of Panama Canal. These lands

include Rio Hato and outlying emergency landing fields, stations for aircraft warning service, trunk roads, searchlight positions and access roads,

Harbor Defense items and cable rights of way. . . ."

 18

 At the same time a

request for the necessary funds was included in Air Corps estimates for

the next fiscal year. General Stone asked for and received authority to negotiate directly with the Panamanian Government, which he found willing

to co-operate but only on the basis of a 999-year lease, not a sale, of the land.

Almost four months afterward, on 17 June, the War Plans Division, noting

the request for funds and calling attention to General Stone's negotiations,

recommended that the approval of the State Department be sought for any

proposed lease; and the State Department, although seeing no bar to a

999-year lease in any provision of the new treaty, believed it best to defer

action until Congress ratified the treaty. This Congress did on 27 July, after

appropriating $400,000 for acquiring the defense sites in Panama.19

Although arrangements for pushing the defenses out into Panamanian

territory were further advanced than General Stone's proposals regarding

the Pacific islands, nothing concrete had been accomplished in either case

except an allocation of funds for the former. The question of acquiring

island bases in the Pacific seemed to be definitely buried. As for the defense

sites in the Republic of Panama the War Department was awaiting the

signal from the State Department with desks cleared for action.

Only a small start had been made to provide the housing for the additional Coast Artillery troops authorized the previous January. The general

program of expansion depended on Congressional approval in the shape of

appropriations and, until this was forthcoming in June, when the sum of

$50,000,000 was made available, only a limited amount of construction

could be undertaken.

All this time events in Europe had been rushing headlong toward their

climax. After breaking up the Republic of Czechoslovakia and establishing a

German protectorate over most of its former territories, after re-incorporating Memel into the Reich and demanding the return of Danzig, after tearing

up the naval treaty with Britain, abrogating the nonaggression pact with

Poland, and signing a pact of peace with Russia, Hitler in the early morning

hours of 1 September 1939 flung his armies across the Polish frontier. Bound

18

 Rad, TAG to CG PCD, 23 Feb 39, AG 660.2 PCD (9-26-37), sec. 3. 19

 Rad, CG PCD to TAG, 28 Feb 39, AG 660.2 PCD (8-26-37) sec. 3; Memo, WPD for

CofS, 17 Jun 39; Ltr, Secy State to SW, 24 Jun 39. Last two in WPD 2674-25.
310 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

to Poland by treaty, Britain and France mobilized, and on Sunday, 3 September, both countries came to the aid of their hard-pressed ally.

Emergency Measures, August 1939-January 1940

Throughout the August crisis the United States Government had carefully followed the course of events in Europe; and while it cherished the

hope that the crisis might pass, at the same time it recognized the necessity

of preparing for the worst. On 22 August the War Department notified

General Stone that "if war breaks out in Europe" two regiments of infantry,

totaling 2,678 men, with full field equipment, would be sent to Panama

"immediately." The War Department also proposed to send 898 filler replacements for the antiaircraft troops, to double the pursuit plane strength,

and to speed up the authorized construction.20 On the next day, 23 August,

the announcement came of the Nazi-Soviet pact. Personal appeals from

President Roosevelt to Hitler, to the King of Italy, and to President Ignace

Moscicki of Poland failed to halt the march of events.

Plans for protecting the Canal against sabotage during an international

crisis of this sort had been drawn up in Panama and given constant study

ever since the spring of 1936. Now, steps to put them into effect were

quickly taken. Three basic measures had been provided for: first, the installation and operation of special equipment in the lock chambers, designed to

detect underwater mines and bombs and to prevent damage from this cause;

second, the restriction of commercial traffic to one side of the dual locks; and

third, the inspection of all ships before they entered the Canal and the placing of an armed guard on vessels while in transit through it.21

 These measures

were instituted between 26 August, when the President gave Secretary Harry

H. Woodring the signal to go ahead, and 1 September. At first the Canal

authorities exempted from the inspection and guard requirements all American flag vessels, foreign passenger liners on regular runs and carrying more

than twenty-five passengers, and British or French cargo ships that were

"known to the Canal" and on a regularly scheduled voyage; but the War

Department immediately insisted on the regulations being applied without

20

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 22 Aug 39, WPD 4191-3; Memo, CofAC for WPD, 22 Aug 39;

Memo, WPD for CofS, 23 Aug 39. Last two in WPD 4191-5. For the diplomacy of the period

see William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason, The Challenge to Isolation, 7937-7940 (New York:

Harper and Brothers, 1952), pp. 185-206. 21

 Ltr, Governor Julian Larcombe Schley, Panama Canal, to SW, 14 Jul 36; Ltr, Governor

Clarence Self Ridley, Panama Canal, to SW, 16 Aug 37; Memo, WPD for CorS, 13 Jul 38. All in

AG 660.2 Panama Canal (7-14-36).
FORGING THE DEFENSES OF THE CANAL 311

distinction, without regard to the "nationality, size or character" of the vessel.

Ships of war "of foreign powers with whom we are on diplomatically friendly

relations" were the only exceptions the War Department recognized.22

The only discretion the War Department permitted was in the size of the

armed guard; but this alone gave the Canal authorities considerable latitude

in applying the regulations. Vessels were grouped in several categories on

the basis of their size, nationality, and potentiality for mischief, and a corresponding transit guard was provided that varied in numbers from two to

twenty-five men. The plan had been for the Navy to furnish the men for the

guard; but when it was put into effect the Fifteenth Naval District was so

short of manpower that the Army had to take over this function temporarily.

The 18th Infantry Brigade, consisting of the 5th and 13th Regiments and

numbering 2,678 officers and enlisted men, had been earmarked for Panama

should some emergency require that the garrison be reinforced. As soon as

it was decided to institute transit guards, the War Plans Division asked

General Stone whether in view of the decision he would like to have the

brigade or any part of it sent to Panama immediately. The reply was prompt:

"For security and guarding of canal desire 18th Brigade be sent to Canal

Zone with full field equipment including peace allowances, motor transport and heavy tentage."

 23

 Preliminary steps to start the brigade on its way

were taken at once. Sometime between the end of October and the middle

of November the troops arrived. They were a welcome addition to the garrison.

Not all of them seem to have been required for transit guard duty. In

February 1940 the commander of the Pacific Sector, in submitting a plan

for reorganizing the garrison, recommended a strength of 376 for the transit

guard. Some months later, after the guard system had been tightened, departmental headquarters figured that this duty would require the services of

16 officers and 248 enlisted men; in June 1941 when the guard was further

increased, 450 men were considered necessary; and later in 1941 a full battalion was employed to furnish the transit guard details, although, according

to an official headquarters historian, "this number was in excess of the actual

needs. . . ."

 24

 The number of men needed depended, of course, on 

22

 WPD Draft Memo, SW for President, 26 Aug 39, sub: Def of the Panama Canal Against

Sabotage; Memo, SW for TAG, 28 Aug 39; Telg, SW to Governor Ridley, Canal Zone, 28 Aug

39; Memo, WPD for CofS, 30 Aug 39; Telg, SW to Governor Ridley, Panama Canal, 30 Aug 39.

All in WPD 3730-13. 23

 Rad, CG PCD to TAG, 1 Sep 39, AG 320.2 (8-19-39), sec. 3. 24

 Hq PCD, MS, Panama Mobile Force and Security Command, OCMH pt. III, pp. 12-13 and

passim, and pt. I, p. 10.
312 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

amount of traffic, the stringency of the system, and the rate of rotation.

In August and September 1939 an average of fifteen or sixteen vessels were

passing through the Canal each day; but of these about 68 percent were

vessels of American, British, French, or Dutch registry, which took a transit

guard of only ten or fifteen men or less.

Other reinforcements, in addition to the 18th Infantry Brigade, were

sent off to Panama immediately. Two antiaircraft detachments, totaling

about 30 officers and 868 enlisted men, were dispatched early in September

in order to bring the units in Panama up to their allotted strength. At the

same time, after hurried arrangements were made with Mexico and the

Central American Republics, thirty new P-36 fighters were flown down to

reinforce the air garrison. The coast artillery reinforcements, which had

been held back pending completion of the housing program, were now sent

forward, although the construction program had barely started.25

In conjunction with the antisabotage measures and the dispatch of reinforcements a third step was taken to meet the emergency occasioned by

the outbreak of the European war. This was an administrative step taken

on 5 September when the President by virtue of his authority under the Canal

Zone Code directed the Commanding General, Panama Canal Department,

to assume exclusive control and jurisdiction over the Canal and all its

adjuncts and appurtenances, including the government of the Canal Zone.

In normal times the commanding general and the Governor shared responsibility for the safety of the Canal; but in time of war, or whenever the

President considered war to be imminent, the intention was that the commanding general would assume full responsibility. This was done in 1917,

four days after the proclamation of war with Germany. In 1939, at the end

of August the War Plans Division urged that the law be invoked as soon

as the President issued a proclamation of neutrality or emergency; and only

to this extent was there a departure from the 1917 precedent.26

While these emergency measures were in progress, they and defenses

at Panama were being subjected to further continuing study. The air commander in Panama, Brig. Gen. Herbert A. Dargue, reported to General

Arnold that he could see no sign of construction activity at either France

25

 Memo, G-3 for TAG, 26 Aug 39, sub: Movement of Reinforcements to Panama; Ltr CG

PCD to TAG, 26 Aug 39; Memo, G-3 for G-1, G-2, G-4, and WPD, 5 Sep 39; WPD Office

Memo for Gen Strong, 7 Sep 39, sub: Rpt. . . on Air Corps Pursuit Flight . . . All in WPD 4191-3. 26

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 26 Aug 39, AG 320.2 (8-19-39), sec. 4. A copy of President

Roosevelt's Executive order (8232, 5 September 1939) and the official notification to the Commanding General, Panama Canal Department, are in the same file. See also, Padelford, Panama

Canal in Peace and War, p. 139.
FORGING THE DEFENSES OF THE CANAL 313

EARLY RADAR INSTALLATION (SCR-271)

in Panama.

or Albrook Fields and that he was

"a little impatient" about it. But he

did not want the flow of reinforcements stopped on this account.27

Both the Chief of Coast Artillery

and the Commanding General, Panama Canal Department, formally

called attention to the inadequacy of

the antiaircraft armament. The former urged that an extra gun be provided for each 3-inch battery, which

would be an increase of twenty-five

guns; the latter forwarded to the

War Department, almost simultaneously, a report that came to just

about the same conclusion. The question of installing long-range radar

stations, which had been under consideration since midsummer, was

brought to a decision when the Chief

Signal Officer and the Chief of Engineers agreed with the War Plans Division

that two sets should be installed immediately and three others when FY 1941

funds became available. The Federal Bureau of Investigation entered the

picture with a memorandum for the President that offered a critical view of

the situation in Panama, based, so it seemed to the War Department, on conditions existing before the recent emergency measures were taken.28

 One voice

of protest—that of the governor—was raised. Although the commanding general, as soon as he took over the government of the Canal Zone, had seen to it

that all the existing regulations and administrative machinery continued, the

Governor, after two months of military control, was convinced that a return

to something like his former position was desirable. The Governor argued

that the Neutrality Act of 4 November 1939 and President Roosevelt's reassurances that the United States did not "intend" to get involved in the war

27

 Memo, CofAC for WPD, 16 Oct 39, WPD 4191-3. 28

 Ltr, CG PCD to TAG, 24 Oct 39, sub: AA Def of the Panama Canal; Memo, CofCA for

TAG, 13 Oct 39, sub: AA Def of the Panama Canal. Both in AG 660.2 PCD (8-26-37), sec. 1.

Memo, WPD for CofS, 25 Oct 39, sub: AWS Project for PCD, WPD 4186; Memo, WPD for

G-2, 22 Nov 39; Memo, CofS for Brig Gen Edwin M. Watson, 24 Nov 39. Last two in WPD

3730-15.
314 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

made inapplicable the legal provision on which military control was based. In

any event, the Governor continued, "military control" was unnecessary since

he and his chief assistant were Army officers themselves. But the Governor's

arguments did not move the War Department, The War Plans Division disposed of them flatly and concisely by stating that the existing system was

"working satisfactorily" and that to change it "might have the undesirable

effect of creating the impression that safeguarding the Panama Canal has

become less important."

 29

Reorganization and Expansion

The arrival of reinforcements in the fall of 1939 and the certainty that

more were on the way permitted a reorganization of the old pyramidal command structure. Discussion and study at General Stone's headquarters in

September and early October revealed dissatisfaction with the two-sector

system and produced a plan abolishing the sectors and organizing all the

ground forces and defensive installations into a permanent mobile force,

with a sector organization of its own. The first step was to remove the antiaircraft troops from the sector commands, which was done on 16 October by

the creation of the Panama Provisional Coast Artillery Brigade (AA).30

Possibly because a change of commanding generals was scheduled for the

beginning of the year nothing further in the way of reorganization was

attempted for the time being.

In January 1940 General Stone completed almost three years of duty as

Commanding General, Panama Canal Department, and was succeeded by

Maj. Gen. Daniel Van Voorhis, who came to his new post from command

of the Fifth Corps Area. One of the first tasks the new commanding general

undertook was to complete the reorganization.

The immediate impetus was a letter from the War Department instructing the commanders in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Canal Zone to submit, for

the consideration of the newly created Air Defense Board, a complete study

of the problem of defense against air attack, including the role of antiaircraft artillery, Aircraft Warning Service, and "the proper types, numbers

and organizations and coordination of means and agencies required."

 31

 The

29

 Memo, Governor Panama Canal, CofS, 9 Nov 39; Memo, WPD for CofS, 18 Nov 39;

Ltr, CofS to Governor Panama Canal, 11 Dec 39. All in AG 320.2 (8-19-39), sec. 4. 30

 Hq PCD (CDC), Organization and Reorganization, p. 98; Hq PCD, Mobile Force and

Security Comd, pt. I, pp. 5-6. 31

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 2 Jan 40, WPD 4247-1.
FORGING THE DEFENSES OF THE CANAL 315

case for abolishing the sector commands, forcefully presented by both General Dargue and Maj. Gen. Ben Lear, commander of the Pacific Sector, and

for immediately creating a mobile force, impressed General Van Voorhis

and received the blessing of General Marshall. The latter, who at the time

happened to be inspecting the defenses of the Canal, seems to have given

his informal approval to the plan early in February, after a conference with

General Van Voorhis on Monday, 5 February. The harbor defense units,

which had remained under the sector commands after the creation of the

antiaircraft brigade, were now merged with the antiaircraft units into the

Panama Separate Coast Artillery Brigade (Provisional). The infantry and

field artillery, with some of the Quartermaster and Signal Corps troops, were

grouped into the Panama Mobile Force (Provisional). Command of the

mobile force was given to General Lear, and the Coast Artillery Brigade,

which was reported by the New York Times to be the largest and most heavily armed artillery unit in the Army, was placed under the command of Brig.

Gen. Sanderford Jarman. These changes and the abolition of the Atlantic

and Pacific Sectors were put into effect by General Order No. 5, issued by

General Van Voorhis on 16 February 1940. Formal approval by the War

Department followed, two months later.32 General Lear's headquarters and

the bulk of the mobile force remained on the Pacific side of the Isthmus.

On the Atlantic side, within an area that corresponded roughly to the old

Atlantic Sector, the mobile forces were commanded by General Lear's representative—Brig. Gen. Joseph M. Cummins, former commander of the

Atlantic Sector. The new organization may well have been a more centralized and functional structure than the old; that it provided a more uniform

distribution of staff work was clear and unquestionable.

Reinforcements had been arriving in Panama in a steady stream. At the

end of January 1940 the strength of the garrison stood not quite at 19,500

men; by the end of April it had risen to approximately 21,100.33 General

Van Voorhis was assured that his recommendations for an orderly and

balanced augmentation would be for the most part carried out. Funds to

complete the Aircraft Warning Service project would be obtained "at the

earliest opportunity," the War Department notified him. Additional antiaircraft guns would be sent. A third infantry regiment was approved, as

32

 Hist of PCD, II, 141-44; Hq PCD, Panama Mobile Force and Security Commd, pt. I, pp.

9-16; Memo, Gen Van Voorhis for TAG, 12 Feb 40, WPD 4270; Memo, [By Gen Van Voorhis]

for Conf with CofS, Monday, 5 Feb 40, OCS 18251-26; Memo, G-3 for WPD, 28 Mar 40,

WPD 3858-14; Memo, WPD for CofS, 17 Apr 40, sub: Panama Canal Def Project; Memo,

WPD for TAG, 25 Apr 40, sub: Panama Canal Def Project. Last two in WPD 4270. 33

 Hist of PCD, II, 56.
316 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

well as a mechanized reconnaissance company (minus 3 platoons) and another field artillery batallion "subject to the availability of personnel."

 34

The new arrivals had so far outdistanced construction that a serious

shortage of housing existed. At Albrook Field enlisted men were sleeping

in the hangars, and at other stations the troops were quartered under canvas.

Indecision in Washington about the type of contract delayed the arrival of

contractors' forces until July 1940—one year after construction funds were

made available. Until then all the construction work was done by the troops

themselves. Tropical rains, the continued influx of troops, and frequent

tangles of red tape between the different branches of the garrison added to

the difficulties.35 The Panama experience, how plans for deferring reinforcements until housing was ready could give way under the pressure of emergency, set a pattern that was to recur again and again at the newer bases in

the Caribbean and the North Atlantic.

Among the legacies inherited by General Van Voorhis was the question

of defensive positions outside the Canal Zone—particularly the Rio Hato

airfield and the emergency landing strips that had been the subject of so

much discussion with the Republic of Panama. In September 1939 the conduct of negotiations had been taken over by the State Department in collaboration with the War Department. No word of their progress was received by the Panama Canal Department until late in February 1940 when

a draft of the proposed form of lease was sent to General Van Voorhis who

objected to the article defining American jurisdiction within the leased areas.36

The Rio Hato field had been put to use constantly under the terms of the

agreement made with the owner of the place. In April 1940 General Van

Voorhis designated the area as a "Department Training Center" over the

objections of General Dargue who wished to develop Rio Hato as a subpost

of Albrook Field, under control of the 19th Wing.37

Midsummer of 1940 brought to bud a project that had existed as an idea

for decades, and one which, in 1940, had been halfway to completion for at

least ten years. Even before the Canal was officially opened, some interest

had been shown in a transisthmian highway as an adjunct to military communications across the Canal Zone. No active steps in furtherance of the idea

were taken until 1928 when work on the Madden Dam was started. Then, in

order to give access to the dam site on the Chagres River, a road was built

34

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 25 Apr 40, WPD 4270. 35

 Hist of PCD, II, 35, 51, 53-55. 36

 Pers Ltr, Gen Van Voorhis to Gen Marshall, 12 Nov 40, WPD 2674-30. 37

 USAF Hist Study 42, Def of the Panama Canal, pp. 75-81.
FORGING THE DEFENSES OF THE CANAL 317

that connected with the highway system of the Canal Zone. Thus a through

road from Balboa halfway across the Isthmus was provided. The Madden

Dam road was so constructed as to be suitable for inclusion in a transisthmian

highway, but further action on closing the 24-mile gap between the dam and

Colon was deferred by questions of jurisdiction, cost, and utility.38 From time

to time during the early thirties, the commanding generals of the Panama

Canal Department urged the completion of the highway. For purposes of

defense they preferred a route either within the Canal Zone or under military

control, but the highway convention which formed part of the Treaty of

1936 specified a road from Madden Dam through Panamanian territory to

the Canal Zone boundary at Cativa, near Colón. In July 1940, a year after

the convention went into effect, the G-4 Division and the War Plans Division of the General Staff were giving serious study to the question. Although

the Chief of Engineers likewise objected to building the highway outside the

Canal Zone, the consensus of the War Department was that work should

get under way immediately, over the route outlined by the convention, and

that the entire expense should be borne by the United States. The President

gave his approval on 15 August; the Budget Bureau on 4 September allocated

$4,000,000 from the President's Emergency Fund; the Panamanian Ambassador approved the arrangements on 6 September; and in October the actual

construction began, under the supervision of the United States Public Roads

Administration. It was hoped that a 20-foot wide, concrete highway would

be completed by September 1941.39 Not long after construction of the highway was started, negotiations with the Panamanian Government were entered

into for the purpose of acquiring a right of way for an access road from

Panama City to the new searchlight and antiaircraft positions obtained

outside the Canal Zone, between Panama City and Madden Lake. The War

Department soon decided that this road, known as the P-8 road, would serve

better than the existing Canal Zone highways as a link in the transisthmian

highway. If the P-8 road were extended to Madden Dam, transisthmian

traffic could be diverted away from the vicinity of the canal and the security

problem thereby lightened. The additional funds required for building the

P-8 road according to the specifications of the transisthmian highway were

obtained in the spring of 1941, and at the same time plans for building a

38

 PCD, MS, The Boyd-Roosevelt Highway and the Inter-American Highway, OCMH, pp. 1-8. 39

 Ibid. pp. 9-11; 1st Ind, CofEngrs to G-4, 19 Jul 40, on Ltr, G-4 to CofEngrs, n.d.; Ltr,

Secy State to SW, 24 Aug 40. Last two in AG 388.1 Panama (1-1-26), sec. 2-A (1). Memo,

G-4 for CofS, 22 Jul 40, and related corresp, WPD 446-61.
PANAMA AIRFIELDS. Balboa and Albrook Field (top). Rio Hato (bottom).
FORGING THE DEFENSES OF THE CANAL 319

bypass around Madden Dam were adopted. Construction of the expanded

P-8 project was transferred from the Army Engineers to the Public Roads

Administration in September 1941.40

Meanwhile, the scarcity of labor and delays in obtaining delivery of

materials had slowed down construction of the Madden Dam-Colón highway. After the United States was thrust into the war, Army Engineers and

their equipment joined the contractor's forces in opening up the last section

of the road. On 22 April 1942 a battalion of field artillery with one hundred

vehicles traveled the road from ocean to ocean, although it was not completely paved. By the end of May the paving was finished and an all-weather

transisthmian highway was at last a reality, but traffic was restricted to military and other official vehicles until the P-8 road and the Madden Dam bypass

were completed in April 1943.41

The year 1940 also saw the beginning of another project, which, like the

transisthmian highway, had been "in the cards" for some time past. Concern

over the possibility that the Canal might be put out of operation by sabotage

or aerial attack against the lock system had on various occasions given rise

to proposals to construct another canal either in Nicaragua or across the

Isthmus of Tehuantepec, to convert the Panama Canal into a sea-level waterway, or to build an additional set of locks. Of these several proposals, the

War Department favored the third on grounds that it would be the quickest

and least expensive, and that in any case it would be a prerequisite for building a sea-level canal. Indorsed by the Governor of the Panama Canal, by

the Secretary of War, and by the President, the project received Congressional approval on 11 August 1939; but funds to begin the work were not

forthcoming until the following spring. Congress, seeing that at least six

years would be required for the project, was not to be hurried, and there

were those in the House of Representatives who believed that the $277,000,000

which the project would cost could be spent to better advantage for munitions

and matériel. Finally on 30 May 1940 the House voted to accept a Senate

amendment to the War Department Civil Functions Bill (approved 24 June

1940) which provided for an initial appropriation of $15,000,000 and

authorized the letting of construction contracts to an amount not exceeding

$99,000,000. Work was begun on 1 July 1940, when the dredge Cascades

40

 Ltr, SW to Secy State, 23 Dec 40; Memo, G-4 for CofS, 28 Jan 41; Ltr, CG PCD to TAG,

5 Apr 41; Ltr, Administrator Federal Works Administration to SW, 3 Sep 41. All in AG 388.1

Panama (1-1-26), sec. 2-A (1). Ltr, SW to Administrator FWA, 5 Aug 41, OCS 16054-65. 41

 PCD, Boyd-Roosevelt Highway and Inter-American Highway, pp. 16-18, 21-22.
320 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

started excavating at the Pacific end of the channel leading to the New

Miraflores lock site.42

Construction and planning were placed in the hands of the Canal administration, not of the Army, although the War Department controlled the

purse strings. The plans called for a series of single locks paralleling, but

at some distance from, the existing double chambers. The new locks were

to be two hundred feet longer and thirty feet wider than the old, in order

to accommodate the 58,000-ton Montana-class battleships that the Navy

placed on order in September 1940. This feature soon began to override the

security consideration as the principal reason for the project.

The entry of the United States into the war brought into question the

future of the third locks project; the Navy's interest in it gave it high priority. On 23 December 1941 the Governor of the Panama Canal reported by

letter to the Secretary of War that the schedule, which called for completing

the project by 30 June 1946, could be met only by assigning high priority to,

and by vigorously prosecuting, the construction. Since the first of the new

super-battleships was scheduled to be completed late in 1945, it would appear

essential, continued the governor, that the locks program be completed as

soon as possible.43 Discussing the question at a War Council meeting on

5 January 1942, Maj. Gen. Richard C. Moore, Deputy Chief of Staff, took

a somewhat different view. "The only necessity for this lock [sic]," the

minutes read, "is to permit larger battleships, now under construction, to

pass through the canal. General Moore felt that there was some question

as to whether or not, with shipping and material so short at this time, the

construction of this lock should have such a high priority."

 44

 Since the matter

was of primary interest to the Navy, the War Department accepted the

opinion of the Chief of Naval Operations, who recommended "that every

effort be made" to complete the project "at the earliest date practicable, and

not later than Jan 1, 1946."

 45

 The Army and Navy Munitions Board agreed

to assign the priorities necessary for completing the work on the schedule the

Navy desired, and the governor of the Canal was instructed to push con42

 Ltr, President to Representative Adolph Joachim Sabath, 19 Jun 39; Ltr, SW to President,

19 Jun 39; Telg, Stephen T. Early to President, 28 Feb 40; Telg, President to Representative

Sam Rayburn, 28 Feb 40. All in Roosevelt Papers, FDRL. New York Times, May 31, 1940,

p. 13; Annual Report of the Governor of the Panama Canal, 1940, pp. 78-79. 43

 Ltr, Governor Glen E. Edgerton to SW, 23 Dec 41, AG 821.1 Panama Canal (1-20-39). 44

 Min, War Council Mtg, 5 Jan 42, SW Conf, binder 2. 45

 Memo, CNO for CofS, 14 Jan 42, AG 821.1 Panama Canal (1-20-39); see also, Memo,

WPD for CofS, 1 Jan 42; Memo, CofS for CNO. Last two in OCS 21260-3.
FORGING THE DEFENSES OF THE CANAL 321

struction as rapidly as he could.46 Four months later there was a radical

change of plan.

As far as the defense of the canal was concerned, Lt. Gen. Frank M.

Andrews, Commanding General, Caribbean Defense Command, considered

the third locks project a hindrance rather than a help. "The greatest danger

to the Canal today," he wrote in May 1942, "is an air raid which would

damage the lake level gates to the extent that would result in the loss of

water in Gatun Lake. . . . The construction of a third set of lake level locks

would present to the enemy an additional means of accomplishing its objective and would consequently render the local defense problem more

complex."

 47

 Therefore, when the Navy in the spring of 1942 indefinitely

postponed the battleship construction program, which had become the principal reason for the additional locks, General Andrews recommended that

the locks project be deferred also. Both the War Department and the Navy

concurred in General Andrews' recommendation, and, having received the

approval of the President, Secretary Stimson on 23 May 1942 directed the

Governor of the Canal to modify the program drastically. Except for some

of the dredging and excavating work that had already been started and the

Miraflores bridge construction, all construction work was halted. During

the following months, contracts were renegotiated and canceled, and a large

amount of equipment and material was diverted to more immediate war

needs.48

The labor demand created by the various construction projects considerably overtaxed the local supply and made it necessary to import workers

from neighboring countries and from the West Indies. Surveys made during

the winter 1939-40 disclosed that the local labor supply was "practically

exhausted" and that about 12,000 workers would have to be recruited outside the Republic of Panama if the requirements anticipated for midsummer

of 1940 were to be met. Nevertheless, the Panamanian Government was

loath to permit a widespread importation of foreign laborers, except from

Spain or Puerto Rico, neither of which was considered a suitable source by

the Canal administration and Army authorities. Early in 1940 the Panamanian Government agreed to the entry of one shipload of workers from Jamaica,

where a labor recruiting office had been opened in February. President

46

 Ltr, SW to Governor Panama Canal, 22 Jan 42, OCS 21260-3. 47

 Memo, CG CDC for CofS, 18 May 42, WDCSA 42-43 CDC. 48

 Memo, CofS and COMINCH for President, 21 May 42; Ltr, SW to President, 21 May 42,

with undated indorsement by the President. Both in AG 821.1 Panama Canal (5-21-42). Annual

Report of the Governor of the Panama Canal, 1942, p. 57, 1943, p. 49, 1944, p. 48; see also,

Memo, CG CDC for CofS, 18 May 42.
322 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Roosevelt, who had been anxious to have the wishes of the Panamanian

Government carefully followed, gave his approval on 19 April to the importation of 600 Jamaicans to meet immediate requirements. At the same

time he instructed the War Department that future importations should be

made in accordance with the racial requirements desired by the Panamanian

Government and that an attempt be made to fill needs by recruiting workers

in Spain, Puerto Rico, and Colombia. By 30 June 1940 about 150 Jamaican

workers had been brought into the Canal Zone. During the next twelve

months employment recruiting offices were opened in Costa Rica and Colombia and from these sources, as well as Jamaica, 4,278 workmen were

recruited. The peak was reached during the spring of 1942. On 30 June

1942 the Governor of the Canal reported that in the preceding twelve months

11,331 workmen had been brought into the Canal Zone, half of them from

El Salvador.49 By this time, in June 1942, the total of unskilled and semiskilled workmen, the so-called "Silver" employees, numbered 65,786. Although the workmen recruited on contract in neighboring countries were

thus only a small percentage of the total employed, without them the labor

situation would have been most critical. As it was, labor always had to be

carefully allocated and some projects, the transisthmian highway for example,

occasionally felt the pinch.50

The Puerto Rican Outpost, 1939-1940

The aviation developments of the 1930's that produced the long-range

bomber and which were primarily responsible for the new theories of defense in Panama were the principal factor in the establishment of a major

Army base in Puerto Rico. First developed as an independent outpost of the

Panama defenses, Puerto Rico became one of the strongpoints around the

Caribbean perimeter. Prior to 1939 the Navy, whose job it was to guard the

gaps in the Antilles screen, had only the base at Guantánamo Bay, a radio

station at San Juan, Puerto Rico, and a small Marine Corps airfield on St.

Thomas in the Virgin Islands. During 1938 the Army began to show glimmers of interest in Puerto Rico. The commanding general of the Second

Corps Area, to which the island was attached for administrative purposes,

49

 From the inception of the program in 1940 to September 1943, when it was discontinued,

a total of 19,675 contract workers were brought to the Isthmus. Over 10,000 of them came from

El Salvador. By 30 June 1944 all but 3,210 of the total number had been repatriated. Annual

Report of the Governor of the Panama Canal, 1944, p. 74. 50

 Annual Reports of the Governor of the Panama Canal, 1941, 1942, 1943; Caribbean AG

Hist Br, MS, Civilian Personnel, ch. VIII.
FORGING THE DEFENSES OF THE CANAL 323

proposed in July 1938 that a Puerto Rican defense force be organized:

"Keeping the enemy out of Caribbean waters is essentially a Navy problem,"

he wrote, "but, if need be, the Army can lend substantial support to the Navy

through the use of aircraft based on Puerto Rico, when and if more important missions do not demand their use elsewhere at the time. A logical solution of the problem," he continued, "is this: construct a suitable air base

and landing fields in Puerto Rico, but keep the Air Corps garrison to the

minimum required for maintenance; . . ."

 51

 As part of the evolution of hemisphere defense in October and November 1938 the Joint Planning Committee undertook a study of this and similar proposals, which by the following February had progressed to the point where the War Plans Division

thought an independent headquarters in Puerto Rico was necessary. It recommended, therefore, that Puerto Rico be taken out of the jurisdiction of the

Second Corps Area and be made a separate overseas department and that a

general officer with a small staff be assigned to command the department

and to develop a defense project and plan. The Chief of Staff approved the

recommendation of the War Plans Division on 10 February 1939.52 At this

time the only troops on the island were two battalions of the 65th Infantry,

a local Puerto Rican unit.

During the first half of 1939, five different surveys were made of possible airfield sites. Point Borinquen, at the extreme northwest corner of the

island, was the choice of three of the survey parties and was approved by the

Chief of Staff, General Malin Craig, on 22 June. Two other possible sites,

recommended by a party headed by General Marshall, then Deputy Chief of

Staff, were considered and rejected principally on engineering grounds.53 At

the same time General Craig forwarded the Joint Board's recommendations

to the Secretary of War for his approval. These recommendations, fruit of

the joint planning studies made during the spring, defined Puerto Rico's

role as that of an outlying base for supporting the naval forces whose task

it was to control the Caribbean Sea. The Army mission recommended by the

Joint Board was as follows:

To hold Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands against attacks by land, sea and air

forces, and against hostile sympathizers; to install and operate required Army base

facilities; to support the naval forces in controlling the Caribbean Sea and adjacent

waters; and to support operations against shore objectives.54

51

 Ltr, CG Second Corps Area to TAG, 28 Jul 38, AG 320.2 (7-28-38). 52

 Memo, Col Clark for Gen Strong, ACofS WPD, 4 Feb 39, Memo, WPD for CofS, 7 Feb 39.

Both in WPD 4141. 53

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 20 Jun 39, WPD 4079-12. 54

 Memo, JB for SW, 15 Jun 39, WPD 4159.
324 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

The principal policy recommendation of the board, namely, that a separate

local command be established over the Puerto Rico-Virgin Islands area, had

been adopted by the War Department on 5 May, when the Puerto Rican

Department was established effective 1 July 1939.55 Brig. Gen. Edmund L.

Daley was appointed commanding general with headquarters at San Juan.

Although there had been some talk at one time of placing Puerto Rico under

the Panama Canal Department, this idea had long since gone by the board

and the chain of command was run direct from the Chief of Staff.

In mid-August General Daley and his Staff were working on the preparations that were preliminary to drawing up the defense project and the coastal

frontier and operations plans. A thorough reconnaissance of Puerto Rico

and the Virgin Islands had been made. An acquaintance with all the military

forces that might become available—the 65th Infantry, the National Guard,

and Reserve groups—had been forged. Counterespionage measures had

been organized, and a revision of the internal security plan was undertaken.56

In the course of planning, General Marshall raised the question whether the

National Guard and Regular Army units could not be mixed. His idea was

to use Regular Army troops for the headquarters of the company or battalion

and National Guardsmen for the rest of the unit. The chief of the War

Plans Division thought this was more of a mixture than was necessary but

that it might be possible to use National Guard battalions to fill out Regular

Army regiments. Then the ramification whether to use Puerto Rican soldiers

in the same unit with continental Americans developed.57 Before any policy

on this question was established and while the defenses were still being

plotted, the European crisis made emergency measures necessary.

The War Department decided to send immediate reinforcements to

Puerto Rico. Toward the end of August General Daley was notified that if

war broke out in Europe he would be sent one antiaircraft battalion, one

coast artillery battalion (155-mm. gun), and a company of engineers, totaling about 1,050 officers and men. As the fighting in Europe developed, the

strength of the proposed reinforcement was increased. On 3 September a

battalion of field artillery was added to the list, and a few days later an additional antiaircraft battery and service units were added. This brought the

55

 WDGO 2, 5 May 39. 56

 Ltr, Gen Daley to Gen Strong, WPD, 17 Aug 39, WPD 4159-1. 57

 Memo, Gen Marshall, Acting CofS, for WPD, 27 Jun 39; Ltr, Gen Strong, WPD, to Gen

Daley, 1 Jul 39. Both in WPD 4159-1. Memo, WPD for CG PRD, 3 Aug 39, with Incl; Memo,

G-1 for WPD, 8 Aug 39; Memo, WPD for G-1, 11 Aug 39. Last three in WPD 4141-7 and

WPD 4141-8.
FORGING THE DEFENSES OF THE CANAL 325

promised reinforcements to more than 1,500 officers and men.58 The first arrivals, Battery D of the 69th Coast Artillery (AA), landed at San Juan on

25 September. By the end of October all the troops except the company of

engineers had arrived. Their arrival late in November brought the total

strength of the Puerto Rico garrison, including the 65th Infantry, to just

under 3,000 officers and men.

Highest priority had been given by the War Department to the preparation of an emergency airfield suitable for B-17 operations. On 6 September,

Puerto Rico Air Base No. 1 was established in a cow pasture near Point

Borinquen. Work on a temporary landing strip was immediately started.59

In November, the 28 officers and 228 enlisted men of the 27th Reconnaissance Squadron arrived at the air base, and as soon as the runway was completed the planes of the squadron—nine B-18 bombers—were flown in. This

was on 5 December 1939.60 With the arrival of the planes the emergency

measures were completed, and the Puerto Rican Department could look forward to a more orderly development.

These first steps had been directed primarily toward eliminating the

source of weakness to the Panama Canal defenses that the Antilles seemed

to present, namely, the danger that an enemy might take possession of one

of the islands and use it as a base from which to launch an attack on the

Canal, the continental United States, or the sea lanes. For this reason, to deny

Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands to the enemy was, according to the War

Plans Division, "of paramount importance." On the other hand, the Antilles

were also a source of strength. In the first place, they limited the sea approaches of the Canal to a few narrow passages, "thereby simplifying the

problem of the location and attack of hostile vessels," and in the second

place, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands afforded potential bases from

which long-range air operations could be conducted either to exert control

over the Caribbean Sea, in support of the fleet, or to provide air protection

to the land areas bordering the Caribbean, in direct defense of the Canal.61

But it was not until well into 1940 that the concept of a Caribbean theater

58

 Rad 5, TAG to CG PRD, 22 Aug 39; Memo, CofS for SW, 3 Sep 39; Memo, G-3 for G-1,

G-2, G-4, and WPD, 5 Sep 39. All in WPD 4191-4. See also, CDC, MS, A Preliminary Study

of Garrisons of the Puerto Rican Department, pt. I, p. 12. 59

 Rad, CG PRD to TAG, 7 Sep 39; Memo, WPD for G-4, 22 Aug 39. Both in AG 480.82

Puerto Rico (3-3-39). Memo, WPD for TAG, 22 Aug 39, WPD 4191-4. 60

 CDC, Preliminary Study of Garrisons of the PRD, pt. I, p. 14; Ltr, Hq PRD to TAG, 21 Dec

39, AG 580.82 Puerto Rico (3-3-39). 61

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 24 Oct 39, WPD 3793-79; Statement of WPD, Reference to

Deficiency Estimates FY 1940 for Defense Project, Puerto Rico, n.d., WPD 4159-5.
326 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

even began to take shape. The limits of the Puerto Rican Department had

been officially defined as "the Island of Puerto Rico, including all keys and

islands adjacent thereto, and all islands belonging to the United States within the Virgin Island group."

 62

 The Joint Board, however, in its recommendations earlier in 1939 had delineated a somewhat larger area of responsibility—a rectangle bounded north and south by the 17th and 20th parallels,

on the east by a line just off Cape Engaño, the easternmost tip of the Dominican Republic, and on the west by the 63d meridian. This was probably the

broadest expanse within which the defenses established in Puerto Rico in

1939 could be used effectively. Nevertheless, by ensuring against the establishment of an enemy foothold in this area, the defenses of Puerto Rico were

indirectly a protection to the Panama Canal.

During the first six months of 1940 the build-up in Puerto Rico proceeded at a somewhat slower pace than that in Panama. In this period the Puerto

Rico garrison grew from 2,980 to 3,281 officers and men, an increase of 10

percent, while the garrison in Panama rose from about 19,400 to 22,375, an

increase of about 15 percent.63 The explanation was undoubtedly in the fact

that when plans for building up the Puerto Rican defenses were put in motion in the preceding year the process had to be started from scratch, and it

was a process that always gathered momentum very slowly. In the second

place, the War Department was deliberately keeping the air garrison at a low

level primarily because of the rapidity with which it believed reinforcements

could be sent from the United States. General Arnold cited this same policy

in disapproving a request from the Panama Canal Department for additional

transport and reconnaissance planes. "The principle that all aircraft necessary for the defense of the Panama Canal must be available in the immediate

area of the Canal Zone at all times," he wrote ". . . is in direct opposition

to the approved Air Board Report, which adheres to the principle that the

aviation complement of overseas garrisons should be held to the minimum

required before reinforcement by air can arrive . . . ." General Arnold then

continued, "from a realistic viewpoint it seems inconceivable that an air attack on the Panama Canal of such proportions as to be beyond defensive

capabilities of the normal garrison could be launched without the fortyeight hours warning required to permit reinforcement by air."

 64

62

 Par 2-c, AR 170-10 (102), 10 Oct 39. 63

 Monthly strength returns of the Panama garrison are given in History of the Panama Canal

Department, II, 56; figures for Puerto Rico are taken from Caribbean Defense Command, Preliminary Study of Garrisons of the Puerto Rican Department pt. I, p. 20. 64

 Memo, CofAC for WPD, 5 Mar 40, AG 580 (12-14-39).
FORGING THE DEFENSES OF THE CANAL 327

The Alert of June 1940

Then the war in Europe erupted into a blitzkrieg. Turning against the

neighboring neutrals, the German armies outflanked the major French and

British defenses. By mid-June practically all of western Europe was in the

clutches of Hitler. On 17 June General Marshall ordered the Panama Canal

Department, the Hawaiian Department, and the west coast to alert themselves against a surprise attack.65

 The directive sent to General Van Voorhis

required him to take "every possible precaution" against any sort of action,

"naval, air or sabotage," aimed at putting the Canal out of commission and

it specified that the "air component and antiaircraft forces must be in state

of preparedness for action at any hour."

 66

 General Herron deployed his entire antiaircraft and security forces into defensive positions, with live ammunition, and made arrangements with the local naval commander for a complete air patrol, which the Navy immediately put into operation. But neither

the official histories of the Panama Canal Department nor the more likely

files of the War Department reveal specifically what measures General Van

Voorhis took in Panama.

Looking backward and in the glare of the Pearl Harbor attack a number

of points seem to stand out conspicuously: First, the alert in Panama dwindled off into controversy on the subject of "unity of command"; second,

there was no standard measure, no precise definition, of what constituted an

alert or the synonymous phrase "preparedness for action"; and third, a

follow-up message from General Marshall, which mentioned only the "possibility of attempt at sabotage," by this less inclusive phraseology could have

limited the scope of the War Plans Division's original directive without intending to do so. Since it is easier to look back than to see ahead in time,

only the first of these—the command issue—was recognized as a matter that

required attention.67

Not long after the alert of June 1940 the whole complexion of the Canal's defenses changed as a result of Britain's offer of base sites in Bermuda,

Newfoundland, and the West Indies. With the acquisition of bases in Jamaica, Antigua, St. Lucia, Trinidad, and British Guiana, the possibility of

making the Caribbean a mare clausum presented itself.

65

 See above, p. 158. 66

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 17 Jun 40, WPD 4326. 67

 The Panama alert itself is dealt with as thoroughly as the records permit in Watson, Prewar

Plans and Preparations, pages 108, 460-61.
CHAPTER XIII

Out From the Canal Zone

The fall of France and the subsequent siege of Britain created a situation

that was in effect the one for which the newest of the American strategic

plans had been designed. Based on the assumption of a complete German

victory in Europe, which would burden the United States with most of the

weight of defending the Western Hemisphere, this new plan—the RAINBOW

4 plan—provided for taking into protective custody the Old World possessions in the New World on the ground that Hitler would otherwise grab

them up as spoils of war.1 The plan contemplated the organizing of a Caribbean theater of operations as a major measure of defense, one that would in

fact serve the dual purpose of furthering the southerly orientation of RAINBOW 4 and of protecting the Atlantic approaches to the Panama Canal.

While subsidiary RAINBOW 4 plans were being laid, the President and his

advisers were arranging the details of the destroyer-base exchange with the

British Government. As soon as the exchange took place a survey of the prospective base sites in the Caribbean area—British Guiana on the southern

periphery, Trinidad, St. Lucia, Antigua, and Jamaica—was undertaken by

an Army-Navy board and preparations for developing the bases were begun.

Another important element in the making of a Caribbean theater was the

precarious position of the French and Dutch colonies. Immediately upon the

invasion of the Low Countries in early May 1940, British troops landed in

Curaçao and a French unit went to Aruba for the purpose of guarding the

large and valuable oil refineries there. The Dutch Government acquiesced,

even though reluctantly, and the United States protested, for fear of a Japanese reaction on the other side of the world. When France fell, the troops

on Aruba were brought back to Martinique, where they joined the forces

under the command of Admiral Georges Robert, the French High Commissioner. A British guard replaced them. Meanwhile, Admiral Robert had affirmed his allegiance to the Vichy regime, had become custodian of about

$250,000,000 in gold that had been sent from France before the collapse,

1

 Matloff and Snell, Strategic Planning, 1941-42, pp. 12-15; Conn and Fairchild, Framework

of Hemisphere Defense, ch. II.
OUT FROM THE CANAL ZONE 329

and had gathered together at Martinique a small force of naval vessels, including the aircraft carrier Bearn with 106 American-built planes on board.

The dangers in the situation were apparent and were not greatly eased by the

presence of a British naval force in West Indian waters. To keep watch over

the state of affairs the Navy Department based a destroyer squadron and

twelve PBY'S (twin-engine patrol bombers) at San Juan.2

Organizing the Caribbean Theater

When plans for developing the newly acquired Caribbean bases were

drawn up, the need arose of creating a new command structure since only

one of the new base sites, Jamaica, was within the limits of an existing command. Also, according to General Arnold, some arrangement under which

all Army air units in the Caribbean would be under a single command was

necessary, while at the same time General Marshall raised the question of

"unity of command" over all forces—Army and Navy—in the area. A staff

study that was started through the mill in October or November 1940 became, in December, a recommendation by the War Plans Division that a

theater command be established over all the Army forces in the Panama Canal Department, the Puerto Rican Department, and the base sites leased

from the British. The War Plans Division suggested that the various local

commands be organized into three groups as follows: one, the Puerto Rican

Department with the projected bases in Antigua, St. Lucia, and the Bahama

Islands; two, the Panama Canal Department and Jamaica; and three, Trinidad and British Guiana.3

 Perhaps more important than these intrinsic elements in producing a new command organization in the Caribbean was the

fact that the War Department at the same time was considering organizing

the defenses of the continental United States into four theaters, or defense

commands.4

On 9 January 1941, three weeks after the War Plans Division had submitted its recommendations to the Chief of Staff, the War Department notified General Van Voorhis that a Caribbean defense command had been

2

 Langer and Gleason, Challenge to Isolation, pp. 689-91; Cordell Hull, The Memoirs of

Cordell Hull, 2 vols. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1948), I, 814-16; Morison, Battle

of the Atlantic, pp. 30-33. 3

 Memo, for file, Col Anderson, WPD, 13 Nov 40, WPD 2917-27; Memo, CofAC for CofS,

20 Nov 40, AG 320.2 (1-8-41); Hist Sec, CDC, MS, Army and Navy Boundaries of the

Caribbean Defense Command, OCMH, pp. 7-8; Hist Div, CDC, Hist of Caribbean Theater,

I, 158-60. 4

 See above, pp. 23-24.
330 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

authorized and that he was to command it in addition to his other duties. On

10 February the Caribbean Defense Command was officially activated; ten

days later General Van Voorhis assumed command; and on 29 May the

organization was completed.5

The structure was not built without disagreement. The controversial

questions were principally the co-ordination of operations with the Navy,

the precise grouping of local commands, and the organization of a Caribbean

air force. Although official policy held that "operations of Army and Navy

forces will normally be coordinated by mutual cooperation," it was the standard and accepted Army doctrine that only unity of command would provide

the "unity of effort which is essential to the decisive application of the full

combat power of the available forces."

 6 The contretemps that had occurred

at the time of the June 1940 alert, when by error the Panama Canal Department sent a "directive" to the Fifteenth Naval District, demonstrated what

ought not to happen. It must have immeasurably strengthened General Marshall's conviction that unity of command was required without further delay, but General Van Voorhis, perhaps because of his close personal relations

with the local naval commander, preferred the old official policy of mutual

co-operation. "A gradual approach along cooperative lines," he wrote to

General Marshall, "will result in joint effort without raising the question of

command. Personally I feel that the question of coordinating all activities

under a single head will have to be determined," he concluded, "when the

emergency arises."

 7 He had raised the question in June, when, during what

appeared to be an emergency, he thought that the means for carrying out his

mission were lacking and could be most easily provided by the Navy. Every

time the same issue was raised elsewhere—in Bermuda, Newfoundland,

Alaska, and Iceland—the circumstances were the same: one commander was

looking with longing eyes at the means under the control of another. Since the

question was essentially one of policy, discussion of it most of the time took

place beyond the range of the local commanders. No solution was reached in

Washington until the Pearl Harbor attack, when unity of command was established at Panama and Hawaii by fiat. The problem then was transferred

to the operating levels.

The question of how to group the local area commands within a Carib5

 Hist Sec, CDC, MS, Caribbean Defense Command, Organization, Development and Reorganization, OCMH, pp. 1-4. 6

 For the one quotation see Joint Action, ch. II, par. 9, and for the other, FM 100-5, par.

114, 22 May 41. 7

 Ltr, Gen Van Voorhis to Gen Marshall, 10 Jan 41, AG 320.2 (1-8-41).
OUT FROM THE CANAL ZONE 331

bean theater was at the very beginning a matter of difference between General Van Voorhis on the one hand and the War Plans Division and the

commanding general of the Puerto Rican Department on the other. It was

more open to compromise, however, than the issue of unity of command. In

notifying General Van Voorhis on 9 January that the Caribbean Defense

Command was authorized, the War Department directed him to recommend

an appropriate organization. His views on this subject differed from those

of the War Plans Division. Instead of placing Antigua and St. Lucia with

the Puerto Rican Department and Jamaica with the Panama Canal Department, General Van Voorhis recommended that Jamaica be grouped with

Puerto Rico, to make for easier administration, and that Antigua and St.

Lucia be grouped with Trinidad, which would become a territorial department.8

 The commanding general of the Puerto Rican Department, Maj.

Gen. James L. Collins, objected to this grouping on the score that the

Anegada Passage, between the Virgin Islands and the Leewards, could not

be effectively closed unless the Puerto Rican defenses extended beyond it.

He also believed it more desirable to have Antigua and St. Lucia supplied

from Puerto Rico. A compromise was adopted. On 3 May the War Department notified General Van Voorhis that after considering the matter it had

approved the new scheme of organization. (Chart 1) On 29 May 1941, General Van Voorhis organized the Caribbean Defense Command in accordance

with the directive of the War Department.9

The same problem that had faced the Panama Canal Department now

confronted the larger theater. Whether the tactical defenses should be

organized along lines similar to those of the administrative organization

and assigned to the sectors or be placed in a theater-wide functional grouping under a single commander was the question. The specific issue concerned

the air units. On opposite sides of the question were ranged General Van

Voorhis and the commander of his air forces, Maj. Gen. Frank M. Andrews.

Based on enthusiastic reports of British air defense brought back by

General Chaney and other American observers, a theater-type organization

of air defense was set up in the continental United States in the early spring

of 1941. To such builders of air power as General Andrews this seemed to

offer the ideal system. It was essentially a task force organization, as far as

the air units themselves were concerned, which would go into action when

8

 Hist Sec, CDC, Organization, Development and Reorganization, p. 13; Hist Sec, CDC, Army

and Navy Boundaries of CDC, pp. 11-12. 9

 Hq CDC, GO 8, 29 May 41, in Hist Sec, CDC, Organization, Development and Reorganization, app. B.

OUT FROM THE CANAL ZONE 333

alerted by the elaborate ground warning network. Ideally, as the air forces

saw it, the antiaircraft artillery would be closely tied in with the interceptor

forces, and the whole would be commanded by the air commander.

General Marshall, in a personal letter to General Van Voorhis on 4

January, referred to the question of co-ordinating the air forces as being

"exceedingly important" and requiring "very special treatment." He had

sent General Andrews to Panama, General Marshall wrote, so that "a very

competent man" would be available for this purpose; and "as soon as the

new air units begin to arrive in the Caribbean region," he continued, "the

matter of coordination of air affairs will demand immediate treatment."

 10

But then General Marshall went on to say that he felt that current plans

provided for too many air units to be accumulated on permanent station in

the Caribbean, since air units could be deployed rapidly when needed, if

airfields and facilities were available. He suggested that, after the minimum garrisons were decided upon, air units located in the southeastern

United States be tagged as reinforcements and that, instead of being stationed in the Caribbean, they might make a swing around the region three

or four times a year. He admitted, however, that "the Staff" in Washington

did "not seem to agree" with him on this. General Marshall then proceeded

to discuss command between Army and Navy, in the midst of which he

added, "but there can be no question but what all of the Air activities must

be coordinated by a single head."

General Van Voorhis agreed that for the time being the outpost bases

in the Antilles should be lightly manned but developed so they could take

care of reinforcements that might be flown in from the United States. He

took the position that the Panama Canal air forces "should not go beyond

the immediate sphere of their operations in . . . defense of the canal, for

which they were initially provided." And they should not, General Van

Voorhis continued, "be looked upon by the War Department as constituting

a force available for operations throughout the theater.11 He was firm and

emphatic in his insistence that means had to come before co-ordination. Both

General Andrews and his predecessor General Dargue had vigorously

agitated this matter of "coordinating all means available," without explaining to the satisfaction of General Van Voorhis what the Air Corps meant

by co-ordination. General Van Voorhis considered it synonymous with command, and it seemed to him obvious that the acquisition of means, and

10

 Pers Ltr, Gen Marshall to Gen Van Voorhis, 4 Jan 41, WPD 4440-1. 11

 Ltr, Gen Van Voorhis to Gen Marshall, 10 Jan 41; Ltr, Gen Van Voorhis to TAG, 19 Feb

41. Both in AG 320.2 (1-8-41).
334 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

training, should come first. He pointed out, furthermore, that air defense

plans for the continental United States could rely upon a comprehensive

communications network, the lack of which in the Panama-Caribbean area

militated against the adoption of a similar defense system. When the War

Department kept urging him to "effect coordination in the Caribbean area"

by charging General Andrews "with functions . . . corresponding to those

of the Commanding General, GHQ Air Force in the continental United

States," and when, according to General Van Voorhis, the War Department

questioned the organization of the Panama air defenses before he had

organized them, General Van Voorhis lost his last shred of patience. He

could not understand, he wrote, how the War Department could criticize

something on which he had never even expressed himself officially.12 A few

days later, when he announced the organization of the Caribbean Air Force,

with General Andrews as commanding general, it could be seen that the

structural details did not markedly differ from those recommended by the

Air Corps and modeled after the organization in the continental United

States.13

Part, at least, of the War Department's attitude had been inspired by

letters from General Andrews. On 11 January, about a month after his appointment as commander of the Panama Canal air forces, General Andrews

submitted a lengthy report to General Van Voorhis in which he recommended a program for improving the air defenses along lines advocated by

the Air Corps. Four days later, on 15 January, he wrote to Maj. Gen. George

H. Brett, Chief of the Air Corps, describing the Panama air defenses as

"worth little" and the communications system as "lousy."

 14

 In March he

wrote to General Marshall criticizing plans for the air warning service in

Panama and charging that too many nonessential things were being done

in the name of defense. He set forth his views on the organization of a

Caribbean air force, including the need for unity of command over local

naval defenses and the desirability of bases in the Republic of Panama and

the west coast of Africa. Before General Marshall could dispatch a reply,

another letter from General Andrews arrived reiterating the latter's dissatisfaction with the slow progress he had made in "selling" General Van Voor12

 Ltr, Gen Marshall to Gen Van Voorhis, 5 Mar 41; Memo, WPD for CofS, 1 Apr 41; Ltr

(drafted in WPD), Gen Marshall to Gen Van Voorhis, 9 Apr 41. All in WPD 4440-5. Ltr, Gen

Van Voorhis to Gen Marshall, 12 Mar 41, AG 320.2 (1-8-41); 1st Ind, CG PCD to TAG,

7 May 41, on TAG Ltr, 28 Apr 41, AG 320.2 (4-15-41). 13

 Hq CDC GO 2, 8 May 41; Hq Caribbean Air Force GO 1, 9 May 41. Both in AG 320.2

(1-8-41). Ltr, Gen Marshall to Gen Van Voorhis, 12 Jun 41, WPD 4270-8. 14

 USAF Hist Study 42, Air Def of the Panama Canal, pp. 128-31.
OUT FROM THE CANAL ZONE 335

his his ideas on the organization and operation of a Caribbean air force. He

attributed this fact to his failure to gain the complete confidence of General

Van Voorhis.15 But only a few weeks later the Caribbean Air Force was

organized as a "task force, complete within itself, capable of independent

action, and commanded only by air officers."

 16

The next step in giving effect to the task force-defense command idea

was to authorize GHQ to act as a command headquarters. This was done

early in July. Given command of the Army garrisons in Greenland,

Bermuda, and Newfoundland, GHQ sought to have the Caribbean Defense

Command similarly "activated," because from the GHQ point of view the

command situation within the Caribbean theater was "unsatisfactory . . .

as regards training, supply and administration."

 17

 Two weeks after GHQ

reopened the question of command in the Caribbean, orders were issued for

General Van Voorhis to take over command of the Fifth Corps Area. His

successor was General Andrews.18

The Alert of July 1941

Although the command was now organized along theater lines, the

safety of the Panama Canal was still the chief concern.19 Rumors and fears

of a Japanese attempt against the Canal had developed at the beginning of

July when affairs in the Far East began to edge toward a crisis. The Navy

Department's bulletin to the President on 3 July reported the probability of

a Japanese move against Russia "about 20 July" and the fact that the Japanese Government was beginning to divert shipping out of the Atlantic. One

shipping company, it was stated, had ordered its vessels to be west of the

Panama Canal by 25 July regardless of passengers or cargo; another had instructed its ships to discharge all their cargo at west coast ports. Among

numerous other memorabilia, the bulletin further reported the following:

"Possible torpedo attack on Panama Canal between 1st and 15th of July is

reported from a reliable source . . . ."

 20

 This information was sent to th

War Department at once and was immediately relayed to General Van

15

 Pers Ltr, Gen Andrews to Gen Marshall, 12 Mar 41; Pers Ltr, Gen Andrews to Gen

Marshall, 5 Apr 41. Both in AG 320.2 (1-8-41). 16

 USAF Hist Study 42, Air Def of the Panama Canal, p. 187. 17

 Memo, GHQ for CofS WD, 25 Jul 41, referred to in Memo, DCofS GHQ for G-3 WD,

12 Aug 41, GHQ G-3 file, Corresp from CDC. 18

 Memo, DCofS Bryden for TAG, 7 Aug 41, OCS 20241-192. 19

 The question of a supply organization for the Caribbean area was not yet resolved. On this

matter, see below, p. 402. 20

 Navy Dept, Bulletin to the President, 3 Jul 41, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 20, pp. 4352-53.
336 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Voorhis as follows: "Report from questionable source indicates torpedo attack on Canal between July 1 and 15."

 21

 In Washington, much more significance was attached to the news of Japanese shipping diversions. General

Van Voorhis was directed to take added measures of protection against

sabotage and to tighten up the surveillance of ships in transit. He was to

delay all Japanese ships, ostensibly for the purpose of searching them, until

he received further instructions from the War Department.22 General Van

Voorhis tended to discount much of what had been reported. Japanese ship

movements were normal, he radioed Washington, and in fact on 3 July a

large Japanese freighter had passed through the Canal into the Atlantic,

bound for Baltimore. As for a torpedo attack, he had been given a similar

report by the military attache at Bogota, and it was clear he did not put

much stock in it. However, he immediately placed a series of defensive

measures into effect. War channels through the mine fields at both ends of

the Canal were put in use instead of the usual straight channels; antisubmarine and torpedo nets were placed in operation in front of the locks; and

a vigilant guard was maintained. The only unusual activity was a concentration of small boats on the Pacific side of the Isthmus, possibly fishing

craft, reported General Van Voorhis, and in order to maintain surveillance

over them he requested that he be provided with two high-powered speed

boats.23 Meanwhile, someone in Washington had figured out that Japanese shipping movements were scheduled so as to place one or more vessels

in the Canal each day during the period 16-22 July. Although the War Department was unaware of its purpose, the schedule looked definitely suspicious and countermeasures were considered imperative. The result was that

General Marshall and Secretary Stimson decided to restrict Canal traffic for

an indefinite period "for the purpose of effecting repairs." What this

amounted to was an exclusion of Japanese shipping; all other vessels were

permitted to pass through.24 When the Japanese Ambassador inquired about

the seeming discrimination, he received a very noncommittal reply from

Acting Secretary of State Welles, who had been informed by the War Department of its intentions and who was in complete accord with them.25

Several of the vessels that had aroused the suspicions of G-2, and a number

21

 Rad, WD to Gen Van Voorhis, 3 Jul 41, OPD Exec 4, bk. 5. 22

 Ibid; Diary of Brig Gen Leonard T. Gerow, entry for 3 Jul 41, OPD Exec 10, item 1. 23

 Rad, CG to PCD to CofS, 4 Jul 41, OPD Exec 4, bk. 5. 24

 Min, War Council Mtg, 7 Jul 41, SW Conf, binder 1; Memos, WPD for TAG, 9 and 10

Jul 41, sub: Restrictions on Traffic, Panama Canal, WPD 3730-22. 25

 Memo by Acting Secy State, 18 Jul 41, in U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of

the United States, Japan, 1931-1941, 2 vols. (Washington, 1943), II, 263-64.
OUT FROM THE CANAL ZONE 337

of other Japanese ships, arrived at Cristobal during the next few days, but,

when the ban was continued, they were rerouted either via Capetown or by

way of Cape Horn. By 22 July no Japanese vessels remained at the Canal

Zone.26 The few ships that had been inspected in United States ports had

proved to be free of any threat. Before the month ended, the Japanese move

into Indochina provided a clue to the activity that had aroused American

suspicions, and the subsequent freezing of Japanese funds in the United

States brought a cessation of trade between the two countries that made the

Canal restrictions superfluous.

The Outposts in the Dutch West Indies

The strategic importance of the Caribbean area itself had meanwhile increased. Among other basic commodities, American shipping was now

carrying two million tons of bauxite per year from Surinam to the United

States. This represented 60 or 65 percent of the American aluminum industry's total supply, and any threat to the mines or the sea lanes would

imperil American production. On 18 August, in the midst of its Iceland

preparations and Brazil and Azores planning, GHQ was instructed to prepare plans for the relief of the British troops in Aruba and Curaçao and

for the establishment of an American garrison in Surinam. As in the case

of all plans involving the forces or territory of another country, there were

certain complications. Diplomatic discussions aimed at clarifying the status

of the Dutch colonies were in progress and made a military reconnaissance

impractical. Furthermore, the protection of the bauxite mines had been

taken under study by a joint Anglo-American staff committee. Brazil, too,

came into the picture when Mr. Jefferson Caffery, the American Ambassador, informed the State Department that Brazil might be willing to join in

the defense of Surinam. Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles favored

Brazilian participation on the ground that it might lead the way to Brazilian

permission for the establishment of American defense forces in northeast

Brazil. A final complication was President Roosevelt's desire to postpone

any action until he could discuss the subject with Queen Wilhelmina of the

Netherlands, who was expected to visit the United States later in the summer.27

26

 Memo, Lt Col Le Count H. Slocum, WPD, for Gen Gerow, 23 Jul 41, and related papers,

WPD 3730-23. 27

 Entry of 18 Aug 41, GHQ 314.81 Diary; Memo, Lt Col Matthew B. Ridgway for Gen

Gerow, 26 Aug 41, sub: Conf with Mr. Welles re Dutch Guiana; Note for Rcd, Col Ridgway,

27 Aug 41, on Memo, ASW McCloy for Gen Miles, 26 Aug 41. Last two in WPD 4580.
338 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

The War Plans Division took the position that any force sent to Surinam

should have a broader mission than guarding the bauxite mines. Instead of

merely a guard company, the force, according to the chief of the Plans

Group, should be "adequate to the task of (1) maintaining United States

authority, (2) protecting our vital interests, . . . and (3) upholding th

prestige and dignity of our armed services."

 28

 The result was a recommendation by the War Plans Division, approved by General Marshall on 29 August,

that a reinforced infantry battalion be immediately sent to Trinidad, where it

would be held in readiness to move into Surinam. Brig. Gen. Leonard T.

Gerow, head of the War Plans Division, went to Hyde Park on 31 August to

present the situation to the President, who had just learned that Queen Wilhelmina's visit was to be postponed. A convenient opportunity to press for

Dutch permission to send a force to Surinam offered itself on this same day,

when the Governor of the colony, alarmed at reports that a German cruiser

was in the vicinity, appealed to British authorities in Trinidad for aid. Brig.

Gen. Ralph Talbot, Jr., commanding the American troops in Trinidad, requested authority to send 20,000 rounds of .30 caliber ammunition to the

local Dutch forces in Surinam. The War Department at first granted the request but later in the day rescinded its authorization in favor of organizing

a special force to be sent to Surinam. Force A, as it was designated, consisted

of three composite companies of the 33d Infantry, a bomber squadron, and

three platoons of Coast Artillery. It totaled 990 officers and enlisted men.

On 9 September, just a week after the first steps had been taken to organize

it, Force A sailed from the Canal Zone to Trinidad. There it stayed, awaiting the signal to proceed, until 25 November.29

Although the Dutch Government had agreed in principle to accept

American aid, the negotiations were protracted, and the departure of Force

A from Trinidad was delayed by the pressure of other matters of higher

priority to the State Department and by the need of arranging details of the

Brazilian participation. Reluctant to admit Brazilian troops into Surinam

since the aid of Venezuela had not been sought for Curaçao and Aruba, the

Netherlands Government proposed as a solution to invite Brazil to send a

28

 Covering Memo of Lt Col Lee S. Gerow, 29 Aug 41, on Memo, Maj Edward H. McDaniel

for Col Gerow, 28 Aug 41, WP D4580-1. 29

 Informal Memo, Gen Gerow, WPD, 29 Aug 41, WPD 4580-1; Gerow Diary, entries of

29 Aug and 31 Aug 41, OPD Exec 10, item 1; Memo, WPD for CofS, 2 Sep 41, quoting rads:

Talbot to G-2, 31 Aug 41, CofS to CG Trinidad, 1 Sep 41, and WD to CG CDC, 1 Sep 41,

WPD 4580-8; Memo, W.B.S. [Col Walter B. Smith, SGS] for SW, 16 Sep 41, OCS Conf File

(9-21-41); Trinidad Base Command, Hist Sec, CDC, MS, History of Trinidad Sector and Base

Command (hereafter cited as TBC, Hist Sec, CDC, Hist of TS and BC), I, 123-25.
OUT FROM THE CANAL ZONE 339

military mission to Surinam for the purpose of co-ordinating defense measures and discussing the security of their common boundary. This formula

was accepted by the Brazilian Government, and the War Department began

making arrangements to send the troops about 9 November. But because of

dissidence on the part of one or two members of the Netherlands Cabinet,

the start of the operation was delayed another two weeks.30 On 25 November a headquarters party flew into Surinam, and three days later the first

echelon of the force arrived off the harbor of Paramaribo. On 3 December

1941 the remainder of the ground troops landed, and on 8 December the

air unit arrived with three B-18's and seven P-40 fighter planes.

The dispatch of troops to Aruba and Curaçao seems to have been a less

urgent matter, although it had been under consideration fully as long as the

Surinam operation. In the Anglo-American staff conversations early in 1941

(the ABC meetings) it had been agreed that, if and when the United States

entered the war, American forces would relieve the British garrisons in Iceland and in Aruba and Curaçao. During the summer the first American

troops had gone to Iceland. But it was not until February 1942, after the

United States had entered the war, that American troops arrived at the Dutch

islands. Until then, two British infantry battalions (one on each island)

provided security for the oil refineries and port installations. Seacoast defenses consisted of three 7.5-inch guns on each island, manned by Dutch

troops. During September, October, and November both GHQ and the War

Plans Division made studies of the troop requirements, but there was apparently no intention of sending the troops immediately. The original calculation of 1,433 officers and men, which approximated the British strength

on the two islands, was increased in the course of the three months of planning to 2,434 men, which was more than the combined British-Dutch forces.

But the matter was still hanging fire when the attack on Pearl Harbor

came.31

Securing the Pacific Approaches

During 1941, while the Caribbean theater was being organized, the Pacific approaches to the Canal were likewise being secured. Before the year

30 Memo, WPD for CofS, 19 Sep 41, WPD 4580-20; Rads, Ambassador Anthony J. Drexel

Biddle, Jr., to State Dept, 25 Sep and 6 Nov 41, OPD Exec 8, bk. A; Rad, Ambassador Biddle to

Secy State, 10 Oct 41; Rad, TAG to CG CDC, 25 Oct 41. Last two in AG 370.5 (8-7-41). 31

 GHQ Staff Confs, 9 Sep and 11 Sep 41, GHQ 337 Staff Confs, binder 1; Memo, WPD for

TAG, 23 Sep 41; Memo, Lt Col George P. Hays, G-3 GHQ for CofS GHQ, 10 Sep 41, and

related papers. Last two in WPD 4577-2. Ltr, William Joseph Donovan to Under Secy Navy

James V. Forrestal, 23 Oct 41; Memo (not used), WPD for CofS, 31 Oct 41, sub: Minimum

Requirements for Def of Curaçao and Aruba. Last two in WPD 4577-3.
340 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

was out, permission to build bases in the Galápagos Islands had been obtained from the government of Ecuador, negotiations for similar bases at

Salinas, Ecuador, and Talara, Peru, were under way, and a squadron of

Army bombers had begun operating from airfields in Guatemala. Thus a

semicircle of defense similar to that provided by the Antilles was constructed

in the Pacific.

The question of acquiring bases on the Galápagos Islands had made

one of its periodic appearances at the beginning of the year. At that time

the War Plans Division had taken the position that nothing should be done

unless the President expressly directed it and unless an outright lease was

obtained from the government of Ecuador. If these conditions were met, the

War Plans Division agreed that assistance should be offered the Ecuador

air force in return for use of a base in the Galápagos Islands.32 During the

following weeks reports filtered in from South America that the government

of Ecuador would not be averse to ceding a base on the islands to the United

States.33 At this point, in the spring of 1941, the question was still considered

primarily a matter for the Navy Department to act upon, just as it had been

three years earlier. Although definitely related to the defense of Panama, a

base in the Galápagos fell within the Navy's responsibility for offshore

patrol. The Army was officially concerned only to the extent that the base

would have to be defended.

Meanwhile, the question was being approached at a more oblique angle

than naval or military, or even diplomatic, channels permitted. President

Roosevelt knew the Galápagos Islands and recognized their strategic importance; but he was also alive to the undesirable repercussions that would

follow any attempt of the United States to establish a base there. He made

various proposals aimed at setting up some sort of collective protectorate

over the islands, but nothing came of them. More promising were the activities of the Pacific Development Company. This was a corporation organized

and headed by a retired naval officer and chartered in Delaware for the purpose of developing a concession on the largest of the Galápagos Islands.

Having received a sweeping grant of authority from the Ecuadoran Government and a large loan from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, the

Pacific Development Company entered into negotiations with the private

owner of the island. President Roosevelt, who had been introduced to the

project by his naval aide, Capt. Daniel J. Callaghan, apparently intended to

32

 Memo, WPD for G-2, 31 Jan 41, WPD 3782-10. 33

 Ltr, Military Attache, Quito, to Col Harris, G-2, 26 Mar 41; Memo, Col Ridgway for

Chief, Plans Sec, WPD, 3 Apr 41. Both in WPD 4225-11.
OUT FROM THE CANAL ZONE 341

use the company much as the Pan American Airways Corporation was being

employed in the airport development program. The Navy Department,

somewhat to the annoyance of Admiral Stark, thus had to deal with the

Pacific Development Company for the facilities it desired.34 Then a hitch

occurred. The man with whom the development company was negotiating

owned only 10 percent of the necessary property, it now transpired, so that

the lease for most of the land would have to be obtained from the Ecuadoran

Government. At about the same time an account of the Pacific Development Company and its activities appeared in the column of a Washington

journalist. Although the story was far from complete, it nevertheless served

to draw aside the curtain of secrecy that was essential to the success of the

company's negotiations.35

While the matter of acquiring the land and providing the physical plant

had been occupying the attention of the Pacific Development Company, the

business of obtaining permission to make use of the islands and the territorial waters of Ecuador had been the subject of independent and direct negotiation between the State and Navy Departments on the one hand and the

Ecuadoran Government on the other. More progress was made in this

respect than by the development company. Before the company's negotiations reached a standstill, the Navy obtained permission to use the Galápagos Islands as a patrol base. The State Department thereupon began negotiating a formal agreement providing for the establishment of naval facilities

and installations on the islands and a base on the mainland as well, in the

vicinity of Salinas. Colonel Ridgway of the War Plans Division was informed of these developments by Capt. W. O. Spears, USN, on 16 October,

during discussion of an Army staff study recommending that the War Department take active steps to acquire Aircraft Warning Service and landplane bases in the Galápagos. This study, advocating what was for the War

Department a reversal of policy, had been drawn up in the War Plans

Division and submitted to Captain Spears for comment. Now, informing

Colonel Ridgway of the progress made in the negotiations for naval bases,

Captain Spears offered the opinion that the Navy Department would be

"very reluctant to consent to the diversion of any more materials . . . r

34

 Notes made by Lt Col Paul McD. Robinett, Min, SLC Mtgs, 21 May and 21 Apr 41. Both

in SLC Min, II, items 20 and 26. Tab C (Article from Washington Times-Herald, September 19,

1941) and Tab D (General Information on Galápagos), Memo, Maj McDaniel, WPD, for Col

Gerow, 3 Oct 41, WPD 3782-11. 35

 Min, SLC Mtg, 29 Oct 41, SLC Min, II item 35; Drew Pearson and Robert Sharon Allen

in Washington Times-Herald, Oct 26, 1941.
342 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

quired by the establishment of additional bases." The naval bases, he

thought, would suffice.36

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor intensified Ecuadoran fears for the

safety of the islands and put an end to earlier objections by the State Department that a base agreement with Ecuador might offend Peru. Less than a

week after the attack, an advance unit of the Navy's base force was on its

way to the Galápagos on a British steamer.37 The War Department on 20

December informed Under Secretary of State Welles that it desired to obtain from Ecuador "the right to construct landing fields on those islands at

U.S. expense and to station necessary defensive forces there for protection of

the fields. Without the latter, it does not wish the former."

 38

 At a meeting

of the Standing Liaison Committee, later the same day, Mr. Welles voiced

his assurance that, in view of previous statements by the government of

Ecuador, the War Department could proceed with its plans before the signing of a formal agreement, which was expected to take place the following

week. A similar request by the War Department with respect to Peruvian

airfields would, according to Mr. Welles, have to await the reply of the

Peruvian Government.39 Although Talara, Peru, had apparently been preferred by War Department planners as the southern terminus of the patrol

arc, when no reply came from the Peruvian Government, the War Department switched to Salinas, Ecuador, which had already been designated as

the site of the naval patrol base.40 The first Army planes reached Salinas on

16 January 1942, when a flight of heavy bombers (four B-17's) arrived

from Panama.41 Toward the end of the month construction of a joint ArmyNavy base at the Salinas airfield was begun. In the Galápagos everything

started from scratch, since there were no existing facilities, as there were at

36

 Note for Rcd, M.B.R. (Col Ridgway), 16 Oct 41; Memo, Maj McDaniel for Col Gerow,

3 Oct 41; Memo, Col Gerow for Gen Gerow, 8 Oct 41. All in WPD 3782-11. 37 U.S Dept of the Navy, Bureau of Yards and Docks, Building the Navy's Bases in World

War II, II, 37. Hist Sec, CDC, MS, Procurement, Occupation and Use of Air Bases in the

Galápagos Islands and at Salinas (hereafter cited as Hist Sec, CDC, Air Bases in the Galápagos),

p. 23. 38

 Memo, CofS for Under Secy State, 20 Dec 41, AG 601.1 (10-4-39). 39

 Min, SLC Mtg, 20 Dec 41, SLC Min, II item 40. 40

 The greater interest in Talara was the result not of its more strategic location for the defense

of the Panama Canal but because of its important petroleum installations, which were totally

undefended and which were a source of fuel for the Chilean copper industry. See Rad 105, GHQ

to CG CDC, 16 Dec 41, WPD 4380-8. It should be noted that a reinforced Coast Artillery battery

was stationed at Talara in March 1942 and by September an American air base was in operation;

but by July 1943 the American air units and ground garrison were withdrawn. 41

 It is of interest that in sending detachments of the Caribbean Air Force to operate from and

defend outlying bases, General Andrews was doing what he had cautioned against as a subordinate

of General Van Voorhis.
OUT FROM THE CANAL ZONE 343

Salinas, that could be used until the base was completed. As a result it was

early May before the first Army combat unit reached the islands and began

operations.42

Thanks to the airport development program carried out by Pan American Airways and to the prompt co-operation of the Guatemalan Government, air facilities at the northern end of the patrol arc were usable several

weeks before operations began at the Salinas airfield. Throughout 1941 construction work on two existing airfields in Guatemala—one at Guatemala

City and the other at San José—had been under way. The idea had been to

have the fields available so that, if the Guatemalan Government should request the support of American arms against aggression by a non-American

power, help would be forthcoming quickly; but during 1941 the question

was raised whether it might not be advisable to send security and communications detachments to the airfields immediately. GHQ and the Caribbean

Defense Command seem to have been inclined toward sending the detachments; the War Plans Division of the General Staff and the State Department appear to have been opposed. There had been no decision on the matter when the Japanese attacked Hawaii.43

A week after the attack the American Chargé d'Affaires at Guatemala

City transmitted to the Guatemalan Foreign Minister a note requesting permission for American military planes to fly over and land on Guatemalan

territory without formal notification through diplomatic channels, to make

whatever photographs might be necessary for tactical or navigational purposes, and to make use of Guatemalan airports and their facilities. Permission was also sought to station a bombardment squadron of 700 men and

10 planes at San José and small service detachments at both fields. On 16

December, the day following the receipt of the American request, the Guatemalan Government signified its consent, and on 25 December General

Andrews notified GHQ that six B-18's were operating out of Guatemala

City, which had been chosen for the main base. The bulk of the force, including a reinforced infantry platoon, arrived in Guatemala on 7 January

1942 and brought the strength up to about 425 officers and men.44

42

 Air Bases in the Galápagos, pp. 43-44. 43

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 2 Dec 41, WPD 4413-4; Hist Sec, CDC, MS, History of Procurement, Occupation and Use of Air Bases in Guatemala (hereafter cited as Hist Sec, CDC, Air

Bases in Guatemala), p. 12. For a discussion of the Pan American Airways airport development

program, see Conn and Fairchild, Framework of Hemisphere Defense, ch. X. 44

 Rads, CG CDC to GHQ, 25 Dec 41 and 5 Jan 42, WPD 4372-10; Hist Sec, CDC, Air Bases

in Guatemala, pp. 14-17.
344 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Expansion in the Republic of Panama

When the question of developing a base in the Galápagos and of building up an outer ring of defense around the Pacific approaches to the Canal

had been raised, in January 1941, the inner defenses were still concentrated

in the Canal Zone. Negotiations with the Panamanian Government for defense sites outside the Zone had reached a standstill. In the year and a half

since the ratification of the Panama treaty, the number of defense sites of

one sort or another that the Army wanted to acquire in the Republic of

Panama had risen from ten or so to more than seventy-five. The principal

reasons for the delay in the negotiations were the term of the leasehold and

the question of jurisdiction. A new administration which had taken office in

Panama was inclined to grant a lease for such bases only for the duration of

the emergency, while the United States desired to negotiate a long-term

lease with an option to renewal, using the Rio Hato lease as a model. On

the question of jurisdiction, the United States took the position that for the

period of the lease it should have exclusive jurisdiction and police authority

over all persons within the leased areas.45 In London, at this same time, the

commissioners who were negotiating a base agreement with the British

Government were facing a similar situation.

With General Van Voorhis urging the War Department to press for a

settlement, and with General Marshall voicing his concern over the air

forces being "entrapped in the Canal Zone," Secretary Stimson laid the matter before the President and Cabinet at a meeting on 9 January.46

 President

Roosevelt, informed of the danger in having all the Panama Air Force

planes crowded together on three small airfields, directed Secretary of State

Hull to take a stronger stand with the Panamanian Government.47 The

result was a new tack. Instead of continuing what promised to be endless

negotiations, the State Department informed the Panamanian Government

that further discussion would be of no value until the lands in question were

actually occupied. This had been the procedure with respect to the base sites

acquired from Britain in the destroyer-base exchange, when it was agreed

not to let the discussion of controversial questions delay the acquisition of

the base sites. The Panamanian Government expressed its willingness to

45

 Memo, Col Harold F. Loomis for ACofS WPD, 3 Jan 41, WPD 2674-31; Memo, WPD for

CofS, 24 Mar 41, WPD 2674-36. 46

 The quotation is from notes on General Marshall's remarks at the Standing Liaison Committee meeting on 3 January 1941 (SLC Min, II, item 1). See also, Ltr, Gen Van Voorhis to

CofS, 3 Jan 41, WPD 2674-31. 47

 Stimson Diary, entry of 9 Jan 41.
OUT FROM THE CANAL ZONE 345

permit the military authorities to occupy the various defense areas and to

begin construction pending the conclusion of a formal agreement. A joint

board was to be set up for arranging details of the transfer. Although General Van Voorhis was reluctant to take over any sites unless he could do it

unconditionally and with full authority, a decision to go ahead was made

on 24 March. During the following week instructions to this effect were

sent to General Van Voorhis and the American Ambassador in Panama,

and a schedule of dates for taking over the sites, which General Van

Voorhis had drawn up, was given to the Panamanian Government.48 By 12

April 8 of the 12 airfield sites that had been considered necessary were taken

over and occupied, and two of the seven AWS stations had been transferred

but not occupied. During the next five weeks 1 or 2 additional landing field

sites were acquired, and apparently no request was made for the transfer of

any other sites. To the State Department, which all along had been urged to

make haste in obtaining an agreement with Panama, it seemed that now an

agreement had been reached the War Department was dragging its heels.

However, an exchange of messages with General Van Voorhis convinced

the War Plans Division that "every effort" was being made "to take over

and occupy defense sites expeditiously.49 By the end of 1941 about 40

defense sites had been occupied by American troops, and eventually the

number rose to more than a hundred. A lack of roads and other facilities

rather than any procrastination on the part of the Army or the Panamanian

Government made the process slower at times than it might have been.

The procedure by which defense sites were acquired had been worked

out by July 1941. It consisted of a preliminary study and consideration of

each site by a joint Panamanian-United States Army board. If the site met

with the approval of the board and the Panamanian Government raised no

objections, the Army would move in and begin developing the place. While

this was going forward, surveys and the assessment of damages were being

carried out under the general supervision of a second joint board that was

responsible for giving final, formal approval to the transfer. The system had

apparently been functioning smoothly for some time, when President Arnulfo

48

 Min, SLC Mtg, 24 Mar 41, SLC Min, II, item 13; Rad, State Dept to Amer Ambassador,

Panama, 31 Mar 41, WPD 2674-37. A brief of the aide-mémoire from the Panamanian Govt,

5 Mar 41, and letter of transmittal, Ambassador William Dawson to the Secretary of State,

5 Mar 41, are in OCS Conf, binder 11. See also, Min, SLC Mtg, 4 Feb 41, SLC Min, II, item 5; and

Memo, Col Orlando Ward for CofS, 10 Jan 41, OCS Conf, binder 8. 49

 The quotation is from Memo, WPD for CofS, 9 Jun 41, WPD 2674-41. See also, Rad

1093, Gen Van Voorhis to TAG, 12 Apr 41, WPD 2674-34; Min, SLC Mtg, 21 May 41, SLC

Min, II, item 26; and Memo, Col Robinett for CofS, 21 Apr 41, SLC Min, II, item 19.
346 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Arias of Panama was suddenly thrust out of office. With the President went

the Panamanian members of both joint boards, and in the confusion the

records disappeared. By the time new members were appointed and new

records compiled, circumstances seemed to require a change in procedure.50

Except for the entry of the United States into the war, the change most

pregnant with consequences was the signing of the formal agreement on

defense bases, which took place on 18 May 1942. Although progress had

been made in actually acquiring the sites, a formal agreement setting forth

the rights and privileges to be enjoyed by the United States had been avoided

by the Arias regime. Negotiations had continued during the summer and

early fall without much progress being made. At the end of September the

draft of an agreement, which offered no substantial concessions to the Panamanian point of view, was sent to the American Ambassador for submission

to the Panamanian Government on 8 October, the very day on which the

Arias government was overthrown. The draft reached General Andrews'

headquarters on 1 November, but by then it was becoming clear that the

new Panamanian administration could not retreat far from the position

taken by the Arias government.51 Discussions, counterproposals, and more

study finally produced on 27 March 1942 a second draft that incorporated

certain compromises. This draft formed the basis of the approved agreement

signed in Panama on 18 May. As finally accepted, the agreement was to

terminate within one year after "the definitive treaty of peace" was signed,

and if the situation at that time was such as to require the continued occupancy

of any of the defense bases, a new agreement would be concluded. The

United States was given exclusive and full jurisdiction over its own civilian

and military personnel within the leased areas and the right to arrest, try,

and punish anyone committing crimes against the safety of the installations,

except that Panamanian citizens arrested on any charge had to be turned

over to Panamanian authorities for trial and punishment. For all lands leased

as defense sites the United States agreed to pay to private owners an annual

rental of $50.00 a hectare and for public lands $1.00 a year for all of them

except the Rio Hato area, for which the annual rental was to be $10,000.

The United States also agreed to assume the expense of completing the PinaRio Providencia highway and the Madden Dam bypass into Panama City.

50

 Hist Div, CDC, Hist of Caribbean Theater, II, 337, 339; AG Hist Sec, PCD, Hist of PCD,

III, 91; CDC PCD, Acquisition of Land, pp. 58, 67, 70-71. 51

 Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, pp. 613-15; A. R. Wright, "Defense Sites Negotiations Between the United States and Panama," The Department of State Bulletin, XXVII, 685

(Aug 11, 1952), pp. 216-17.
ANTIAIRCRAFT DEFENSES OF THE PANAMA CANAL. Barrage balloons along the

canal (top). A 40-mm. antiaircraft gun in position (bottom).
348 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

One-third of the annual maintenance cost of all highways used frequently

by American forces would be carried by the United States.52

Simultaneously with the signing of the lease agreement in Panama, an

exchange of notes took place in Washington between Secretary Hull and

the Panamanian Ambassador. Ever since January 1941 the Panamanian

Government had insisted on certain concessions, twelve in number, as conditions of a lease agreement, but the United States Government had objected

to a conditional lease agreement, and at least one of the provisions was considered by the War Department to be detrimental to the security of the

Canal. The result of the negotiations conducted by the State Department

was a separate agreement embodying the twelve concessions, which was

signed on the same day as the lease agreement but independently of it.53

As a result of the two agreements a new procedure for acquiring defense

sites came into being. Since the lease agreement authorized occupancy and

specified the sites to be occupied, there was no longer need for both of the

joint land boards. The Panamanian Foreign Minister therefore proposed,

soon after the lease agreement was signed, that a new procedure for transferring the lands be adopted. The second of the two land boards was accordingly abolished, and its supervisory and survey functions were transferred

to the other board.54

Strength and Readiness of the Defenses, 1941

One of the reasons why additional base sites were necessary was the rapid

increase in the Panama garrison in the last three months of 1940. During this

period the strength had risen from about 21,500 officers and men to approximately 28,000, an increase of slightly more than 30 percent. During

most of the following year, 1941, there was only a gradual rise. In January

the garrison stood at about 28,700; in November it totaled approximately

31,400. This was where it stood at the end of the month when the situation

in the Pacific began to cloud over.

Since midsummer of 1941 the harbor defense troops, the Aircraft Warn52

 The text of the agreement is in Caribbean Defense Command, Panama Canal Dept, MS,

Acquisition of Land, Appendix A. 53

 The terms of the general agreement have been published as Executive Agreement Series 452,

State Department Publication 2431. The article by A. R. Wright, cited note 51 above, describes

the negotiations. 54

 Details of the procedure are described in Caribbean Defense Command, Panama Canal

Dept, MS, Acquisition of Land, pp. 91-95.
OUT FROM THE CANAL ZONE 349

ing Service stations, and the antiaircraft defenses of the Panama Canal had

been on a continuous round-the-clock alert. Locks and other sensitive areas

were under constant guard against sabotage. Transit guards were being

placed on all vessels passing through the Canal. The bomber command and

some of the pursuit squadrons were on a 24-hour alert. Plans had been

worked out for Army support of "the various naval commanders in the

Caribbean Theater." In the Fifteenth Naval District, which included the

waters immediately near Panama, the Navy was conducting a continuous

surface patrol supplemented, to the extent the availability of planes permitted, by an air patrol.55

 These measures were fully reported by General

Andrews to the War Department in response to a warning sent to the commanding generals on the west coast and in the Philippines, Hawaii, and

Panama on 27 November. The only additional measure that General

Andrews considered it necessary to take was to increase inspections in order

to insure the alertness of the troops.56

He did, however, call to the attention of the War Department certain

deficiencies in the defenses of the Canal. In General Andrews' opinion, the

commandant of the naval district did not have enough planes or vessels under his control to conduct an adequate reconnaissance. The Aircraft Warning

Service in the Caribbean theater, he reported, was totally inadequate in personnel to supervise the installation of detectors on hand as well as to man

the equipment when installed. Only two detectors were installed and in

operation in the Panama Canal Department. The harbor defenses had less

than one complete manning detail available. The antiaircraft artillery had

insufficient personnel to man the armament being installed in the Canal Zone

and only enough ammunition for one minute of fire per gun for the 37-mm.

guns. There were no barrage balloons. The Caribbean Air Force, General

Andrews continued, was totally lacking in night pursuit planes and in veryhigh-frequency radio equipment with which to direct pursuit in air. Only

eight modern long-range bombers and twelve modern light bombers were

available, and there were no 37-mm. cannons for the P-39's. "The situations

in Puerto Rico and the Base Commands are so new, and their major deficiencies so well known," General Andrews wrote, "that no attempt has been

made to enumerate them."

 57

55

 Ltr, Gen Andrews to TAG, 29 Nov 41, GHQ 381 CDC, binder 1. The phrase quoted

above is from this letter also. 56

 Ibid. On other reactions to the 27 November warning, see above, chs. IV and VII. 57

 Ibid.
350 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

There had been little change in the size of the Puerto Rican garrison in

1941 since April, when heavy selective service inductions and large reinforcements had pushed the strength up to slightly more than 21,000 officers and

enlisted men. This was an increase of about 60 percent over the December

1940 strength of 13,280 men and was almost exactly what the Panama garrison had been only seven months earlier. After the April augmentation the

Puerto Rican garrison remained between 20,000 and 22,000 until March

1942, three months after the United States entered the war. Most of the

troops were stationed at three posts: Borinquen Field, at the far northwestern point of the island; Camp Tortuguero, about twenty miles west of San

Juan; and Fort Buchanan, midway between Camp Tortuguero and San Juan.

Perhaps 66 percent of the total garrison was made up of native Puerto

Ricans, distributed among the 65th Infantry and the several National Guard

units that had been inducted on 15 October 1940.58 About 6,000 troops of

the garrison belonged to the air component, the 13th Composite Wing. This

was the striking force of the Puerto Rican coastal frontier. It was equipped,

at the end of 1941, with twenty-one medium bombers and ninety-two pursuit

planes.59

In addition to the Panama and Puerto Rican garrisons there were approximately 4,800 men in the new bases acquired from the British—in

Jamaica, Antigua, St. Lucia, Trinidad, and British Guiana—and in Surinam.

The largest of the outlying garrisons was the one in Trinidad, which totaled

about 2,000 men.

Thus, when the Japanese attack on Hawaii came, there were nearly

58,000 troops on guard in the Canal Zone, in the Republic of Panama, and

along the vast arc that stretched from Surinam, north along the Antilles

screen, to the Yucatan Channel.60 Their mission was not simply to keep the

Canal open but to defend the entire area. It was a task shared with the Navy.

58

 CDC, Preliminary Study of Garrisons of the Puerto Rican Dept, pt. II, p. 7; Hist Div,

Antilles Dept, CDC, The Puerto Rican Induction Program and the Use of Puerto Rican Troops,

pp. 18, 23-24. 59

 OPD Weekly Status Maps, AG 061 (9-4-45); CDC, Preliminary Study of Garrisons of

the Puerto Rican Dept, pt. II, p. 2. 60

 The above figures are the officially accepted figures, from the Table, Tentative Strength of

the Army Based on Progress Reports as of Dec. 7, 1941, which was compiled some time afterward by

The Adjutant General's Office, Miscellaneous Division, Returns Section, a copy of which is in

GHQ Secret Papers, binder 1. A summary of the reports received by GHQ from the several

commands during the week of 2-9 Dec 1941 gives the following: Jamaica-876 officers and men;

Antigua-309; St. Lucia-351; British Guiana-557; Trinidad-2945. The Surinam force of approximately 900 men is perhaps included in the Trinidad strength. Total strength of the Caribbean

Defense Command is shown as 58,487. The foregoing summary is in Memo, DCofS GHQ for

CG FF, 10 Dec 41, GHQ Theater Studies file, Policy bk.
OUT FROM THE CANAL ZONE 351

Naval Factors in Area Defense

The officially promulgated doctrine of joint Army and Navy action specified the administrative machinery by which the joint defense of an area like

the Caribbean was to be organized. When this doctrine had been last revised,

in 1935, the only areas for which a joint organization had been provided

were the eastern seaboard, the Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific coast, and the

Great Lakes region, each of which was designated a coastal frontier. Although originally nothing more than a geographical expression, the name

coastal frontier by 1941 had also come to mean the organizations by which

the local naval commanders co-ordinated their activities with those of the

appropriate Army commanders and by which operational command was exercised over the forces of two or more component naval districts.61

The obvious necessity of extending local naval defense beyond the existing limits of the Tenth Naval District (Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands)

and the Fifteenth (the Panama Canal Zone and adjacent waters) and the

need of co-ordinating activities with the Army on a broader basis than that

afforded by the naval districts led Admiral Stark, Chief of Naval Operations,

to propose the addition of two new coastal frontiers to the four already provided in Joint Action of the Army and the Navy. He suggested that a Caribbean coastal frontier be organized to include the southernmost of the

Bahamas, the eastern half of Cuba and all the rest of the Antilles, and the

northeastern coast of South America between Colombia and Brazil; and

that a Panama coastal frontier be organized which would include both the

Caribbean and the Pacific coasts of Central America, both coasts of Colombia, and the coast of Ecuador. The Galápagos Islands, Cocos, and all the

other islands off the Pacific coast were to be included also. This much of

Admiral Stark's proposal was far from revolutionary. The Army-Navy Joint

Planning Committee, then engaged in revising the RAINBOW 5 plan, accepted

the two coastal frontiers as geographical definitions, and the Navy organized

them as naval commands.

As part of his proposal, Admiral Stark had further recommended that

each of the coastal frontiers be a unified command: the Caribbean to be

under command of a naval officer, since it was primarily a naval strategic

area; and the Panama Coastal Frontier to be an Army command, since the

chief concern of forces there was the defense of the Canal. This ran counter

to the single-theater point of view being developed by the Army, and, accord61

 Joint Action, ch. V; Office of Naval History, MS, The Development of the Naval Districts,

1903-45, pp. 31-39.
352 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

ing to General Andrews, it ignored the primary defense problems of the

area, namely, the problem of air defense. If the Navy proposals were accepted,

two Army air forces would be required in the Caribbean area, he predicted,

and the organizations for maintenance, supply, and communications would

become complicated and duplicating. The proposal, General Andrews commented, assumed that the two major threats were from the west and the east

and overlooked the likelihood of an attack from the south along the Trinidad-Panama line.62

 For the all-around defense of the area against any threat

from any direction, the existing organization, namely, the Caribbean Defense

Command, was sound and logical, General Andrews contended. He "agreed

in principle with the desire of the Chief of Naval Operations to achieve a

unity of command, but he believed that the method proposed was foreign to

the problem at hand. . . ."

 63

 His conclusion was therefore that "naval support

must be regarded as an adjunct to the existing army organization and should

pass to army control when assigned or requested" and also that the naval

districts in the Caribbean area should be so organized and commanded as "to

permit coordination of naval supporting forces by the Caribbean Defense

Commander through the principle of unity of command."

 64

 The situation

offered some proof that when an irresistible force meets an immovable object

the result could be a transmutation of both into gaseous nebulae.

Seeking to improve the defense of the Panama Canal, the Army had

extended the defense system and organized it so as to embrace the whole

Caribbean area. This area itself thereupon became an object of special

attention on the part of the Army, although it was predominantly a water

area. Viewed strictly as a matter of defending an area, the problem was

how to disinfect that area completely and who should do it. A task of this

type had not been the Navy's principal interest since the days of Thomas

Jefferson. On the other hand, the protection of shipping, by means of convoys and the destruction of enemy sea power wherever encountered, was

one of the primary missions of the Navy. Viewed as a sea lane along which

American shipping had to be protected, the Caribbean was principally a naval

strategic area, although the Army believed that within the boundaries of the

area the task of protecting shipping could be done equally well by the

Army's long-range bombers and patrol planes. Regardless of these considera62

 Hist Sec, CDC, Organization, Development and Reorganization, pp. 54-57; CDC, MS,

Developments Regarding Unity of Command in the Caribbean Area, OCMH, (hereafter cited as

CDC, Unity of Command), pp. 24-25; Ltr, Gen Andrews to Gen Marshall, 14 Oct 41, AG 580

(10-14-41). 63

 Hist Sec, Unity of Comd, p. 12. 64

 Hist Sec, CDC, Organization, Development and Reorganization, p. 58.
OUT FROM THE CANAL ZONE 353

tions the Caribbean side of the Isthmus gave Army authorities in the Canal

Zone less concern than the exposed position on the Pacific side. In Panama,

only a bare beginning had been made to provide the eventual bases for air

coverage over the Salinas-Galápagos-Guatemala patrol arc. In order to fill

the gaps in the arc, additional airdromes at Tehuantepec, Mexico, and Talara,

Peru, were considered desirable; but, except for limited improvements to the

existing field at Talara, which the Peruvian Government had been persuaded to undertake and which were started in the late fall of 1941, nothing

had been done to establish these additional bases by the time the United

States was drawn into the war.65 In contrast, the defensive screen in the

Caribbean had been tightened by the acquisition of the new base sites in

British territory. Whereas the Army commanders in Panama had repeatedly,

but without avail, urged the extension of the defenses in the Pacific, the

authorities in Washington were more interested in developing and fortifying

the new Caribbean bases. This interest stemmed in part from considerations

other than the direct defense of the Canal.

65

 Hist Sec, CDC, MS, Procurement, Occupation and Use of Peruvian Bases, OCMH, pp. 9-10.
CHAPTER XIV

The New Bases Acquired

for Old Destroyers

During the 1930's the occupation by the United States of European possessions in the Western Hemisphere had become a favorite political tom-tom

for Anglophobes and isolationists. Generally presented in the guise of a

necessity for national defense, the several proposals of this nature were invariably stripped of their pretensions by the War Department, which, as late as

April 1940, insisted that the potential military value of the European colonies

remaining in the New World was not sufficient to justify their acquisition by

the United States. But the rapid advance of German armies through northern

France completely changed the perspective in which the strategic value of

Atlantic bases had hitherto been viewed. What had been laid aside, in April,

as of no pressing military importance had become, a few months later, a

part of the basic plan for hemisphere defense. And yet, to take over the

European colonies in America would have been to acquire also a host of

unwanted problems. All the military advantages of such a step, without most

of the liabilities, were gained on 2 September 1940 as a result of the historymaking Destroyer-Base Agreement, by which the United States acquired from

Great Britain the right to lease naval and air base sites in Newfoundland,

Bermuda, the Bahamas, Jamaica, St. Lucia, Antigua, Trinidad, and British

Guiana for a period of ninety-nine years.1

Not much preparation had been made for the problems of construction,

defense, and administration or for the action and reaction of the local setting

—physical, political, economic, and social—upon the new tasks that suddenly confronted the War Department.

1

 For a discussion of the critical turn of events that shaped American strategic plans in the

summer of 1940 and of the negotiations leading to the Destroyer-Base Agreement, see Conn and

Fairchild, Framework of Hemisphere Defense, ch. II, and Matloff and Snell, Strategic Planning

1941-42, chs. I-II.
THE NEW BASES ACQUIRED FOR OLD DESTROYERS 355

The Local Setting

The bare facts of geography were known or easily accessible to Army

planners. Foremost were the fifty degrees of latitude, with all the consequent

differences of climate and geography, that separated Newfoundland in the

north from British Guiana in the south. One of the more obvious facts was

the size of Newfoundland. With an area of 42,734 square miles, it was one

of the larger islands of the world, larger than Iceland or Ireland or any of

the Philippines, and about the same size as Cuba. Any plan had to take into

account its rugged, fog-swept coasts, the bleak tundra-like plateau dotted with

numberless ponds and lakes that made up the interior of the island, and the

lack of communications. The only link between the coasts was a narrowgauge railroad that snaked north and eastward from Port-aux-Basques on the

Cabot Strait through the wilderness past the few, small settlements in the

interior to the Newfoundland airport at Gander Lake and then down to

Argentia and St. John's on the Avalon Peninsula. Here the climate is only

somewhat colder and slightly wetter than that of northeastern Maine, and

the harbor at St. John's, the capital and only fair-sized city on the island, is

generally free of ice.

At the other extreme were British Guiana and Trinidad, where rain and

heat and tropic humidity took the place of Newfoundland's snow, cold, and

fog. Trinidad, it was observed, had a more uniform climate than most of the

other islands of the Antilles, because it lay directly in the track of the

moderating northeast trade winds, but even so there was considerable variation. The western coast, where the majority of the people live, is the leeward

side, and as a result Port of Spain—the capital city—and all the towns facing

the Gulf of Paria become unpleasantly hot during the long wet season.

Seasonal variations are more pronounced on the other Caribbean islands and

in the coastal lowlands of British Guiana, where, when the trade winds shift

in August and September, the heat becomes oppressive. In Jamaica, the

largest of the British West Indies, regional variation is the rule. Between

the coast and the mountainous interior of Jamaica the temperature range

drops twenty degrees and the average rainfall increases from about thirtythree inches on the coast to as much as two hundred inches a year in the

interior.

In contrast, prewar Bermuda had long been a delightful vacation haven

for many Americans. And in particular contrast to Newfoundland, where

streams and lakes make up one-third of the area, tiny Bermuda had no

source of fresh water other than rainfall. A fishhook-shaped cluster of low-
356 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

lying islands and islets connected by causeways and bridges and with a total

land area of only twenty square miles, Bermuda is the world's northernmost

coral atoll. It has the mild, equable climate characteristic of Atlantic islands

in the middle latitudes. Except for an occasional wayward hurricane that

strikes with severe force, the tropical storms that blow north from the West

Indies generally pass by. From the Royal Naval Station on the point of the

fishhook, a railroad equipped for only the lightest traffic curved around the

Great Sound through Hamilton, the capital, and then proceeded along the

length of the islands to St. George on the eastern tip. A long-standing prohibition against automobiles gave, in 1940, an anachronistic shape to transportation. Roads and lanes were narrow and sharply curved, adequate only

for the carts and bicycles for which they were intended.

In Bermuda, as well as in the Caribbean colonies, the white inhabitants

were only a minority of the total population. Some 30,000 people, only onethird of whom were white, made up Bermuda's permanent population in

1940. In most of the Caribbean colonies the white inhabitants were an even

smaller fraction of the whole. Jamaica, with about a million and a quarter

inhabitants, had a white population of only about 15,000. Possibly a third of

the people of Trinidad, and a somewhat larger part of those in British

Guiana, were of Asiatic extraction. Their turbans and jangling bracelets, the

Hindu temples, and Mohammedan mosques added an oriental atmosphere

to Port of Spain and to San Fernando, the principal port for the Trinidad

oil fields. Local dialects made a complicated language pattern. In the country

districts of Trinidad and St. Lucia, a French patois was still in use. Everywhere

among the masses illiteracy was high.

The extent of self-government varied from colony to colony; in all of

them, popular participation was extremely limited. Newfoundland, which

had enjoyed dominion rank after the first World War, had fallen into

financial difficulties and relinquished its status in 1933. After that date, a

governor and commission appointed by the British Government had exercised

all the powers formerly held by the Colonial Assembly. Among the islanders,

some dissatisfaction with the arrangement could be found. Both in Newfoundland and Canada there were those who believed that the island's problems were a matter of Canadian, and not primarily of British, concern. Bermuda, British Guiana, and the four West Indian islands were crown colonies.

Of these, only Bermuda had a local legislature that was chosen completely by

ballot. In fact, Bermuda's House of Assembly, dating back to 1620, was the

oldest English legislature outside Britain itself. The legislative councils of

the five other crown colonies were only in part elected by popular vote. In
THE NEW BASES ACQUIRED FOR OLD DESTROYERS 357

all the crown colonies, even in Bermuda, property qualifications restricted

the franchise to a very small segment of the total population. The Governor,

as the sole and personal representative of the King, dominated the government. His was the voice of authority. In him was centered complete responsibility for the government, and bearing the title Captain-General or Commander-in-Chief, he had certain, rather ill-defined responsibilities for the

defense of the colony.

During the 1930's a blend of economic distress, political discontent, and

racial animosity had produced a bitter brew of strikes and riots throughout

the Caribbean area. By 1940 a militant labor movement with definite political

aims had taken shape. But, except in Jamaica, where a new constitution

was granted in 1943, the coming of the war temporarily blocked the political

aspirations of the people. In Trinidad and British Guiana local elections were

suspended for the duration of hostilities, and one of the Negro leaders in

Trinidad, Uriah Butler, was arbitrarily interned because he had taken a

prominent part in the 1937 riots.

In August 1940, local defense forces in all eight colonies were extremely

weak. In the Bahamas, British Guiana, Antigua, and St. Lucia they were nonexistent. In Trinidad, some two hundred lightly armed volunteers stood

guard over the oil fields. A few small coast defense guns partially covered

the northern approaches to the Gulf of Paria. The southern entrance to the

gulf was undefended. In Jamaica, a battalion of Canadian infantry, with a

strength of about 680 men, was stationed in Kingston, and four coast

artillery guns, manned by native troops, guarded Kingston Harbor. Bermuda

was defended by one British infantry company and two artillery batteries

composed of militia. In Newfoundland, the defense of which had been

assumed by Canada, there were, in addition to the local militia, a flight of

RCAF bombers and a battalion of Canadian infantry. By the end of 1940

reinforcements had raised the strength of the Canadian garrison to about

a thousand men at the Gander airfield and to about four hundred at St. John's.

Although Newfoundland was thus better guarded than any of the other

colonies, its defenses were weak in heavy antiaircraft and coast artillery

guns.2 It was clear that in all the colonies, including Newfoundland, part

of the burden of local defense would fall on whatever American garrisons

were sent to the leased bases.

2

 Greenslade Board: Outline of Local Defense for Bases . . . in the Caribbean Area and British

Guiana, 8 Nov 40 AG 580 (9-4-40), sec. 1, pt. 1. The strength of the Bermuda and Newfoundland forces is given in Memos, G-2 for ACofS WPD, 24 and 31 Jan 41, WPD 4300-6; Memo,

WPD for CofS, 5 Apr 41, WPD 4351-92, sec. 6; and in Min, Conf in ODCofS, 24 Sep 40, OCS

Conf, binder 3.
358 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Planning the Garrisons

The War Department had taken no very active part in the preliminary

negotiations leading to the Destroyer-Base Agreement and had made no

attempt to anticipate the outcome by setting to work on plans for the bases.

Until 20 August, when Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill revealed Britain's intention to offer the base sites to the United States, there was nothing

tangible to work on. But on the very day that Mr. Churchill made his

announcement the Army-Navy Joint Planning Committee was directed to

begin an investigation of possible base sites.

The committee, reporting eight days later, on 28 August, gave top place

to Trinidad, Newfoundland, and Bermuda for strategic reasons and to

Jamaica as a base of supply. Trinidad's importance rested not only on its

relation to the sea lanes, but also upon its suitability both as a staging area

for moving aircraft to eastern South America and as an advanced base if

ground operations were to be carried out in the southern continent. Newfoundland, squarely on the great circle route between New York and the

British Isles, almost equidistant from Bermuda, New York, and the Azores,

and only a little farther from Ireland, could control the North Atlantic air

and sea lanes. In hostile hands it would have presented the same menace that

two centuries before had impelled the New England colonies to oust the

French from Louisbourg, just across the Cabot Strait from Newfoundland.3

Bermuda, lying midway between Newfoundland and the West Indies, would

complete the line of Atlantic outposts; and Jamaica, the committee reported,

would be valuable as a central supply base for the entire Caribbean. The

remaining base sites—on St. Lucia, Antigua, one of the Bahamas, and in

British Guiana—would be useful as emergency landing fields.4

The Joint Planning Committee took care to point out that the data on

which its report was based were not complete and that any decision must rest

on a thorough firsthand survey of the prospective base sites. In fact, the committee had scarcely begun work on its study when the Navy Department

organized a board of officers to investigate the proposed sites. Within a few

days steps had been taken to ensure Army participation, and, by the time

3

 In recognition of this exploit, the principal U.S. Army base in Newfoundland was named,

in May 1941, for the commander of the Louisbourg Expedition of 1745, Sir William Pepperrell

of Kittery, Me. 4

 Rpt of Jt Planning Comm to CNO and CofS, 28 Aug 40, WPD 4351-5. The report on

Antigua, an appendix to the original report, is dated 3 September 1940. See also, Memo, WPD

for CofS, 29 Mar 40, sub: Acquisition of Foreign Possessions in the Western Hemisphere, WPD

3977-2.
THE NEW BASES ACQUIRED FOR OLD DESTROYERS 359

the President announced the exchange of destroyers for bases, the Board of

Experts, as it was designated, was ready to function. Rear Admiral John W.

Greenslade, USN, was at its head. The War Department was represented

by Brig. Gen. Jacob L. Devers, former Chief of Staff of the Panama Canal

Department and at this time commander of the Washington Provisional

Brigade, by Lt. Col. Harry J. Malony, a member of the committee that had

drawn up the detailed RAINBOW 4 plans, and by Maj. Townsend Griffiss,

AC, who acted as General Devers' technical adviser on air matters. They

were to determine, in agreement with experts to be designated by the British

Government, "the exact location and bounds, the necessary . . . defenses,

the location of sufficient military garrisons, stores, and other necessary facilities, etc.," of the bases contemplated in the eight colonies.5

 Public announcement of the destroyer-base arrangement was made on 3 September 1940,

and on the same day the Greenslade Board left for Bermuda to launch its

first base survey.

While the Board of Experts was making its investigation in Bermuda,

the War Plans Division was placed in general charge of developing all the

base sites. Similar projects in the past, according to the War Plans Division,

had bogged down for lack of a central agency that would not only plan the

projects but push them through to completion. Consequently, when the War

Plans Division was requested to draft plans on which construction estimates

could be based, Col. Frank S. Clark, acting chief of the division, recommended that it be charged with the direction and co-ordination of all the

base development programs.6 The Chief of Staff approved and on 6 September the War Plans Division was so notified. At the same time the division

was instructed to draw up preliminary plans that would include a rough

estimate of the funds required.7

The Board of Experts returned from Bermuda on 10 September and

submitted its report. Four days later the board left Boston for Newfoundland, returned and made its report on 24 September, and on 2 October set

out again. In the next three weeks the board visited all the remaining base

sites and made a second trip to Bermuda. During its first visit to Bermuda

early in September, the British Ambassador, Lord Lothian, had suggested

that a British naval officer from the staff of the Commander in Chief, Amer5

 Ltr, SN to Admiral Greenslade, 3 Sep 40; Ltr, President to Adm Greenslade, [1] Sep 40.

Both in OPD Exec 13, item 22. 6

 Memo, SGS for ACofS WPD, 4 Sep 40, OCS 21160-1; Memo, WPD for Gen Moore,

DCofS WPD, 5 Sep 40, AG 580 (9-4-40), sec. 1 pt. 1. The WPD recommendation was drafted

by Colonel Crawford, head of the Supply and Projects Section. 7

 Memo, SGS for ACofS WPD, 6 Sep 40, AG 580 (9-4-40), sec. 1, pt. 1.
360 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

TABLE 1—RECOMMENDED AND APPROVED

(1) JPC rpt to CNO & CofS, 28 Aug 40, WPD 4351-5. (2) Memo, Adm Greenslade for CNO & CofS, 12 Nov 40, AG 580 (9-4-40). sec I, pt I. (3) WPD memo for TAG, 24 Sep 40, AG 580 (9-4-40), sec. I, pt. I. (4) Table attchd to WPD memo for TAG, 7 Feb 41, AG 580 (9-4-40), sec I-B.
THE NEW BASES ACQUIRED FOR OLD DESTROYERS 361

STRENGTHS FOR ATLANTIC BASES, 1940-41

(5) Revised table, attchd to WPD memo for TAG, 25 Feb 41, AG 580 (9-4-40), sec. I-B. (6) Table of permanent garrison, 1 Apr 41, OPD Exec #13, item 13, Gen. Malony Bdr #1. (7) Table of approved garrisons, 9 Oct 41, WPD 4351-176.
362 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

TABLE 1—RECOMMENDED AND APPROVED

(1) JPC rpt to CNO & CofS, 28 Aug 40, WPD 4351-5. (2) Memo, Adm Greenslade for CNO & CofS, 12 Nov 40, AG 580 (9-1-40). sec I, pt I. (3) WPD memo for TAG, 24 Sep 40, AG 580 (9-4-40), sec. I, pt. I. (4) Table attchd to WPD memo for TAG, 7 Feb 41, AG 580 (9-4-40), sec I-B.
THE NEW BASES ACQUIRED FOR OLD DESTROYERS 363

STRENGTHS FOR ATLANTIC BASES, 1940-41—Continued

(5) Revised table, attchd to WPD memo for TAG, 25 Feb 41, AG 580 (9-4-40), sec. I-B. (6) Table of permanent garrison, 1 Apr 41, OPD Exec #13, item 13, Gen. Malony Bdr #1. (7) Table of approved garrisons, 9 Oct 41, WPD 4351-176.
364 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

ica and West Indies Station, accompany the board on its visits to each site.8

This proposal, as in the case of the President's suggestion that a corresponding British Board of Experts would be designated, was never formally acted

upon, but there was constant informal contact and co-operation. Capt. J. S.

Bethel, commanding H.M.S. Caradoc, accompanied the board as the personal representative of the British admiral, while the board upheld the

spirit of the President's suggestion by conferring with the colonial officials

and the British military and naval representatives in the various colonies.

Meanwhile, independently of the Board of Experts, the Army Air Corps

had instituted its own study of the prospective base sites. An inspection of

the airfield projects being developed by Pan American Airways was broadened to include the newly acquired base sites in the West Indies, and on 14

October the Air Corps submitted its report to the Chief of Staff.9

Another interested party was introduced by the peculiar status of Newfoundland, which for years had occupied the same strategic position relative

to Canada that it now held in 1940 with respect to the United States as well.

Coinciding with the destroyer-base negotiations in August 1940, the Permanent Joint Board on Defense, United States and Canada, had come into

being. A cautious recommendation that the United States participate in the

defense of Newfoundland was included in the first report of the Permanent

Joint Board. And the Greenslade Board in turn submitted its recommendations concerning Newfoundland to Maj. Gen. Stanley D. Embick, senior

Army member of the Permanent Joint Board on Defense, for his concurrence.

As long as the British remained in general control of the Atlantic, no

heavier attacks on the bases were to be expected than raids by lone submarines or surface vessels and perhaps a few planes. At each base, the garrison, both ground and air, had to be sufficient to guard the installations and

naval anchorage against an attack on this scale. The American forces would

be further required to keep open all lines of communication within the

colony. But the weakness of the colonial defenses meant that the American

garrisons would have to supplement the local forces in defending the colony. These considerations, as well as those of strategy, were basic to the

plans for manning the bases.10

8

 Rpt, WPD to CofS, 13 Jan 41, title: Present Status . . . of Army Bases . . ., WPD 43

Memo, "Betty" [Admiral H. R. Stark] for President, 6 Sep 40, Roosevelt Papers, FDRL. 9

 Min, Conf in ODCofS, 6 Sep 40, OCS Misc Conf, binder 6; Memo, CofAC for CofS, 14

Oct 40, sub: Caribbean Familiarization Flight, WPD 4351-14, sec. 7. 10

 Outline of Local Defenses for Bases Acquired From Great Britain . . . , transmitted by Memo,

Adm Greenslade for CNO and CofS, 12 Nov 40 AG 580 (9-4-40), sec. 1, pt. 1.
THE NEW BASES ACQUIRED FOR OLD DESTROYERS 365

The Greenslade Board, as well as the Joint Planning Committee in

August, recommended fairly small permanent garrisons that could be readily expanded in an emergency. Subsequent discussion and decisions turned

not only on the size of the permanent garrison and on that of the emergency

garrison, but also on whether to build permanent facilities for the expanded

emergency garrison or only for the smaller permanent garrison. As the

reports of the Greenslade Board became available, during the fall of 1940,

the War Plans Division revised the tentative schedules it had already drawn

up on the basis of the Joint Planning Committee's report and brought them

more into accord with the recommendations of the Board of Experts. With

only slight changes, the ground forces recommended by the board in the fall

of 1940 still stood as the approved garrisons on the eve of Pearl Harbor.

Jamaica was the only real exception. Because of the uncertainty surrounding the role the Jamaica base was to play, the Greenslade Board's recommendations were whittled down over the course of the following year until

the planned strength of the ground garrison on 7 December 1941 was about

8 percent of the original figure. As for the air garrisons, the War Plans

Division at first accepted as the basis of its recommendations the report of

the Air Corps survey rather than the smaller figures recommended by the

Greenslade Board, but the War Plans Division almost immediately scaled

down its recommendations to bring them, at the behest of the Chief of

Staff, more into conformity with the Greenslade Board reports.11 (Table 1)

The garrisons, as established on paper in the fall of 1940 and periodically reviewed throughout 1941, represented the authorized strength, which

at some indefinite time in the future might be sent to man the bases. They

were to be the peacetime garrisons, not necessarily the forces that would be

adequate in time of war or emergency. Yet there was no assurance that a

garrison shaped to the requirements of peace would be adequate, even under

those requirements, by the time construction was well enough advanced to

permit sending it. At the same time it was clearly pointless to send troops

to the bases until there were bases to defend. The solution adopted was to

attack all aspects of the problem simultaneously. While War Plans Division

was setting up the peacetime garrisons, negotiations with the British were

proceeding toward a final agreement; while the negotiations were in pro11

 In addition to the sources cited for table I, see the following: Summary of CofAC and Bd

of Experts Recommendations for Air Corps Units and Facilities at Bases . . . , (Oct-Nov 40);

Memo, WPD for CofS, 6 Nov 40; Memo, SGS for WPD, 9 Nov 40. All in AG 580 (9-4-40),

sec. 1, pt. 1. Also various documents in WPD 4351-9, sec. 3; WPD 4351-11, sec. 6; WPD 4351-

47; and WPD 4351-176, sec. 7.
366 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

gress, construction work was started; and while construction was barely getting under way, a few troops were sent to some of the major bases.

Negotiating the Base Agreement

The Destroyer-Base Agreement of 2 September 1940 had been a striking

example of confidence on the part of each nation in the good faith of the

other. The agreement itself was not hedged with conditions of any sort.

None was acceded to beforehand that placed definite bounds to the areas

that might be leased or limited the rights and privileges that the United

States as lessee might enjoy. The grant was made and accepted on the understanding that issues of this kind would be solved later, by mutual agreement.

Certain questions of procedure and interpretation arose almost immediately. Was permission to be sought, for example, each time it was desired

to send a survey party to one of the base sites, or could a blanket request be

made? Should the acquisition of lands wait upon the settlement of claims,

and was the United States to be a party to the settlement with individual

land-owners? There were differences, too, over the locations proposed for

the bases, as the experience of the Greenslade Board had indicated there

would be. The administration of justice posed another problem full of

thorns. And as soon as American survey and construction parties began

arriving at the base sites, the applicability of local regulations came into

question. These were but a few of the myriad issues that if not resolved

would certainly contravene the spirit and might even nullify the practical

value of the original agreement.

It was soon apparent that these issues could not be settled without referring them to the colonial governments. Not having been consulted before

the Destroyer-Base Agreement was consummated, the colonies, not unreasonably perhaps, made an effort afterward to assert what they felt were

their rights. Local conditions, the temperament of the people, and the constitutional role of the governor made inevitable a closer scrutiny by the

colonial governments of the measures proposed by the United States; and

as the situation differed among the colonies, so their reaction to specific proposals varied. In Newfoundland and Bermuda, where the base sites were a

free grant and not an exchange for the destroyers, the local governments

felt they had more at stake than the other colonies. It became evident that

rapid progress could not in every case be expected.

This came to light as soon as the War Department made preparations
THE NEW BASES ACQUIRED FOR OLD DESTROYERS 367

for sending out survey parties to the base sites. Immediately after the

Greenslade Board returned from Bermuda in mid-September 1940, the State

Department asked the British Government for permission to undertake preliminary surveys in Bermuda. Soon afterward a similar request was made

concerning Newfoundland. A reply to the Newfoundland request was

received in about two weeks, and on 13 October the survey parties arrived

at St. John's.12 But in Bermuda, there was a local assembly to be considered,

whose wishes the Governor could ill afford to ignore. It was therefore not

until five and six telegrams had passed between Washington and London

that the British Government, late in October, finally granted authority for

a survey party to visit Bermuda. When members of the advance party

reached the islands on 3 November, they found the Governor surprised at

the failure of the British Embassy to notify him of their coming and emphatic in his insistence that there would be no preliminary surveys until a definite

agreement on the site of the air base was announced. Although it was contrary to the Governor's "forceful" suggestion, the rest of the party soon followed; but no field surveys were permitted until 19 November, the day after

the location of the base was publicly announced and more than a month

after the War Department was ready to start.13

To avert similar delays in the future, the Navy Department had suggested that a single blanket arrangement be worked out for all the remaining bases, and on 1 November the State Department addressed an appropriate

note on the subject to the British Government. The authorities in London

were obviously unable to obtain the colonies' assent and unwilling to impose

an agreement upon them, since the British reply, when it came a month

afterward on 2 December, merely offered the suggestion that the United

States handle the question directly with the Governors of the colonies concerned, through the American consuls and not by way of London. A blanket

permission for such visits could not be given by the home government, the

British note continued, for, unless the surveys were arranged through the

Governor, they might be undertaken at some inopportune time.14 The colonial officials having established their point, no further delay appeared neces12

 Ltr, SN to Secy State, 7 Oct 40, AG 580 (9-4-40), sec. 1, pt. 1; Rpt WPD to CofS, 13

Jan 41, title: Present Status of . . . Army Bases . . . , WPD 4351-48. 13

 SGS Memo for Rcd, 5 Nov 40, OCS Misc, binder 6; Jt Memo, SW and SN for President,

8 Oct 40, AG 580 (9-4-40), sec. 1, pt. 1; Telg 6, American Consul, Bermuda, to (Dept of State),

4 Nov 40, WPD 4351-3; North Atlantic Div, CE, MS, U.S. Army Bases: Bermuda, OCMH,

p. IV-1. 14

 Ltr, Capt R. E. Schuirmann, USN, to Secy State, 29 Oct 40, AG 580 (9-4-40), sec. 1,

pt. 1; note, Foreign Office to U.S. Chargé d'Affaires, London, 2 Dec 40, OPD Exec 13, item 23;

SGS Memo for Rcd, 5 Dec 40, OCS Conf, binder 6.
368 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

sary, and by 1 January 1941 survey parties had arrived at all the base sites.

In Bermuda, the governor's reluctance to grant authority for the preliminary survey had come for the most part from a failure to agree on the

location of the base. In Trinidad, the Greenslade Board's choice of sites was

a similar source of annoyance and delay, and in Jamaica the same issue was

only slightly less troublesome. In Newfoundland, no objections on this score

were interposed until later, when the United States decided that facilities

at Gander would be necessary.

Bermuda, more than the other colonies, was outspoken in its concern

over the social and economic dislocations that might be expected from the

establishment of American air and naval bases. No matter where the base

might be located, the scale of development planned by the United States

would, it was argued, seriously threaten the "peace, charm and amenities"

that drew thousands of tourists to the islands each year. Real estate values

would decline. The resettlement of families living on the sites chosen for

the bases would add to the congestion of areas already overcrowded; while

the presence of a permanent garrison would, it was feared, still further enhance the serious social problems. When the Greenslade Board, after its first

visit, recommended the setting aside of a wide corridor across one of the

most desirable parts of the main island as the site of the base, a surge of

opposition developed that brought the board back to Bermuda on 24 October. On this second visit, the board considered an alternative proposal

presented by the governor and found it to be feasible. It was accordingly

agreed that both the Army and Navy would concentrate their activities in

the Castle Harbour area, at the eastern end of the islands, and that only

minor seaplane facilities, for emergency operations, would be installed in

Great Sound.15 The controversy again flared up toward the end of November when the Navy Department decided to shift all its installations to

Morgan's Island and Tucker's Island on Great Sound, where a permanent

base would be built. The proposed shift aroused almost as much criticism as

the original choice, and for more than a month the British withheld their

approval.16 In the end the Navy obtained the two islands; the Army base

stayed on the eastern side of Castle Harbour.

15

 Draft of Lease of Certain Areas in Bermuda, (Ltr of transmittal to the President dated 26

Sep 40) and Supplementary Rpt of Bd of Experts—Bermuda, 26 Oct 40, in North Atlantic Div,

CE, U.S. Army Bases: Bermuda, Supps. 2-3. 16

 Ltr, Nevile Montagu Butler (British Chargé d'Affaires) to Actg Secy State Welles, 22 Nov

40; Memo, Col Crawford, WPD, for John Hickerson, State Department, 3 Dec 40. Both in OPD

Exec 13 item 23. Memo, H.R.S. (Admiral Stark) for President, 26 Dec 40, Roosevelt Papers,

FDRL.
THE NEW BASES ACQUIRED FOR OLD DESTROYERS 369

Similar objections were raised in Trinidad, but economic and social conditions there differed sufficiently from those in Bermuda to deprive the argument of much of its validity. The alternative choice offered by the Governor—a large, miasmic swamp south of Port of Spain—was most unimpressive. The improvement of this area, the Caroni Swamp, as it was known,

was an old reclamation project, which the War Department suspected of

being presented anew in the guise of co-operation. The Governor flew to

Washington early in December to urge acceptance of his views, but he

failed to convince even the officials of the British Embassy.17 The site proposed by the Governor was rejected in favor of that chosen by the Greenslade Board in the north-central part of the island, the so-called Cumuto

Reserve just south of the northern mountains. From his discussions in Washington and with the Greenslade Board during its visit to Trinidad, it seems

clear that the Governor was endeavoring to placate public opinion on the

island, that he was especially interested in having as many matters as possible settled precisely and definitely, and that, while wanting to restrict the

leased areas to as narrow limits as possible, he feared that American estimates were inadequate and would be revised upward from time to time.

Despite the lack of agreement, the Governor authorized the United States

to undertake preliminary surveys, and on 28 December 1940 a party of

engineers arrived at Port of Spain ready to begin operations.

Formal leases had not yet been executed, and in their absence a number

of questions remained unsolved. The whole question of taxes and customs

duties, the matter of military control, and in general the reluctance of the

British to accept safeguards considered necessary to secure the United States

in its use and enjoyment of the bases were the stumbling blocks. Until they

were removed and the land actually acquired, construction work could

scarcely be started; and both Admiral Stark and General Marshall feared

that the antiadministration wing of Congress would create embarrassment

if the situation dragged on.18

During the next few days the President decided to send a commission

to London to negotiate a formal agreement. Colonel Malony and Comdr.

Harold Biesemeier, USN, who had been recent associates on the Greenslade

Board, and Mr. Charles Fahy, Assistant Solicitor General, were designated

for the task. They arrived in London on 25 January 1941 with hopes of re17

 Memo, H.R.S. for President, 26 Dec 40, Roosevelt Papers, FDRL; Memo, Col Crawford for

Gen Gerow, 10 Dec 40; Rpt on Trinidad, Bd of Experts to SN, 23 Oct 40. Last two in WPD

4351-20, sec. 1. 18

 Rpt, WPD to CofS, 13 Jan 41, title: Present Status of . . . Army Bases . . . , WPD 

Min, SLC Mtg, 3 Jan 41, SLC Min, vol. II; Memo, WPD for CofS, 9 Jan 41, WPD 4351-44.
370 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

turning home in a fortnight; but before the job was done the two weeks had

stretched into eight, and with some of the issues there had been a struggle

all the way.19 An address of welcome by Lord Cranborne, Secretary of State

for the Dominions, brought together the American commissioners and their

colleagues.

The discussions that followed placed them immediately on opposite

sides of a wide gulf. The agenda presented by the British chairman comprised twenty-three items ranging widely in scope. The American commissioners wanted to discuss the general problems first, in the belief that, once

agreement was reached on such fundamentals as the boundaries of the base

sites and the extent of American jurisdiction, then the incidental questions

would solve themselves. The British, on the other hand, insisted on approaching the general by way of the particular.20

 Furthermore, the American commissioners had not come to England to treat with the colonial governments,

but representatives of the colonies insisted on taking part in the negotiations. The formal, plenary sessions soon reached an impasse. Consideration

of most of the agenda drawn up by the British was postponed or referred

to a subcommittee, and as soon as the draft leases representing the American

position were presented, the opposing points of view were seen to be at such

variance that the discussion was at once adjourned. When the first draft of

an agreement was finally completed on 18 February, only twelve of twentyeight articles were fully agreed upon. The next day's conference, the tenth

that had been held, was the last, for at this point it was decided that faster

progress could be made by holding small, informal meetings between members of the commission and officials of the colonial office.21

In weighing the American proposals, the officials of the home government tended to differ somewhat from the representatives of the colonies. To

the British officials, such problems as the exercise of criminal jurisdiction,

the conduct and control of military operations, censorship, and the use of

the bases by powers other than the United States were the more significant;

while to the colonial representatives, the question of post offices, of customs

duties, and of anything involving financial sacrifices were the weightier. But

the difference was one of emphasis only.

19

 Rad, Base Lease Commission to Secy State, 25 Jan 41, WPD 4351-54; Rad 1207, John

Gilbert Winant to Secy State, 27 Mar 41, OPD Exec 13, item 15. 20

 Ltr, Rear Adm Harold Biesemeier (Ret) to Actg Chief of Military History, 28 May 59,

in OCMH files. 21

 No verbatim record of the discussions was kept, but the minutes of the meetings as well

as the daily messages that passed between the commission and the State Department can be found

in OPD Exec 13.
THE NEW BASES ACQUIRED FOR OLD DESTROYERS 371

How much authority and military control the United States should have

in order to defend the bases had been one of the points of contention on

which the discussion of the draft leases had broken down. The draft

presented by the commissioners would have given the United States "exclusive rights, power, authority and control" not only within the leased areas,

but in the adjacent waters and air spaces as well. It reserved to the United

States also the "right, power and authority to assume military control and

conduct military operations" in any part of the colony outside the leased

areas, in the surrounding waters, and in the air above to whatever extent the

protection of American activities and national interest might require.22 This

was far too sweeping to be agreeable to the British, mindful of the 99-year

duration of the leases and of the fact that the United States was still a neutral. The grants were too extensive for peacetime, the British held, although

in emergencies they might not be inappropriate; and the implications in the

word "control" were unpleasant. Turning an old American argument to an

unfamiliar use, the British pointed out that one of the effects would be to

restrict the colonies' freedom of navigation.23 A compromise was discussed

that would have deleted the particularly objectionable word "control." It

would also have added an assurance that the powers granted to the United

States in the air and waters adjacent to the leased areas would not be used

unreasonably or so as to interfere with navigation, and it would have

limited to time of war and actual emergency the extensive military authority granted to the United States. But the representatives of the colonies

insisted on an amendment defining defense as a mutual problem and giving

the colonial Governors the right to approve the detailed application of the

powers reserved to the United States.24 This raised the whole question of

the policy and measures of defense and command, which the United States

was extremely anxious to avoid. Nothing of this sort, it was hoped, would

be included in the final agreement, for it was to be made public as soon as

it was signed.25 The commissioners, on instructions from Washington, rejected the proposition put forward by the colonies and substituted a provision for "consultation between the governments concerned" as the occasion

might require. A suggestion, which the British were willing to present, that

22

 The Trinidad draft lease, a part of the Greenslade Board Report, is in WPD 4351-20, sec. 1.

The draft of the Bermuda lease, in WPD 4351-8, sec. 1, is identical in the description of rights. 23

 Rad 383, Base Lease Commission to Secy State, 31 Jan 41, OPD Exec 13, item 16; Rad 764,

Base Lease Commission to Secy State, 27 Feb 41, OPD Exec 13, item 18. 24

 Rad 419, Base Lease Commission to Secy State, 3 Feb 41; Rad 443, Base Lease Commission

to Secy State, 5 Feb 41. Both in OPD Exec 13, item 16. 25

 Rads 502 and 503, Secy State to Base Lease Commission, 15 Feb 41, OPD Exec 13, item 19.
372 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

staff talks be held on the subject or that a joint board be set up similar to

the Permanent Joint Board on Defense, United States and Canada, was

quickly scotched.26 The commission stood firm on the compromise proposed

earlier in the month. Finally, during the first days of March, the American

position was tentatively accepted and submitted to higher authority, after

minor changes in phraseology were made and the provision for consultation

clarified by specifying -the United States and the United Kingdom as the

two governments concerned.

In the meantime, more rapid progress had been made on the question

of post offices and censorship and on the use of the bases by other nations.

It was agreed, during mid-February, that United States post offices would be

established within the leased areas for mail to or from other United States

post offices, that domestic mail originating within the bases would be sent

out under frank, and that no mention of censorship would be made in the

agreement. And as soon as it was ascertained, on rather specious reasoning,

that the War Department could as an administrative matter examine domestic mail without violating the laws, the United States by a separate exchange

of notes undertook to examine all such mail moving to and from the bases.

It was likewise agreed, fairly early in the negotiations, that the United

States would not assign or part with any of the leased areas or any of the

rights and powers granted to it. To meet a point raised by the commission,

the Trinidad representatives suggested adding a clause that nothing in this

provision would "be construed so as to prevent effective cooperation between the United States and other nations of the Americas in defense of the

Western Hemisphere." This was agreeable to all except Bermuda, Newfoundland, and the Air Ministry; but, the commission not pressing its adoption, the clause was omitted from the final agreement.27

 By the beginning

of March there was a substantial measure of agreement on most of the remaining questions.

A deadlock, however, had been reached on customs duties and court

jurisdiction. The colonies, for obvious reasons, objected strenuously to the

free importation of goods consigned to the bases, but by the end of February

26

 Rad 432, Base Lease Commission to Secy State, 4 Feb 41; Rad 619, Base Lease Commission

to Secy State, 18 Feb 41. Both in OPD Exec 13, item 16. Rad 555, Secy State to Base Lease Commission, 20 Feb 41, OPD Exec 13, item 19. 27

 Rad 515, Base Lease Commission to Secy State, 10 Feb 41; Rad 632, Base Lease Commission

to Secy State, 19 Feb 41; Rad 672, Base Lease Commission to Secy State, 21 Feb 41. All in OPD

Exec 13, item 16. Rad 853, Base Lease Commission to Secy State, 5 Mar 41, OPD Exec 13, item

18; Rad 1154, Base Lease Commission to Secy State, 24 Mar 41, OPD Exec 13, item 15; Rad

579, Secy State to Base Lease Commission, 21 Feb 41, OPD Exec 13, item 19.
THE NEW BASES ACQUIRED FOR OLD DESTROYERS 373

the American commissioners had obtained exemption for practically everything except supplies for ship's service stores, post exchanges, and commissaries. Beyond this, the British negotiators would not go.28

 The question of

court jurisdiction was more complicated. The United States was reluctant

to set up civil courts and unwilling to yield jurisdiction within the leased

areas. The British could not be swerved from their insistence that British

subjects must be excluded from United States jurisdiction. The problem was

susceptible to compromise, but as the negotiations proceeded compromise

seemed more remote.29

At this juncture, Mr. John G. Winant arrived in London to take up his

duties as Ambassador. Although the American Chargé d'Affaires, Mr.

Herschel V. Johnson, had assisted the commission most ably, Mr. Winant

brought with him the prestige of personal friendship with the President. He

immediately carried the deadlock directly to Mr. Churchill. The story was

told to the American Commissioners after their return to Washington that

President Roosevelt, expressing great displeasure at the delays in transferring the base sites, had pointed out to the British Ambassador, Lord Halifax,

that, if the American press ever got hold of the story, the result might be

defeat of the lend-lease bill, then pending in Congress. Lord Halifax, according to the story, hastened to inform Prime Minister Churchill by telephone of the conversation he had had with the President.30

 At any event, the

Prime Minister, in the words of Ambassador Winant, at once "swept away

as immaterial three-quarters of the objections raised by his negotiators, but

at the same time he questioned the military clauses which, because of General Malony's skillful insistence, had been agreed upon."

 31

The "military clauses" to which Ambassador Winant referred were the

first two articles—the general grant of rights and the special military

powers—over which there had already been so much discussion. The failure

to extend to the emergency military powers the provision for consultation

adopted in connection with the general rights and powers seems to have

been the principal cause of the Prime Minister's concern. As a remedy Mr.

Churchill suggested adding a clause to the preamble that would embody a

28

 Rad 384, Base Lease Commission to Secy State, 31 Jan 41; Rad 672, Base Lease Commission

to Secy State, 21 Feb 41. Both in OPD Exec 13, item 16. 29

 Rad 555, Base Lease Commission to Secy State, 13 Feb 41; Rad 672, Base Lease Commission

to Secy State, 21 Feb 41. Both in OPD 13, item 16. 30

 Ltr, Adm Biesemeier to Acting Chief of Military History, 28 May 59. 31

 John Gilbert Winant, Letter from Grosvenor Square (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,

1947), pp. 36-37. Soon after the negotiations began, Colonel Malony had been promoted to

brigadier general.
374 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

pledge of co-operation. The American commissioners immediately agreed to

this solution, and after some study of the precise wording of the clause

suggested by the Prime Minister, the following, presented as a substitute by

the American commissioners, was decided upon:

. . . that this agreement shall be fulfilled in a spirit of good neighborliness between His

Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom and the Government of the United States

of America, and that details of its practical application shall be arranged by friendly

cooperation.32

The Prime Minister attached great importance to this, the fourth clause of

the preamble, for to him it represented the spirit of the entire transaction. It

set the tone of the whole agreement, which without this clause would be

more of a "capitulation," he said, than a friendly arrangement between two

great powers.33 He thereupon proposed a rewording of the article covering

the special military powers to have it read, in part, as follows:

. . . without raising any question of naval or military compacts or assurance it is recognized that the various schemes of defense shall be concerted and adjusted at any moment

to provide in the highest degree the security of each of the two contracting parties. For

this purpose there will be consultation in accordance with the spirit of the preamble. . . .

In time of war or other emergency, Mr. Churchill continued, the United

States should have whatever rights were necessary for the conduct of military operations, but in exercising them "full regard shall be paid to the

said preamble."

 34

 This was on Saturday, 8 March. In the evening, Ambassador Winant sent a long message to the President and Secretary Hull in

which he explained that the commission had declined, as unnecessary and

unduly restrictive, the draft proposed by the Prime Minister. The next morning it became known in London that the Lend-Lease bill had passed the

Senate the night before. The pressure on the commissioners eased perceptibly.35

 On Tuesday, 11 March, President Roosevelt signed the bill that gave

substance to his promise that America would be the "arsenal of democracy,"

and on the same day, in London, a complete settlement of the base agreement was reached. The troublesome grant of emergency powers was relegated to a simple declaration:

When the United States is engaged in war or in time of other emergency His Majesty's

Government agree that the United States may exercise . . . all such rights, powers and

authority as may be necessary for conducting any military operations deemed desirable

32

 Rad 853, Base Lease Commission to Secy State, 5 Mar 41, OPD Exec 13, item 18. 33

 Rad 942, Base Lease Commission to Secy State, 12 Mar 41, OPD Exec 13, item 18. 34

 Rad 908, Winant to President and Secy State, 8 Mar 41, OPD Exec 13, item 18. 35

 Rad 910, Winant to Secy State, 9 Mar 41, OPD Exec 13, item 18.
THE NEW BASES ACQUIRED FOR OLD DESTROYERS 375

by the United States, but these rights will be exercised with all possible regard to the

spirit of the fourth clause of the preamble.36

No mention was made of joint or "concerted" defense schemes or of consultation. At the same time, reference to the preamble was included, as Mr.

Churchill had wished, but in terms that would not limit American freedom

of action.

During the next two weeks, the draft of the agreement was put into

final form and a separate protocol with Canada concerning the defense of

Newfoundland was agreed upon. On 27 March 1941, Ambassador Winant,

Mr. Fahy, General Malony, and Commander Biesemeier placed their names

to the base agreement on behalf of the United States. Prime Minister

Churchill, Lord Cranborne, and Lord Moyne, Secretary of State for Colonies,

signed for the United Kingdom.

The commissioners had done their job well. They had obtained the

authority considered necessary for the operation of the bases; they had, with

equal success, kept out of the agreement any military commitments and

other provisions that might have placed American defense forces under the

control of the British Governors; and while doing so, they had won the

respect and friendship of the British negotiators.37

Launching the Construction Program

By the time the agreement was signed, almost seven months after the

sites were acquired, most of the preliminaries of establishing the bases had

been disposed of. To supervise construction, the Eastern Division, Corps of

Engineers, had been organized, under the command of Col. Joseph D.

Arthur, Jr., who had accompanied the Greenslade Board on its surveys and

participated in the early planning. District engineer offices were set up in

Newfoundland, Bermuda, Jamaica, and Trinidad.38 By mid-February, contracts had been negotiated (except for Jamaica) with the firms that were to

do the actual construction. The British had hoped that colonial and British

contractors might participate, but in this they were disappointed. All the

contracts went to firms in the United States on a negotiated cost-plus-fixed36

 Rad 939, Base Lease Commission to Secy State, 11 Mar 41, OPD Exec 13, item 18. 37

 For an appraisal of the negotiations, see Rad 1207, Winant to Secy State, 27 Mar 41, OPD

Exec 13, item 15; and Min, SLC Mtg, 24 Mar 41, SLC Min, vol. II, p. 5. 38

 On 1 Aug 1941 the Eastern Division was superseded by the North Atlantic Division for

Newfoundland and the Caribbean Division for all the other bases. On 23 Feb 1942 the Bermuda

District was transferred from the Caribbean to the North Atlantic Division.
376 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

TABLE 2—ESTIMATED COST OF ARMY AND AIR BASES, 1940

(Except as noted, does not include cost of land)

1

 Estimated cost of land. 2

 Includes $1,676,000 estimated cost of land.

Sources: Memo, WPD for CofS, 18 Sep 40; Lt Col W. F. Tompkins, CE, for TAG, 25 Sep 40,

with Tabs A-H dated 8 Oct 40; Tompkins for ACofS, WPD, 20 Nov 40. All in AG 580

(9-4-40), Sec. 1, Pt. 1.

fee basis. In March, the contractors for the Trinidad base sent a few men

to Port of Spain.39 They were apparently the first in the field.

Funds to begin construction had been obtained after considerable effort.

Only two weeks after the destroyers-for-bases exchange had taken place in

September 1940, and long before the plans for the bases had begun to mature, the War Plans Division drew up a statement of estimated costs. This

first estimate, which included an item of $18,314,500 for overhead and contingencies, totaled an even $200,000,000. (Table 2) It was based on the

August report of the Joint Planning Committee and on the cost of permanent

construction in the United States plus an arbitrary differential of 30 percent.

The figures were admittedly tentative, subject to revision, and intended to

serve only until the reports of the Greenslade Board became available.40 It

was soon evident that an upward revision would be necessary. Between September 1940 and the following November, reductions were made in the

estimates for Newfoundland, where the Greenslade Board at first made no

provision for an air garrison, and in those for Trinidad, where the ground

39

 Memo, British Embassy, Washington, for Secy State, 9 Nov 40, WPD 4351-31; Memo,

Col Crawford for ACofS WPD, 14 Dec 40, WPD 4351-26; TBC, Hist Sec, CDC, Hist of TS and

BC, I, 48. 40

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 18 Sep 40, AG 580 (9-4-40), sec. 1, pt. 1.
THE NEW BASES ACQUIRED FOR OLD DESTROYERS 377

TABLE 3—ESTIMATED COST OF ARMY AND AIR BASES—1941

(Including cost of land)

Sources: Memo, Col A. E. Brown, Budget and Legislative Planning Branch, for CofS, 17 Feb

41, OCS Conf binder 10; Estimates of Funds for Army Air Bases . . . (2d Supplement), 7 May

41, OPD Misc File 41; Monthly Progress Reports (Engr), Atlantic Bases, 30 Sep 41, 31 Oct 41,

AG 580 (9-4-40), Sec 1-D (Bulky Pkg).

garrison was drastically cut by the Greenslade Board; but the upward swing

of all the others more than balanced these two reductions.41 Nevertheless the

$200,000,000 total of the first estimate became a ceiling for all the estimates

during these first few months. The difference was taken out of the item for

contingent expenses. (Table 3) By the end of the following year, 1941, all

the estimates, except the Bermuda figures, had risen still further, with the

three secondary bases—Antigua, St. Lucia, and British Guiana—accounting

for a disproportionate share of the increase. As of 27 December 1941 the

total estimated cost of construction had reached $260,605,000.42

By this same date, 27 December 1941, a total of $207,913,000 had been

either appropriated or included in FY 1943 budget estimates. At the beginning President Roosevelt had not been satisfied with the War Department

estimates nor was he convinced of the need for such large initial funds. It

was his opinion that immediate expenses should be limited to acquiring the

41

 Estimates of the fall of 1940 are in Memo, WPD for CofS, 18 Sep 40; Memo, CofEngrs

(Lt Col William F. Tompkins) for TAG, 25 Sep 40, with Tabs A-H dated 8 Oct 40; and Memo,

Col Tompkins for WPD, 20 Nov 40. All in AG 580 (9-4-40), sec. 1, pt. 1. 42

 Estimates made in 1941 are in Memo, Col Albert E. Brown, Budget & Legislative Planning

Br, for CofS, 17 Feb 41, OCS Conf, binder 10; Estimates of Funds for Army Air Bases . . . (2d

Supp), 7 May 41, OPD Misc File 41; Eastern Div, CE, Report of Progress, Atlantic Bases, September 1941 and October 1941, AG 580 (9-4-40), sec. 1-D, Bulky Package; Routing Sheet, G-4

to TAG, 27 Dec 41, sub: Estimates for Construction . . . , OCS 21160-123, bk. 20.
378 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

TABLE 4—ACTUAL COST OF ARMY AND AIR BASES

1

 Includes the cost of leasing the Castle Harbour and St. George's Hotels.

Sources: CofEngr, Historical Monograph, Newfoundland, pp. IX-6, X-1, Fo X-3, OCMH

HIS MS 4-9 NE; CofEngr, Historical Monograph, Bermuda, pp. IX-3, X-4, OCMH HIS MS

4-9 BE; Caribbean Defense Command, Historical Manuscript, Construction and Real Estate

Activities, II, pp. 182-235 (Trinidad); 242-58 (Jamaica); 267-73 (British Guiana); 276

(Antigua); 288, 292 (St. Lucia); 302 (Bahamas); OCMH HIS MS 8-2.8 CC.

land, to providing some sort of docks and landing fields, and to purchasing

the sites where the garrisons were to be housed. He wished ground troops

to be quartered in tents wherever health conditions allowed and the bases

to be occupied for some time before permanent construction was decided

upon. When the Army in November 1940 presented a request for an additional emergency allotment, he is reported to have said that "if the Army

thought they were going to get $200,000,000 for these bases they had another think coming."

 43

 But by the following spring the President was urging

haste in establishing the bases, and by early May 1941 a total of $163,825,-

000 had been authorized for the Army's use. The actual final cost of the

bases turned out to be somewhere between the estimate of 27 December and

the available funds of that date; but the final figures do not stand too close

a comparison with the early estimates, for, among other things, after the

attack on Pearl Harbor most of the permanent building construction was

deferred. (Table 4)

Beginning in January and February 1941, before the contractors' people

arrived at the bases, a certain amount of work was accomplished by local

labor under the direct supervision of the district engineers. In spite of the

season, temporary housing was beginning to go up along the frozen shores

of Quidi Vidi Lake, on the outskirts of St. John's, Newfoundland. In British

Guiana, the first assault was launched against the jungle growth that

blocked the way to the site of the base. As soon as construction forces

arrived, the work was turned over to them: in Bermuda, dredging operations

were started; in Trinidad, temporary construction was begun in the "Dock

Site" area at Port of Spain. By mid-May the contractors had assumed respon43

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 3 Oct 40, WPD 4351-9, sec. 1; Memo, Lt Col Edward H. Brooks,

Chief, Statistics Br, for Col Ward, SGS, 5 Oct 40, WPD 4351-8, sec. 1; Memo, CofS for Admiral

Stark, 8 Nov 40, AG 580 (9-4-40), sec. 1, pt. 1; Memo, Col Ward for CofS, 22 Nov 40, OCS

Conf, binder 6.
THE NEW BASES ACQUIRED FOR OLD DESTROYERS 379

sibility at most of the base sites, where construction now, if not in full

swing, was at least well under way.44

Priority was given to the airfields. In order to provide usable fields at

the earliest possible date and with least disturbance to construction activities,

temporary landing strips were rushed to completion in Trinidad, St. Lucia,

Antigua, and British Guiana. In Bermuda, where space was at a premium, the

same result was sought by building the permanent field in two stages. Three

short runways, the longest of which was 3,500 feet, were to be completed in

five or six months. Then they were to be extended, while in use, and the rest

of the field completed. This second state, it was estimated, would require

another twelve months.45 Before construction had gone very far, it was decided to lengthen the 3,500-foot runway to 5,000 feet, and with this change

the work was pushed forward. In Newfoundland, one of the largest airports

in the world was already available for emergency operations. By the end of

June 1941 the temporary runways in St. Lucia, Antigua, and British Guiana

were in limited use, and in Trinidad, where seasonal rains had delayed construction, the temporary runway at Waller Field was in use by the end of

October. By this time, the 5,000-foot runway at Kindley Field, Bermuda, was

ready, and one of the other runways was about half finished.46

Most of the materials for construction came from the United States. To be

sure, Canadian lumber went into buildings at Fort Pepperrell, Newfoundland; Bermuda stone and coral block were used at Kindley Field; and a

most ingenious and probably unique application of local materials was to

be found in St. Lucia, where molasses was used as a stabilizing agent for

the surface of the temporary runway. But for the most part, local materials

were employed only as a substitute for goods unavailable in the United States

or delayed in transit. Of the 430,000 tons of construction material used in

Newfoundland, 75 percent was imported from the United States. The

dependence upon imports was reflected in the concern with which transportation matters were regarded in every base.47

44

 The figures in the Monthly Progress Reports purporting to show the percent of completed

construction are in reality the percent of estimated cost actually expended. Since accuracy in estimating the final cost was almost impossible and revision inevitable, the figures are of little value

as an indication of the true rate of progress. 45

 Memo, Col Ward, SGS, for ACofS WPD, 8 Apr 41; Memo, WPD for CofS, 8 Apr 41; Memo,

WPD for CofEngrs, 9 Apr 41; Memo, Gen Bryden, Acting CofS, for SW, 9 Apr 41. All in WPD

4351-8, sec. 1. 46

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 18 Jun 41, WPD 4351-140; Eastern Div, CE, Rpts of Progress,

Atlantic Bases June 1941 and October 1941, AG 580 (9-4-40), sec. 1-D, Bulky Package. 47

 Eastern Div, CE, Rpt of Progress, Atlantic Bases, October 1941, AG 580 (9-4-40), sec. 1-D,

Bulky Package; Div North Atlantic Div, CE, MS, U.S. Army Bases: Newfoundland, OCMH, pp.
U.S. ARMY INSTALLATIONS IN THE BERMUDA ISLANDS. Air view of Kindley Field

and Fort Bell (top). Army camp near Turtle Hill (bottom).
THE NEW BASES ACQUIRED FOR OLD DESTROYERS 381

On the other hand, most of the construction, especially the unskilled

labor, was done by local workmen. Of the total of 44,899 men employed on

the bases at the end of October 1941, only 7,400 were Americans. In

Jamaica, 93 percent of the workmen were local people; in Antigua, 81 percent. At all the other bases, except Bermuda, the proportion fell somewhere

between these two extremes. In Bermuda, where dredging and filling operations were the chief activities at this time and where much of the available

labor supply was already employed on the British navy yard, the figures were

reversed: 14 percent of the workmen were Bermudians, 86 percent were

brought in from the United States.48

Wages paid the local people were, in general, based upon the prevailing

local rate; but American workmen received the same wages paid in the

United States plus an added differential. The disparity was a major source

of trouble. It was no coincidence that at Bermuda, where most of the labor

was done by American workmen, there were fewer labor disturbances and

a higher turnover than at the other bases. On the other hand, in British

Guiana, where an American tractor driver received $10.00 a day for the

same work for which a native received $2.80, the local workmen went on

strike, and to put down the ensuing disorder required the use of American

troops. Labor troubles and impending riots, and not the threat of external

attack were what brought the first units of the garrison to Jamaica.49

One of the elements in the situation was the effort put forth by labor

unions to consolidate and maintain their control of local labor. Union leaders

in Jamaica resented the refusal of American authorities to deal with the

Trades Union Council or to admit union representatives to the negotiations

dealing with the employment of local labor. When their complaint was

brought to the attention of the War Department, the War Plans Division

pointed out that the Department's policy of not recognizing any union as the

sole bargaining agency for local labor did not bar a consultative committee

on which the unions had representatives, such as the Jamaica Trades Union

Council had proposed, so long as it was clearly understood that the union

represented only those workers affiliated with it.50 The same issue had been

VI-7 to VI-9; U.S. Army Bases: Bermuda, p. V-2; TCB, Hist Sec, CDC, Hist of TS and BC,

I, 88, 93, 95, 111. 48

 Eastern Div, CE, Rpt of Progress, Atlantic Bases, October 1941, AG 580 (9-4-40), sec.

1-D Bulky Package; ASF, Off Div Engr, Atlantic Div, U.S. Army Bases: Newfoundland, p. VI-4;

ASF, Off Div Engr, Atlantic Div, U.S. Army Bases: Bermuda, p. VI-1. 49

 Ltr, CG TS to CG CDC, 15 Aug 41, WPD 4351-20, sec. 1; Antilles Dept, CDC, MS, War

Plans and Defense Measures, sec. II, ch. 2, p. 225; Watson, Prewar Plan and Preparations, p. 483. 50

 Ltr, British Embassy to State Dept, 16 Dec 41; Memo, WPD for Hickerson, State Dept,

4 Jan 42. Both in WPD 4351-11, sec. 6.
382 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

raised in Trinidad six months before. There, the local workers striking for

the right to bargain directly and collectively had invoked the National Labor

Relations Act and appealed to American labor leaders for help. The question

of the applicability of American labor legislation, if pressed, might have

produced a rather awkward situation; but the strike was short-lived. Later,

after the men returned to work, representatives of the unions participated

in negotiating a local labor agreement. A pattern for co-operation existed in

Bermuda, where the district engineer and a representative of the contractors

had been invited by the governor to join in the deliberations of the local

labor board.51 There was no attempt, however, either by the British Colonial

Office or by the War Department to formulate a uniform policy and establish a standard procedure. Probably local conditions varied too widely to

permit it.

At most of the bases, temporary housing had to be put up for the local

workers. In Trinidad, however, it was more convenient to provide rail and

truck transportation from Port of Spain than to erect housing at the construction site. The consequent overcrowding in Port of Spain was unwelcome

to the local authorities; the travel to and from work was objectionable to

the workers. The upshot was another strike. Like the others it was of short

duration, more annoying than disrupting, and corrective measures followed.

The transportation system was improved, but nothing was done about housing. The district engineer and the War Department agreed that it was unnecessary so long as there was no need of importing workers from other

islands.52

American military authorities in Trinidad were convinced that the shadow

of the swastika lay over the labor disturbances. There were, the commanding

general of the Trinidad Sector reported, "a large number of Nazi sympathizers and Fifth Columnists in the Guianas," who might have "inspired

and incited these ignorant laborers to strike." Nazi agents, he continued,

were becoming more active, and the "incitation of local labor to strikes,

violence, and serious sabotage must be anticipated with constantly increasing

frequency."

 53

 A few weeks later he stressed his "growing conviction that

radical and antagonistic agents and influence are increasing in energy and

51

 Min of Conf in OSW, 10 Jun 41, SW Conf, binder 1; Memo, WPD for CofS, 13 Jun 41,

WPD 4351-20; Memo for Rcd, D/F, WPD to G-4, 25 Aug 41, WPD 4351-8, sec. 2; Ltr,

British Embassy to State Dept, 16 Dec 41, WPD 4351-11, sec. 6. 52

 Memo, WPD for Hickerson, State Dept, 17 Sep 41, WPD 4351-20, sec. 1; Ltr, Governor

Hubert Young, Trinidad, to Gen Talbot, CG TS, 29 Jul 41; D/F, WPD to G-4, 10 Oct 41;

Memo, WPD for Hickerson, 14 Dec 41. All in WPD 4351-20, sec. 2. 53

 Ltr, CG TS to CG CDC, 15 Aug 41, WPD 4351-20, sec. 1.
THE NEW BASES ACQUIRED FOR OLD DESTROYERS 383

boldness and are making an increasing effort to incite the native population

to acts of violence and sabotage."

 54

 According to the commanding general

it all pointed to the desirability of immediately reinforcing the garrison. In

truer perspective, the intervention of Nazi agents or the influence of Nazi

sympathy appeared to have been a mirage. By the time World War II had

ended, no evidence could be discerned that the labor troubles were anything

more than attempts by the workers to better their lot by methods not entirely

foreign to the United States.

In Newfoundland, the labor situation took a slightly different twist. The

problem there was more a matter of long weekends, a fishing season that

lasted through the summer, and an unwillingness to work during the winter.55

It was complicated by an early misunderstanding on the part of the Newfoundland Government. Although the contractors intended to employ local

workmen as common laborers, the colonial government issued a communique

to the contrary, to the effect that what the contractors wanted were skilled

workers, and the result was that for a time the recruitment of ordinary

laborers was discouraged.56

Early in 1942, after war came to America, German submarines succeeded

at times in slowing down construction activities. Workmen recruited in the

United States flinched at the hazards, real and rumored, of travelling to the

bases by sea. A few essential cargoes of supplies and equipment were lost, but

more serious than the actual sinkings were the delays and uncertainty that a

newly instituted convoy system and the rerouting of shipments brought.

By this time the airfields at the bases were all in operating condition,

and housing, hospitals, and storage and other facilities were adequate,

although in temporary form, even for somewhat larger garrisons than those

now stationed there. Not much permanent construction had been finished.

But to proceed with the permanent structures as originally planned would

add little to the immediate strength of the bases, would draw shipping away

from more urgent commitments, and would require the continued presence

of more than 10,000 American civilians whose wives and children were in

wartime a source of military weakness. On these grounds it was decided in

April 1942 to recast the program and to defer all permanent construction

that would not contribute to immediate strength.57

54

 Ltr, CG TS to CG CDC, 28 Aug 41, WPD 4351-20, sec. 1. 55

 ASF, Off Div Engr, Atlantic Div, U. S. Army Bases: Newfoundland, pp. VI-5, VI-8. 56

 Dispatch, American Consul General, St. John's, to Secy State, 30 Jun 41, WPD 4351-9,

sec. 4; ASF, Off Div Engr, Atlantic Div, U.S. Army Bases: Newfoundland, p. VI-4. 57

 Memo, USW Patterson for SW, 8 Apr 42; Memo, CofS for Gen Somervell, 23 Apr 42.

Both in WDCSA 42-43 CDC.
CHAPTER XV

Manning and Organizing

the New Atlantic Bases

Newfoundland on the northern flank, Trinidad on the southern, and

Bermuda in the center were the first of the new Atlantic bases to be garrisoned. The first contingent arrived in Newfoundland in January 1941, ahead

of the construction forces, and in April the first garrison troops arrived in

Trinidad and Bermuda, only a few weeks after the advance party of construction people.

The timing was not exactly what the War Department had at first envisaged. In spite of the pessimism over the chances of Britain's winning the

war which in September 1940 still colored the War Department's estimate

of the situation, General Marshall laid down the dictum that garrisons

would not be sent to the Atlantic bases until construction was well advanced.

Some definite threat to the base sites might require the dispatch of a garrison

prematurely, but this was a possibility that could apparently be waited for.1

The Garrisons and Their Mission

It was at the suggestion of General Embick, senior U.S. Army member of

the Permanent Joint Board on Defense, United States and Canada, that a

garrison was sent to Newfoundland before the bases there were scarcely

under construction. The board, recognizing Newfoundland as an especially

vital area, had assumed that the United States would send forces for its

defense "at the earliest practicable date."

 2 When the subject came up for

discussion during a conference in the Chief of Staff's office on 12 September,

General Embick urged that they be sent without waiting for the bases to be

completed, and on the next day G-3 was directed to consider the matter.3

1

 Notes of Mtg in OCS, 11 Sep 40, OCS Misc Conf, binder 3; Informal Rpt from Gen Devers

to CofS . . . , 24 Sep 40, OCS Conf, binder 6. 2

 Joint Canada-United States Basic Defense Plan, 1940 (First Draft), WPD 4351-5. 3

 Notes on Conf in OCS, 12 Sep 40, OCS Conf, OPD binder; Memo, Col Ward for G-3,

13 Sep 40, OCS 20955-6.
MANNING AND ORGANIZING THE NEW ATLANTIC BASES 385

The principal consideration, apart from factors of strategy and available

forces and of immediate deployment as opposed to training for the future,

was the question of housing. When reinforcements had been sent to Anchorage, Alaska, in June 1940, it had been necessary to house them in tents for

a month or so until barracks were available. But Anchorage in midsummer

was very different from Newfoundland in winter, and it would be many

months before suitable accommodations could be erected in Newfoundland.

The enactment of the Selective Service law was bringing this question of

Army housing into the glare of public interest, which would have flamed

quickly into public criticism, loud and widespread, had American soldiers

been sent to Newfoundland with nothing but tents as shelter against the

rigors of winter. An alternative to housing the troops in tents lay apparently

unnoticed among the pages of the Greenslade Board Report: that a vessel

be chartered and used as a floating barracks at St. John's until accommodations were provided on shore. Col. Douglas C. Cordiner, chief of the Water

Transport Branch in the Transportation Division of the Quartermaster Corps,

seems to have had the same thought quite independently.4 This solution was

finally adopted. The large but antiquated ocean liner America, taken over

from Germany during the first World War, was refitted and renamed the

Edmund B. Alexander. After a longer delay than had been expected, she

finally left New York on 20 January 1941 and made her way slowly northeastward with the first contingent of the Newfoundland garrison: 58 officers

and 919 enlisted men principally of the 3d Infantry, 62d Coast Artillery

(AA), and 57th Coast Artillery under the command of Col. Maurice D.

Welty. Their task was to defend, in co-operation with the Canadian and Newfoundland troops, the city and harbor of St. John's.5

No further steps toward manning the Atlantic defenses were taken until

April 1941, when the first units went to Bermuda and Trinidad and reinforcements were dispatched to Newfoundland. The impetus then came

from the President.

During the intervening months the focus of American military plan4

 Memo, Col Cordiner for Col Crawford, WPD, 30 Sep 40, WPD 4351-9, sec. 3. 5

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 5 Apr 41, WPD 4351-92, sec. 6. The strength of the force given

in TAG Ltr to CG's, Corps Areas et al., 22 Oct 40 (as amended, 12 Nov, 22 Nov, 23 Nov,

30 Dec 40, 7 Jan 41), filed in WPD 4351-9, varies slightly from the above figures, which were

compiled from the roster of passengers on board USAT Edmund B. Alexander, filed in AG 580

(9-4-40), sec. 2, pt. 2. More specifically, the contingent comprised: Hq, Newfoundland Base

Command (NBC); 3d Battalion, 3d Infantry, with band and attached medical detachment; Detachment 6th Engr Battalion; 1 Battery, Gun, 62d (AA), with 1 Platoon, Search Light; 1 Battery,

155-mm. gun, Towed, 57th CA; plus service units.
386 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

THE ARMY TRANSPORT, EDMUND B. ALEXANDER, leaves New York for Newfoundland.

ning had shifted. The probability now was that England and the British Fleet

could withstand the German war machine, that if the United States were

forced into the war (and there was a tendency to substitute "when" for "if")

it could be as an ally of an undefeated Britain. With this the probability, the

ABC-1 agreement had been concerted to the end that American power might

be brought to bear against the Axis in Europe. The Atlantic islands, already

considered essential as outlying bastions of defense in the event of a British

collapse, could serve equally well the interests of attack, as bases for the

projection of American power eastward or for the protection of this eastward

advance. But the architects of Army strategy were not yet ready to blueprint

the course of the eventual offensive by garrisoning the islands as advance

bases; and the more convinced they were that Britain and the British Fleet

would hold out, the less urgent it seemed to man the bases as outlying bastions of hemisphere defense. As late as 31 March they had no expectation of

sending reinforcements to Newfoundland or any forces to any of the other
MANNING AND ORGANIZING THE NEW ATLANTIC BASES 387

bases before the first of July.6 Furthermore, however one viewed the Atlantic

bases, the Army's strength in trained men and in ammunition was still limited.

To disperse the available forces at this time would, it was feared, disrupt the

training of the larger army that would some day be needed.

While the Anglo-American staff conferences were going on in Washington, the Battle of the Atlantic had taken an extremely critical turn. In

Admiral Stark's opinion it had become, in fact, "hopeless except as we

take strong measures to save it."

 7 Four of the most powerful surface vessels

of the German Navy—the pocket battleship Scheer, the heavy battle cruisers

Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and the 8-inch cruiser Admiral Hipper—were

on the loose, prowling the Atlantic sea lanes and adding serious destruction

to the mounting toll of the U-boat packs.8 Submarine attacks could be

countered by light escort vessels; but the German surface raiders, whether

in refuge or at sea, presented a different threat, one that only capital ships

or strong cruiser and carrier forces could meet. Admiral Stark had not at all

exaggerated the seriousness of the situation. By March it seemed to him only

a matter of at most two months before the United States would be at war,

"possibly undeclared," with Germany and Italy; although the Army at this

time was counting on at least five months' grace. Admiral Stark discussed his

analysis with the President on 2 April and again the next day, thrashed out

the steps to be taken, and was told to adopt the strong measures he thought

were required: to draw up plans for escort of convoy west of longitude 30°

west and issue orders for the transfer into the Atlantic of a heavy striking

force, including three battleships, from the Pacific.9 The destructive forays

of the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had given President Roosevelt an understandable concern for the safety of the American bases, particularly those

which were most exposed or of most value to the Navy—Bermuda, Trinidad,

6

 Memo, WPD for G-4, 31 Mar 41, sub: Supply Constructions Relative to . . . Atlantic Bases,

WPD 4351-89; Memo (not used), SW and SN for President, 28 Mar 41, sub: Official Relations

. . . With Govts of British Possessions . . . , WPD 4351-84. 7

 Quoted in Morison, Battle of the Atlantic, p. 56. 8

 See Winston S. Churchill, "The Second World War" The Grand Alliance, (Boston:

Houghton Mifflin Company, 1950), pp. 120-21. 9

 Conn and Fairchild, Framework of Hemisphere Defense, p. 105. The transfer orders for the

Pacific Fleet units were rescinded on 15 April as a result of the signing of the Russo-Japanese pact

of 13 April. Without these units, the convoy plan would have been unworkable and it was

therefore rejected in favor of a less forceful extension of patrol activities. On 12 May Ambassador

Kichisaburo Nomura laid before Secretary Hull a draft of proposals which the Japanese Government thought might serve as the basis for an understanding between the two governments. On the

very next day, the orders for the transfer of the Pacific Fleet units to the Atlantic were reissued

and the movement got under way. See Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 11, pp. 5502-04, and pt. 16,

pp. 2160-64.
388 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

and Newfoundland. On 7 April he directed the Secretary of War to have

Newfoundland reinforced and to send garrisons to Bermuda and Trinidad

immediately.10

In quick succession, two other steps followed. On 9 April Secretary of

State Hull and the Danish Minister in Washington signed an agreement

under which the United States undertook the defense of Greenland and

was granted the right to establish any facilities considered necessary for that

purpose or for the defense of the North American continent. Then, on 14

April, Mr. Harry L. Hopkins and Under Secretary of State Welles met with

the Icelandic consul general in Washington and reopened the question of

defending Iceland, a question which both the State and War Departments

had hitherto regarded with a noncommittal attitude.11 In the meantime, Mr.

Hopkins had been casting about for some way of using the Atlantic bases

for delivering lend-lease materials to the British. He had discussed with his

chief legal assistant, Mr. Oscar Sydney Cox, the possibility of convoys, of

transshipping goods within the western hemisphere, even of transporting

goods in public vessels. Although their discussions reached no firm conclusion, they were closely tied in with the developments of April, if only by

reason of their contemporaneousness.

The War Department had immediately set about making the preliminary

arrangements for sending the garrisons. Heavy coast artillery, bombers, and

sufficient infantry to repel landing parties appeared to be the answer to the

particular threat seen by the President. His special concern for the safety of

Bermuda gave that base the highest priority and evoked an admonition to

the War Department to "get planes there as soon as any place can be prepared."

 12

 There were as yet no facilities, however, for land plane operations

and no housing at the base site. Fortunately, one of Bermuda's large, modern

resort hotels, the Castle Harbour, was available for lease. Conveniently situated about two miles across the harbor from the site of the Army base, it could

accommodate approximately 1,000 men. But for the time being, air defense

would have to be limited to the three patrol bombers stationed at Great

Sound, which the Navy agreed to make available for purposes of local de10

 The Presidential directive is still effectively hidden in some records file of the Adjutant

General's Office. A photostat of Secretary Stimson's reply to the President with penciled date of

7 Apr 1941, is in AG 320.2 (4-5-41), sec. 1. A typed copy of this memorandum in WPD 4351-8,

bearing the stamped date 8 April, which was the date it was received by WPD, is incorrectly cited

in Watson, Prewar Plans and Preparations, note 70, page 480, as 3 Apr 1941. 11

 Calendar of Hopkins Papers, bk. IV, items 3, 4, 5; Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins: An

Intimate History, p. 290. 12

 See notation by "F.D.R." on Memo, SW For President, 7 Apr 41, AG 320.2 (4-5-41), sec. I.
MANNING AND ORGANIZING THE NEW ATLANTIC BASES 389

fense, assisted, whenever their ship was in port, by the dive bombers of the

Atlantic Fleet carrier that was to be based there.13 The situation was somewhat better in Trinidad. There too the Army base would not be ready for

occupancy for several weeks at the earliest, but a camp site suitable for troops

was available in Queens Park, on the outskirts of Port of Spain; and a limited

number of bombers could be accommodated at Piarco Field, the commercial

airport. In Newfoundland, thanks to the airport at Gander and the fact that

an American garrison was already at St. John's, less improvisation would be

necessary. Operating facilities for a bomber squadron together with quarters

for the men were to be ready at Gander by 19 April, and additional ground

troops to the number of about one thousand could be housed on board the

Edmund B. Alexander. Reinforcements thus presented no great problem.

Transports were to be available during the month on the dates set for each

move.14 The consent of the British Government to the stationing of troops

outside the leased areas was given without delay. By 8 April only one detail

remained to be worked out, the choice of officers to command the Bermuda

and Trinidad forces, and this was taken care of the next day.15

The recommendations of the War Plans Division as to the strength and

composition of the respective forces were not accepted in their entirety. The

infantry units for Bermuda and Trinidad were scaled down to one company

each, and no B-17's were available for Newfoundland. Furthermore, owing

to the President's desire to speed the defenses of Bermuda, the sailing dates

of the Newfoundland and Bermuda contingents were interchanged.16

The Bermuda force of some 860 men, comprising Company G, 11th

Infantry, Battery F, 52d Coast Artillery, and Battery B, 57th Coast Artillery,

and commanded by Col. Alden G. Strong, landed in Bermuda on Sunday, 20

April. It had been preceded, a week before, by Brig. Gen. Francis B. Wilby,

chief of staff of the First Army, and Lt. Col. Harold F. Loomis of the War

Plans Division, who had been surveying the general situation and choosing

sites for the coast defense guns and who now were among those on hand to

13

 Memo, Acting CofS for CNO, 9 Apr 41; and, in reply, Memo, CNO for CofS, 14 Apr 41,

sub: Def of Bermuda. Both in AG 580 (9-4-40), sec. 4. Memo, "F.K." [Frank Knox] for

President, 12 Apr 41, Roosevelt Papers, FDRL. 14

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 5 Apr 41, sub: Immediate Infantry Def for Bermuda and Trinidad,

WPD 4351-94, sec. 6; Memo, WPD for CofS, 5 Apr 41, sub: Immediate Garrisons for Certain

Atlantic U.S. Bases . . . , and tabs D, E, and F atchd, WPD 4351-92, sec. 6. 15

 Telg 1171, Secy State to American Ambassador, London, 7 Apr 41, and, in reply, Telg 1393,

American Ambassador, London, to Secy State, 8 Apr 41. Both in WPD 4351-96, sec. 6. Notes

of Conf in ODCofS, 8 Apr 41, OCS Conf, binder 13. 16

 Memo, SW for President, 7 Apr 41, AG 320.2 (4-5-41), sec. 1; Memo, Gen Bryden,

Acting CofS, for SW, 9 Apr 41, WPD 4351-8, sec. 1.
390 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

welcome Colonel Strong and his men. Within a few hours after he arrived,

Colonel Strong had drawn up in collaboration with Capt. Jules James, USN,

commandant of the naval base, a joint plan for the defense of the islands, for

which he disposed his troops as follows: one 2-gun battery of the 8-inch coast

defense guns was to be placed at Fort Victoria, on St. George's Island, and

another on Somerset Island, not far from the U.S. naval base; a like-sized

battery of 155-mm. guns was to be placed on Cooper's Island, near the Army

base, and another on Hamilton Island, in the vicinity of Riddle's Bay; and

the infantry company, quartered in the Castle Harbour Hotel, was to be the

mobile reserve.17

The air unit of the Trinidad garrison was the next to reach its destination. On 24 April some 432 men of the 1st Bomber Squadron arrived from

Panama on board the USAT Chateau Thierry. They set up a tent camp at

Piarco Field, where the planes arrived on 28 April, about the time the

ground units were leaving New York. The arrival of the latter at Port of

Spain on 5 May brought the total garrison to about 1,487 men, under the

command of General Talbot. The principal ground elements were one battalion, 252d Coast Artillery, 155-mm., and a rifle company of the 11th Infantry. A site was chosen for the artillery on Chacachacare Island, at the

northern entrance to the Gulf of Paria, but for the time being most of the

men were housed in a tent camp on recently reclaimed land near the Port

of Spain docks.18

Meanwhile, on 1 May the Newfoundland force consisting of some 646

officers and enlisted men had arrived at St. John's. Six B-18's of the 21st

Reconnaissance Squadron were flown from Miami to Gander, and the remainder of the force sailed from New York on board the USAT Leonard

Wood. Apart from the air unit, the principal component was the coastal

defense battery, a unit of the 52d Coast Artillery, whose 8-inch railway guns

were to be the backbone of the harbor defenses.19

Much valuable planning experience that would have been useful when

the Iceland occupation was undertaken later in the year could have been

gained had the Newfoundland, Bermuda, and Trinidad movements been

17

 Rpt, Gen Wilby to Gen Drum, 29 Apr 41, title: Inspection Trip to Bermuda, AG 580

(9-4-40)), sec. 4; app. A to Jt Army-Navy Plan 1, 20 Apr 41, WPD 4517; Daily Rpt of 18

 Ltr, TAG to Chiefs of Arms and Services, 9 Apr 41, sub: Immediate Garrisons for Certain

Atlantic Bases . . . , AG 320.2 (4-9-41); TBC Hist Sec, CDC, Hist of TS and BC, I, 55-58, 68.

Progress . . . Bases in British Possessions, 21 Apr 41, WPD 4351-113, sec. 6. 19

 Ltr, TAG to Chiefs of Arms and Services, 9 Apr 41, sub: Immediate Garrisons for Certain

Atlantic Bases . . . , AG 320.2 (4-9-41); Troop Movement Order 2, New York Port of Embarkation, 12 Apr 41; Ltr, American Consul General, St. John's, to Secy State, 8 May 41. Last

two in WPD 4351-9, sec. 3.
MANNING AND ORGANIZING THE NEW ATLANTIC BASES 391

carried out as task forces. As it was, the preparations resembled those made

for a routine change of station. Instead of an operations plan, the commanding officers were given a Defense Project, drawn up by the War Plans Division, in which the mission of the Army forces, the available strength, and

other pertinent military and geographical data were set forth.

The primary mission—to defend the United States military and naval

installations—was clear. The corollary—to deny hostile forces an approach

to the eastern seaboard or the Caribbean—was almost equally clear, whether

expressly stated, as in the case of Bermuda and Trinidad, or implicit, as in

the case of Newfoundland.20 The perplexing element was the question of

the steps to be taken at the appearance of German warships or planes.

Secretary Stimson, on 24 April, proposed to instruct the base commanders

that any such forces approaching within twenty-five miles of a British possession in which an American base was located must be warned, and that, if

the warning went unheeded, the vessel or plane should be "immediately

attacked with all available means."

 21

 Although the President put his "O.K."

on the proposed instructions, he directed Secretary Stimson to show them to

the Navy. As a result the formal directive drafted for The Adjutant General

by the War Plans Division on 1 May was withheld by the Chief of Staff for

discussion with Admiral Stark and Under Secretary of State Welles. After

an attempt to put through a revised draft which omitted reference to the

25-mile zone, the War Plans Division learned that the President wanted all

mention of American forces opening fire eliminated also. Secretary of State

Hull thought the President's views would be best followed by having the

base commanders report by radio and ask for instructions when "hostile"

forces appeared; but from a military point of view such a procedure would

have been unrealistic.22 Finally, Lt. Col. Robert W. Crawford, head of the

War Plans Division Projects Group, and Mr. Green Haywood Hackworth, of

the State Department's legal staff, agreed on a draft which they thought would

meet the views of the President and Secretary Hull, but which Secretary Stimson apparently found too ambiguous. He changed it to read as follows:

In case any force of belligerent powers other than those powers which have sovereignty over Western Hemisphere territory attacks or threatens to attack any British

20

 The missions are defined in the Newfoundland Defense Project, 20 Dec 40, WPD 4390;

in the Bermuda Defense Project, 16 Apr 41, WPD 4481-3; and in the Trinidad Defense Project,

28 Apr 41, WPD 4485-1. 21

 Memo, SW for President, 24 Apr 41, sub: Directive to Army Base Commdrs . . . , WPD

4351-98, sec. 6. 22

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 10 May 41, WPD 4351-98, sec. 6.
392 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

possession on which any United States air or naval base is located, the commanding

officer of the Army Base Force shall resist such attack, using all means at his disposal.23

And in this form, the instructions went out from the War Department on

10 May.24

The question of what constituted a threatened attack remained vague

until midsummer. Then, during the planning for the Iceland movements, the

President revived the idea of an interdicted zone, of fifty miles, within which

the presence of Axis forces would be considered as evidence of hostile intentions and justification for attack. This was a "shoot on sight" policy in

all but name, and on 11 September the President announced it as such. By

the end of October 1941 American forces were committed to the task of

destroying all German and Italian vessels or planes encountered anywhere

in the western Atlantic.25

Added responsibility had fallen on the Newfoundland garrison in early

June when the Air Corps Ferrying Command was created and a military air

transport service was begun across the North Atlantic. General Embick, who

in the past had not been entirely in sympathy with the Air Corps' expanding

conception of its role, and who as the Army representative on the Permanent

Joint Board on Defense, United States and Canada, had participated in drafting the mission of the Newfoundland force, was of the opinion that the security of the ferry route and the protection of transport operations were purely

incidental. Both General Drum and General Arnold insisted that this mission was of equal importance to that of defending the base installations.26

The matter was discussed by General Arnold and members of the Air Staff

and of the War Plans Division on 21 August; and the conclusion was reached

that no change in the mission need be made for the time being. It was, it

seemed, sufficiently comprehensive to cover the situation.

Problems of Organization and Command

At the beginning of 1940, before the Atlantic bases were acquired and

before the Alaska defenses were built up, the Army's overseas garrisons were

organized into the four departments: the Panama Canal Department and

23

 The original text and Secretary Stimson's revision are both given in his letter to the Secretary of State of 16 May 1941, in WPD 4351-98, sec. 6. Other papers on the subject are in the

same file. 24

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 10 May 41, WPD 4351-98, sec. 6. 25

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 31 Oct 41, OCS 21174-57. 26

 Memo, Gen Embick for CofS, 7 Jul 41, Sub: Comments on Ltr of General Drum; Memo,

Gen Arnold for WPD, 18 Aug 41. Both in WPD 4351-9, sec. 4.
MANNING AND ORGANIZING THE NEW ATLANTIC BASES 393

the Puerto Rican Department in the Caribbean, the Hawaiian Department

in the Pacific, and the Philippine Department in the Far East. They were

primarily designed to provide local defense. The wider operations that

would be necessary in time of war were to be conducted by theater commanders under the direct control of GHQ, and into this chain of organization and command the various base forces would be linked. No provision,

however, had yet been made for the twilight time between war and peace

which the United States was about to enter. When the first reinforcements

went to Alaska in mid-1940, they were kept under the tactical commander

most interested in that area, General DeWitt, the commanding general of

the Fourth Army and Ninth Corps Area.27 Alaska served as a precedent for

Newfoundland and Bermuda.

Both Newfoundland and Bermuda were intimately tied in with the defense of the northeastern seaboard, the responsibility for which rested with

the Commanding General, First Army. Both garrisons, except troops engaged in construction work under the immediate supervision of the Chief of

Engineers, were therefore attached to the First Army. Each was responsible

for its own supply, which was to be provided by the Second Corps area to

the same extent as for units of the field forces within the corps area.28

After some discussion by one of General Marshall's deputies with the

heads of the several staff divisions, it had been decided that the only designation that would not be a source of confusion with the Navy was the rather

unwieldy one, U.S. Troops in Newfoundland (or Bermuda, as the case might

be).29 But the official orders, a week later, designated the Newfoundland

force as the Newfoundland Base Command, U.S. Army, and the same terminology was used later for the Bermuda and Trinidad garrisons.

In the Caribbean, the need of an integrated regional command as well

as unity of command was obvious if the new bases were to play a part in

the defense of that area. A "defense command," with the organizational

features of a theater of operations, was the answer to the regional side of

the problem, and on 10 February 1941 the Caribbean Defense Command

officially came into being. It became the foster parent of the Trinidad garrison on 18 April when the latter, now formally designated the Trinidad

Base Command, was assigned to the Caribbean Defense Command. All the

27

 See ch. IX. 28

 TAG Ltr to CG First Army, et al., 18 Dec 40, WPD 4351-9, sec. 3; TAG Ltr to CG First

Army, et al., 25 Jan 41, WPD 4351-8, sec. 1; Ltr, CofS First Army to CO NBC, 11 Jan 41, WPD

4390-3. 29

 Min of Conf in ODCofS, 10 Dec 40, OCS Conf, binder 6.
394 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Antilles south of Martinique, the Dutch islands off the Venezuelan coast,

together with Venezuela itself and British Guiana, Surinam, and French

Guiana were grouped together into a Trinidad Sector of the Caribbean Defense Command under General Talbot, who thus occupied a dual position.30

The other side of the problem—unity of command—was a perennial troublemaker, one which involved the arrangements not only for the entire

region but within the respective base commands as well. The authority of

the commanding officers of the various bases over the air units assigned to

them was, in the Caribbean, limited by the regional air command, and the

bounds of authority were not always distinct. It was therefore a source of

misunderstanding and frustration for the local commanding officers.31

In Newfoundland, on the other hand, where a unit of the First Air Force

was placed under the direct command of an infantry colonel and, on a higher

level, of the Commanding General, First Army, the command arrangements

in their entirety were not to the liking of the Air Corps. General Spaatz, chief

of Air Corps Plans Division, argued that these arrangements would make it

difficult to co-ordinate activities with those of the Royal Canadian Air Force,

that they would hamper the control of transient plane movements, and complicate joint operations with the air units that might be sent to Greenland.32

They were an obvious setback to the Air Corps' drive for centralized control

of its striking forces. According to General Spaatz, the solution would be to

place all air units in Newfoundland under the Commanding General, First Air

Force, and to leave only routine supply and administration to the Commanding General, First Army. Neither the War Plans Division nor G-3 concurred.

Although they were agreeable to making the Air Corps responsible for

technical supply and the supervision of training activities, both the War

Plans Division and G-3 opposed any further change in the command

arrangements. General Arnold's views were an exact reiteration of the

position taken by General Spaatz. A new element, the question of air

reinforcements, was injected into the problem when the War Plans Division

suggested that in the event of an attack or the threat of one the base commander be authorized to call directly on the Commanding General, First

Air Force, for air reinforcements. But this likewise failed to meet the

approval of General Arnold, who in a memorandum to the Chief of

Staff on 23 May proposed that in case of an attack all units, ground as

30

 TAG Ltr to CG's CDC and PCD, 18 Apr 41, WPD 4351-20, sec. 1; TBC Hist Sec, CDC,

Hist of TS and BC, I, 9-20. 31

 See ch. XIII for an account of the organization of the CDC. 32

 Memo, Gen Spaatz for CofS, 28 Apr 41, WPD 4351-9, sec. 4.
MANNING AND ORGANIZING THE NEW ATLANTIC BASES 395

well as air, become a task force commanded by the senior officer present

and operating under the theater commander.33 Part of the problem was

thus shunted over to the procedural level where more likelihood of reaching

a compromise was to be expected.

When General Arnold advocated unity of command over combat operations, he was resting on a principle on which General Marshall himself

placed the utmost reliance, but which had conventionally involved only

Army or Navy command. Nevertheless, in view of the Chief of Staff's

partiality toward a functional allocation, the Air Corps believed it could

be fairly certain of obtaining command where operations were principally

air.

During these last days of May 1941 there were signs that the North

Atlantic area might soon take on greater significance. Plans for sending

a garrison to Greenland were completed. There was the possibility of a

move into the Azores. Then, at a conference on 4 June, General Marshall

informed his staff that the President had resolved to send American forces

to Iceland.

The Newfoundland problem was taken up during the same conference,

and the decision was reached to organize the Newfoundland Base Command

as a task force under the direct control of GHQ as soon as GHQ took on

its normal command functions. A general officer of the Air Corps, it was

decided, would be given command of the force.34 The steps to put the

decision into effect were taken in July. On the first of the month, Brig. Gen.

Henry W. Harms, who had been commandant of the Air Corps training

center at Moffett Field, Calif., was designated Commanding General, Newfoundland Base Command. Two days later GHQ was given command of

Army task forces and the control of military operations. On 8 July, the

Newfoundland Base Command was designated a task force, to operate

directly under GHQ, and The Adjutant General was directed to notify

GHQ to assume command, relieving the Commanding General, First Army,

as of 10 July. Similar instructions were also issued placing the Bermuda

Base Command under GHQ.35

Neither the Air Corps nor GHQ was completely satisfied with the

arrangement, and a number of changes were proposed. General McNair,

33

 Memo, Gen Spaatz for CofS, 28 Apr 41; Memo, G-3 for CofS, 12 May 41; Memo, WPD

for Gen Arnold, 22 May 41; Memo, Gen Arnold for CofS, 23 May 41. All in WPD 4351-9, sec. 4. 34

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 6 Jun 41, WPD 4351-9, sec. 3. 35

 Memo, DCofS for TAG, 1 Jul 41, OCS 21174-34; Memo, WPD for TAG, 8 Jul 41, sub:

Comd of U.S. Army Units in Newfoundland, WPD 4351-9, sec. 4; Memo, WPD for TAG, 8 Jul

41, sub: Comd of U.S. Army Units in Bermuda, WPD 4351-8, sec. 1.
396 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

chief of staff of GHQ, recommended a North Atlantic Defense Command

consisting of Newfoundland, Labrador, Greenland, and Iceland and with

logistics as well as operations under the control of GHQ. The Air Corps

promoted a Northeastern Air Theater, with the Newfoundland air units

placed directly under the Commanding General, Air Force Combat Command. As for Bermuda, the Supply Division of the General Staff (G-4)

recommended that it be included in the Caribbean Defense Command. The

War Plans Division favored leaving things as they were.36

No agreement was reached on any one of the proposed changes. Falling

back instead on the War Plans Division suggestion of the previous May,

General Marshall authorized the Newfoundland Base commander to bypass

the normal channel, which ran through GHQ, and to call directly on the

First Air Force when, in an emergency, air reinforcements were urgently

needed.37 Otherwise the command situation remained as it was when GHQ

had first called attention to it. The War Plans Division, the Second Corps

Area, Middletown Depot, the Chief of Engineers, and the Chief of Army

Air Forces were all linked in some fashion to the chain of command and

supply; and the United States-Canadian Permanent Joint Board on Defense

had a measure of responsibility for the defense plan. What was left for GHQ,

General McNair pointed out, was merely "such inspection and coordination

as is practicable under the circumstances."

 38

A fouled chain of command was not, however, the major difficulty.

Regardless of the palliatives that had been recommended, the fact remained

that GHQ had been given a job to do without all the means it considered

necessary for accomplishing the task. The remedy was either to "streamline"

the War Department and establish a "command post" within the General

Staff or to enlarge the authority of GHQ, but a difference of opinion involving the very nature of GHQ's mission brought on further complications.

That GHQ had been called into being presupposed the existence of an

36

 On the North Atlantic Def Comd, see Memo, DCofS GHQ for WPD, 11 Aug 41, WPD

4175-18; Memo, Col Hays for Gen Malony, 10 Sep 41, OPD-GHQ INDIGO, Binder 2. On the

Northeastern Air Theater, see Draft Memo (prepared in WPD and not used), CofS for Gen

Arnold, n.d., WPD 4351-9, sec. 6; Draft Memo (not used), CofS for Gen Arnold, 13 Nov 41,

GHQ 381, binder 1; Memo, CofS for Gen Arnold, 19 Nov 41; Memo, SGS for WPD, 1 Dec 41;

Memo, WPD for CofS, 4 Dec 41. Last three in WPD 4351-9, sec. 6. On the Bermuda proposal,

see Memo, Col Hays for DCofS GHQ, 2 Sep 41; Memo, DCofS GHQ for WPD, 3 Sep 41. Both

in WPD 4351-8, sec. 2. See below, pp. 486-88, for data showing the relationship between this

question and Iceland. 37

 Memo, CofS for Gen Arnold, 19 Nov 41, WPD 4351-9, sec. 6. 38

 Memo, CofS GHQ for WPD, 2 Sep 41, WPD 4558. Further discussion of the command

problem, including the relationship of the Canadian and American forces in Newfoundland, will

be found in chapter XX.
MANNING AND ORGANIZING THE NEW ATLANTIC BASES 397

emergency and more than suggested the imminence of combat operations.

Proceeding on this basis, and recognizing the significance of the North

Atlantic area, GHQ was attempting to have theaters of operations established

well in advance of actual hostilities. Its efforts were thwarted, it believed,

by procrastination and myopia in the General Staff.39 An investigation of

the basic problem was begun in the War Department, and in order to provide "a better understanding of the prospective development of command"

the Caribbean Defense Command was placed under GHQ control, effective

1 December 1941.40 What actually developed thereafter was a drastic reorganization of the War Department.

In the meantime, during the summer and fall of 1941, garrisons were

being sent out to British Guiana, Antigua, St. Lucia, and Jamaica, for construction had progressed to the point where some protection seemed to be

required either against external attack or, as in the case of Jamaica, against

strike and riot damage.

Early Administrative Problems

Many of the "housekeeping" chores and administrative problems that

arose in the Atlantic bases had also plagued the commanders of all the new

and rapidly mushrooming Army camps in the continental United States.

Overcrowded, inadequate housing, dust and mud, isolated surroundings,

and shortages of equipment slowed down activities, depressed the spirits of

the men, and frayed the tempers of commanding officers in Massachusetts

or New Jersey as well as in Trinidad or Bermuda, and in Georgia as in Newfoundland. But circumstances of geography and politics magnified the more

familiar problems and gave rise to new ones that had no recent precedent

in Army experience.

Throughout 1941 housing was an object of careful study in the War

Department and a source of frequent communications with the base commanders, none of whom wished to keep his men in tents for any length of

time. The War Department, which was keeping its eye on accommodations

for the authorized garrisons, seems to have been particularly concerned over

the reduction the President made in the permanent housing planned for

39

 See Greenfield, Palmer, and Wiley, Organization of Ground Combat Troops, pp. 128-42;

Watson, Prewar Plans and Preparations, pp. 292-97; Cline, The Operations Division, pp. 61-74;

John D. Millett, The Organization and Role of the Army Service Forces, UNITED STATES

ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1954), pp. 23-26. 40

 Memo, CofS for Gen Arnold, 19 Nov 41, WPD 4351-9, sec. 6.
FIRST TROOPS IN TRINIDAD. Tent camp at Fort Read (top). Machine gunners

wearing mosquito nets during maneuvers (bottom).
INSTALLATIONS IN NEWFOUNDLAND. Barracks at Fort Pepperrell (top). U.S. Army

supply dock, St. John's harbor (bottom).
400 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Bermuda. Tents were entirely unsuitable, reported Colonel Strong, the commanding officer, for severe hurricanes could be expected about once a year

and there would be long periods of wet, windy weather which, if the men

were in tents, would raise the rate of illness.41 Consequently, in July the

district engineer was authorized to divert a part of the construction effort

to erecting temporary barracks. In Trinidad, the construction of temporary

barracks at Fort Read began a few weeks after the arrival of the troops. At

the same time, General Talbot on his own initiative negotiated an arrangement with the British governor which gave the base command a temporary

cantonment area on the outskirts of Port of Spain. Early in June the garrison at St. John's, Newfoundland, was evicted from its quarters on board

the Edmund B. Alexander and went into a tent camp outside the city. No

temporary housing was authorized for the Newfoundland garrison, but its

permanent quarters at Fort Pepperrell were expected to be ready before

winter set in. In spite of reinforcements during the second half of the year,

the housing situation was under fair control by December. Perhaps 150 men

were still in tents at the temporary coast defense sites in Bermuda, while in

Newfoundland about half the St. John's garrison had moved into permanent quarters. About 500 men were in temporary barracks that had apparently

been taken over from the construction people. Housing for the remainder

was promised during December. About half the Trinidad garrison were in

barracks by 1 November, and each week saw sizable numbers transferred

out of the tent camp. At the secondary bases temporary housing was available for two or three times the number of troops that were there.42

Uncertain port conditions in Newfoundland, inadequate rail communications with Gander airport, the lack of shipping for local transportation

between Panama and Trinidad and between Trinidad and the outlying bases,

and restrictions on the purchase of local commodities served to complicate

the supply problem. The rehabilitation of the Newfoundland Railway, first

taken under study by the Permanent Joint Board on Defense as early as

January 1941, was of interest to several agencies, and some duplication of

effort occurred when both the Newfoundland Base Command and the

Reconstruction Finance Corporation made a survey of the physical needs

41

 Memo, SW for President, 1 Jul 41, WPD 4351-8, sec. 1. 42

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 4 Apr 41; Memo, Lt Col Albert C. Lieber, Jr., for Col Crawford,

WPD, 3 Jun 41. Both in WPD 4351-9, sec. 3. Ltr, CG TBC to TAG, 25 May 41; Memo, WPD

for TAG, 17 Jun 41. Last two in WPD 4351-20, sec. 1. Rpt, Lt Col Samuel N. Karrick to TIG,

12 Jul 41, sub: Military Construction in Newfoundland, WPD 4351-9, sec. 4; Rpt, Maj John A.

Hunt to TIG, 26 Jul 41, sub: . . . Bermuda Base Comd, WPD 4351-8; Eastern Div, CE, Rpt of

Progress, Atlantic Bases, Oct 41, AG 580 (9-4-40), sec. 1-D, Bulky Package.
MANNING AND ORGANIZING THE NEW ATLANTIC BASES 401

of the railroad. New rolling stock, financed by the United States, began to

ease the situation late in 1941. Harbor improvements at St. John's and

Argentia were a much-needed and welcome supplement.43 In Trinidad, General Talbot was concerned from the start about the storage space provided

for perishable supplies. It would have to be increased, he reported, unless a

better shipping schedule could be worked out. In any event, the existing

space would be inadequate, he continued, for any reinforcements that might

be added to his command.44 As temporary remedies, the Office of The

Quartermaster General considered obtaining a refrigerated ship to be used

for storage and allocating funds for the purchase of local products, but

apparently the cold storage plant under construction by the Engineers was

completed before these measures were taken. All the same, the refrigeration

problem was still unsolved, according to Talbot, at the end of August.45

 In

reporting the supply situation to The Quartermaster General in May, General

Talbot pointed out with some understatement that the local gasoline supply

was "adequate" and shipments from the United States should be immediately

discontinued. It would have been no exaggeration had he said that shipping

gasoline to Trinidad was a far more wasteful and senseless effort than carrying coals to Newcastle, which in fact had sometimes been a profitable venture.

But the restrictive provisions of the "Buy American" Act of 3 March 1933 had

been interpreted by the War Department as applying to products used in

the leased bases. Although the Secretary of War could authorize the purchase,

without regard to country of origin, of goods not produced in the United

States of satisfactory quality or in sufficient and reasonably available quantities, nevertheless not many products had been certified as coming in this

category.46

 When the problem of supplying air bases in the Philippines,

in Hawaii, in Alaska, in the West Indies, and in the North Atlantic began

to assume tremendous proportions in the summer of 1941, both War Plans

Division and the Air Corps raised the question of lifting the provisions of

the law as far as the overseas bases were concerned. This step was not taken

until after the United States entered the war; but for the meantime a long

43

 Documents bearing on the Newfoundland Railway are in WPD 4351-9, sec. 3. Most important are: Rpt of Conf with RCAF in Ottawa, 26 Jan-1 Feb 41, Lt Col Harold L. Clark to

WPD, n.d.; Memo, Gen Spaatz for WPD, 25 Mar 41; Memo, WPD for Senior Army Member,

Permanent Joint Board on Defense, 26 Apr 41; Memo, WPD for TAG, 26 Apr 41. See also

Memo, WPD for CofS, 23 Jun 41; and unsigned Memo of 5 Sep 41 atchd to Memo, Col Bissell

for ACofS WPD, 5 Sep 41. Last two in WPD 4351-9, sec. 4. 44

 Rad, Talbot to QMC, 10 May 41, AG 320.2 (4-5-41), sec. 4. 45

 Memo, DQMG for G-4, 17 May 41, TAG 320.2 (4-5-41), sec. 4; Ltr, Talbot to CG CDC,

28 Aug 41, WPD 4351-20, sec. 1. 46

 See AR 5-340, 10 Aug 36.
402 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

list of commodities, including aviation gasoline and petroleum products in

general, was exempted by authority of the Secretary of War on 30 July

1941.47

In October, General Andrews, the new commanding general of the

Caribbean Defense Command, recommended a change in supply procedure.

Consideration of the question whether the commanding officers of the various base commands should deal with the Second Corps Area directly or

through the headquarters of the Caribbean Defense Command had resulted

in GHQ's suggesting that the Caribbean Defense Command take over the

responsibilities originally entrusted to the Second Corps Area and build up

a supply depot at Panama for the entire area. Just as unwilling as his predecessor had been to make Panama the hub of a Caribbean theater, General

Andrews disagreed with GHQ's suggestion and recommended instead that

depots be established in Puerto Rico and Trinidad for supplying all bases

in the respective sectors.48 His proposal circulated within the War Department for six weeks, receiving the concurrence of the interested staff divisions

and also of GHQ and finally the official approval of the Chief of Staff. On

23 December 1941, GHQ was informed that the Second Corps Area would

be relieved of the administration and supply of the Jamaica, Antigua, St.

Lucia, Trinidad, and British Guiana Base Commands at a time to be designated later. St. Lucia and British Guiana were to be placed under the Trinidad

Base Command, as Andrews had suggested; Antigua and Jamaica were to

come under the Puerto Rican Department for supply. Six months later, in

June 1942, the commanding general of the Caribbean Defense Command

was authorized to establish general depots in Trinidad and Puerto Rico

within the limits of existing or already authorized facilities.49

One of the burdens that fell hard on the staff officers of the base commands, and chiefly on the chaplains and medical officers, was the censoring

of mail. By midsummer 1941, some 39,000 letters and nearly 1,000 packages

were passing through the post office of the Bermuda Base Command each

month. In Trinidad the volume was only slightly less. The mail of the

construction people as well as that of the military was examined by the

47

 D/F, WPD to CofS AAF, 9 Jul 41, sub: Material for . . . British Guiana Base, WPD

4351-21; Procurement Cir 59, 30 Jul 41, and 92, 30 Dec. 41. 48

 Memo, WPD for G-4, 19 Jul 41, sub: Administration and Supply of Certain Atlantic Bases,

WPD 4440-15; Memo, G-4 for TAG, 1 Oct 41, sub: Supply Plans for CDC; Memo for Rcd and

1st Ind, CG CDC, 18 Oct 41, on TAG Ltr of 6 Oct 41. Last two in AG 320.2 (1-8-41). 49

 Memo, G-4 for CofS, 12 Nov 41, OCS 21160-119; Rpt of DCofS GHQ, 28 Nov 41, GHQ

337 Staff Confs, binder 2; TAG Ltr to CG FF, 23 Dec 41, sub: Supply Plans for CDC; 8th Ind,

Requirements Div SOS to CG CDC, 9 Jun 42, sub: Supply Plans for CDC, on TAG Ltr of 6 Oct

41, with Memo for Rcd attached. Last two in AG 320.2 (1-8-41).
MANNING AND ORGANIZING THE NEW ATLANTIC BASES 403

base censors in Bermuda; but in Trinidad the civilian mail was censored by

employees of the contractors under the immediate supervision of the district

engineer. In the one case, mails were delayed as much as five days; and in

the other, there were complaints among the contractors' people against the

integrity of their fellow employees in the censorship office.50 During the

fall of 1941 the base censors were authorized to employ civilian examiners.

The Bermuda censorship office came to be staffed principally by the wives

of men stationed there, which posed a special problem after the attack on

Pearl Harbor when the evacuation of dependents was undertaken.51 Censorship caught the usual careless disclosure of restricted information and, perhaps more important, gave the commanding officer a steadier finger on the

pulse of his men. On the other side of the picture, the historical officer of

the Trinidad Sector has criticized censorship operations in his sector on

grounds that they were inflexible and overly meticulous and gave rise to

"considerable resentment" among the troops.52 But such is the lot of a censor.

No troops had ever had more thought devoted to their physical welfare

than the American Army of 1940-41.53 So much importance was attached to

it that comfortable housing, a plentiful supply of good food and equipment,

recreation facilities, and the like, took on an intrinsic worth, in pursuit of

which other factors were sometimes lost to sight. The Army made every

effort to ease the physical hardships of service in the jungles of Trinidad

and British Guiana or on the fog-swept coasts of Newfoundland; but its

failure to provide for the emotional needs of men surrounded by a wholly

strange environment was as dismal as the situations that often resulted. Too

little cognizance was taken of the incapacity of Americans generally to

adapt their ways to those of strangers or to take comfort and serious interest

in unfamiliar surroundings. Too little attention was given to preparing

the men for the antipathy of a local populace, however friendly, toward any

foreign garrison, however well-intentioned. By any test of physical comfort,

Bermuda should have had no "morale" problems, but as time went on complaints were made and incidents took place that paralleled those elsewhere.

Wherever the men sought recreation among the townspeople, as they were

accustomed to doing in the United States, brawls and similar unpleasantness

50

 Report of Special Inspection of Bermuda Base Command, Maj Hunt to TIG, 26 Jul 41,

WPD 4351-8, sec. 1; Ltr, CG TBC to CG CDC, 30 Sep 41, AG 000.73 (5-16-41), sec. 11. 51

 GHQ Staff Confs (Dec 41), GHQ 337 Staff Confs, binder 2; Memo, SW for President,

24 Dec 41, sub: Evacuation of Dependents . . . , OCS 21098-56. 52

 TBC, Hist Sec, CDC, Hist of TS and BC, IV, 100, 112. 53

 See Watson, Prewar Plans and Preparations, pp. 231-36.
404 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

were bound to occur. Off-post recreation facilities operated by local committees varied in the service they performed. In Jamaica, the local effort was

received enthusiastically; in Bermuda, the local service club was charged

with price-gouging and discrimination.

During the fall of 1941 the United Service Organizations (USO)

extended its operations to the Atlantic bases.54 The USO recreation centers

helped to allay the tediousness and boredom of the men's leisure time

but had less effect on the attitude of townsfolk and garrison toward each

other. For its solution, this, like most of the problems, required the closest

co-operation between the commanding officers and the local authorities.

The conduct of official relations rested on the base agreement of 27

March 1941; but, not being a treaty, the base agreement was inferior to local

legislation, and any laws that failed to conform to the agreement stood

until repealed by act of the colonial authorities. The objections raised by

representatives of the colonies during the negotiations foreshadowed, and

the lack of enthusiasm with which the colonies received the agreement

further indicated, that any conflict of law would not easily be corrected.

Instead of enacting a general nullifying ordinance, the colonies preferred

to deal with specific conflicts as they arose. The remission of customs duties

and local taxes under Articles XIV and XVII of the base agreement was

not enacted by the Bermuda legislature until 27 June, exactly three months

after the agreement came into effect. Even then there was only a partial conformity. Bermuda continued to levy duties on bulk petroleum products not

consigned direct to the Army and Navy and on household effects and personal

belongings. Various wharfage charges were assessed on goods destined for

the bases, and a stamp tax was levied on bank checks and steamship tickets.

At the end of 1941 the State Department was still pressing for determination of a few of the matters.55

 In Trinidad a similar stamp tax was one of

a number of controversial questions still outstanding at the end of September. Among these, the failure of the Trinidad Government to grant the

right of audience in local courts to United States counsel took on urgent

importance when an American soldier was charged with the murder of a

54

 The extension of USO activities precipitated a feud between the USO and the American

Red Cross over their respective spheres of operation, a controversy that caught the War Department in the middle and which may have sped the construction of the recreation centers. 55

 Memo for Rcd by Col Crawford, 16 Aug 41, sub: Bermuda—Passage of the U.S. Bases Act,

27 June 1941; Memo, WPD for TAG, 17 Jun 41. Both in WPD 4351-8, sec. 1. Ltr, Mr. Thomas

W. Palmer, Standard Oil Co. of N.J., to Mr. Ray Atherton, State Dept, 5 Nov 41; Memo, Col

Crawford, WPD, for Mr. Hickerson, State Dept, 12 Dec 41; Note for Rcd, WPD to G-4, 2 Oct

41, sub: Payment of Taxes . . . in Bermuda. Last three in WPD 4351-8, sec. 2.
MANNING AND ORGANIZING THE NEW ATLANTIC BASES 405

Trinidad civilian.56 But, as it turned out, the question of audience was submerged in that of jurisdiction.

This affair concerned a shooting that had taken place in the town of

Arima, outside the leased area in Trinidad, and involved a jurisdictional

issue that was not specifically covered by the base agreement. In a similar

case that had arisen in Antigua a few weeks earlier, both the United States

and the British Government recognized the right of the other to try the

alleged offender, a U.S. marine. If the precedent established in that instance

were to be followed, the representative of the State Department would ask

the local authorities whether they objected to a trial by court-martial and

would inform them at the same time that the United States had no objection

to their making a public statement to the effect that in recognizing American

jurisdiction they were not renouncing the concurrent jurisdiction of the local

court.57 But the precedent was not closely followed. The Secretary of the

colony, acting as Governor of Trinidad in the temporary absence of Sir

Hubert Young, was reluctant to raise the question of jurisdiction, although

he was pressed by the Legislative Council to do so. When he asked General

Talbot for a letter that would quiet any public agitation, the general

responded readily enough, but he too preferred to let the issue lie. Instead

of acknowledging the fact of dual jurisdiction, General Talbot replied with

assurances that the prisoner would be given a public trial, by a military court,

to which representatives of the colonial government would be invited.58

Whether this would have had the effect the acting governor hoped was never

put to test, for the letter had not been made public when Governor Young

returned and immediately brought the jurisdictional issue before the American consul. The Governor suggested that he make a statement with the

approval of the United States Government similar to the one issued by the

Antigua authorities. The consul, having received no instructions, referred

the matter to the State Department. Meanwhile, the preliminaries to the

trial had already begun. Three or four days before the military court convened the Governor agreed that it was now too late to do anything except

issue a formal press release waiving jurisdiction, which he would do provided the consul repeated General Talbot's announcement of the court-mar56

 Ltr, American Consul, Trinidad, to Secy State, 5 Sep 41; Memo, WPD for Mr. Hickerson,

State Dept, 17 Sep 41; Memo for TAG, 30 Oct 41, sub: Implementation of Base Lease Agreement. . . . All in WPD 4351-20, sec. 2. 57

 Memo, G-1 for WPD, 6 Oct 41; Memo, JAG for WPD, 15 Oct 41; Memo, WPD for

CofS, 15 Nov 41. All in WPD 4351-167. 58

 Ltr, Gen Talbot, to Capt John Huggins, Acting Governor, 29 Oct 41; Ltr, Talbot to TAG,

1 Nov 41. Both in WPD 4351-20, sec. 2.
406 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

rial, and this was done. Then, on 19 November, the War Department

instructed Talbot to postpone the trial until the Governor issued a public

statement such as he wished, to the effect that recognition of court-martial

jurisdiction was not a renunciation of the concurrent jurisdiction of the

local court. But the trial had started the day before.59

The result of the proceedings, which ended in the acquittal of the

accused soldier, did nothing to appease the Governor's dissatisfaction. He

urged, as he had in the beginning, that in future cases involving dual jurisdiction the Trinidad Government be informed in good time of the steps

taken, that this be done through the American consulate, and that a definite

procedure be settled upon by which requests for any waiver of jurisdiction

could be given due consideration.60

A successful modus vivendi between the American authorities and the

local government required a measure of co-operation and mutual understanding seldom achieved in Trinidad until after the United States entered

the war. There was scarcely the best of teamwork between the American

consulate and the headquarters of the base command. In transmitting to the

War Department one of the consular dispatches relating to the shooting

affair at Arima, the Secretary of State invited attention to the arrangement

between the two departments under which "it was agreed that the American

consul at Trinidad should be the intermediary in matters relating to the

defense bases and that all communications to the Governor should be sent

through him."

 61

 This had been agreed upon early in June, and on at least

five occasions thereafter General Talbot had been directed to comply with

it.62 There was even less teamwork between the general and the Governor.

Both were of the same cut of cloth, blunt and outspoken in their opinions;

each was insistent that the prestige of his own government could best be

upheld by not yielding to the other; neither believed in appeasement. When

the Governor refused the right of audience to American military counsel,

the general retaliated by refusing to permit the service of summonses on

American military personnel.63

59

 Telg 756, American Consul, Trinidad, to Secy State, 15 Nov 41; D/F, WPD to TAG,

19 Nov 41, with Rad to CG, Trinidad, and Memo for Record. All in WPD 4351-20, sec. 2. 60

 Telgs 756, 15 Nov 41, and 764, 24 Nov 41, American Consul, Trinidad, to Secy State, WPD

4351-20, sec. 2. 61

 Ltr, Secy State to SW, 27 Nov 41, WPD 4351-20, sec. 2. 62

 See Ltr, Col Ward to Gen Talbot, 3 Jun 41; Rad, TAG to Talbot, 12 Jun 41; Rad, TAG to

CG CDC, 5 Sep 41; Ltr (drafted in WPD), G-2 to Talbot, 10 Sep 41; WPD Memo for TAG,

with Rad to CG CDC, 16 Sep 41. All in WPD 4351-20, sec. 1. 63

 TBC, Hist Sec, CDC, Hist of TS and BC, V, 28-29. A few days after the shooting at Arima

a bill was introduced in the Legislative Council providing for the right of audience. Although
MANNING AND ORGANIZING THE NEW ATLANTIC BASES 407

At the other bases temporary agreements were worked out with the local

authorities in a spirit of compromise. There was close co-operation between

the American consulate general and Army headquarters in Bermuda, and

the vigorous efforts of the consul general, ably seconded by Colonel Strong,

were successful in bringing about a satisfactory disposition of the tax and

customs questions. Although the Governor was not to be hurried into

removing the legislative obstacles, a working compromise was agreed upon,

the final decision being left to Washington and London. In Newfoundland,

the consul general seems to have taken very little active part in matters

relating to the bases. Until the arrival of the new consul general in July 1941,

and afterwards to a lesser extent, both the district engineer and the commanding officer of the garrison dealt directly with the Newfoundland Commissioners on many questions. They took the same approach that had been

followed in Bermuda, but the situation was clouded at times by the presence

of Canadian forces, by the role of the Permanent Joint Board on Defense, and

by changes of command, of consular officers, and in the Newfoundland

Commission of Government.64

In retrospect, the 1941 experience in establishing the defense outposts

in the Atlantic leaves one with the distinct impression that the greatest

flaws were in the sphere of social relations. Plans for the construction and

defense of the bases were drawn up with due attention to needs and resources

and rested on a solid basis of firsthand information competently assembled.

The construction program was fairly prompt in getting under way. If its

progress was not all that the most optimistic hoped, it was perhaps because

the goal had been placed too far off. In the seeming emergency of April 1941

troops reached the bases in rather quick order, and when the real crisis broke

in December the airfields were ready for their part in the Battle of the

Atlantic. These technical problems of engineering and defense were no

less complicated, no more important, than the social problem, which deserved

far more attention than it received. No attempt seems to have been made to

prepare the men in advance for the social and physical environment in which

expected to pass on 28 October, it was not enacted until sometime the following month. Meanwhile, all cases pending in the local courts that involved American soldiers had to be postponed.

See, Telg 745, American Consul, Trinidad to Secy State, 27 Oct 41, with copy of the proposed

ordinance; Memo for Rcd on WPD Memo for TAG, 21 Oct 41; and Memo for Rcd on D/F,

WPD to G-1, JAG, and TAG, 22 Nov 41. All in WPD 4351-20, sec. 2. 64

 In addition to the material cited in n. 56, see: Ltr, American Vice Consul, Bermuda, to

Secy State, 20 Sep 41; Ltr, Colonial Secretary, Bermuda, to American Consul General, 5 Nov 41;

and Memo, WPD for Mr. Hickerson, State Dept, 12 Dec 41. All in WPD 4351-8, sec. 2. Ltr,

American Consul General, St. John's to Secy State, 27 May 41, WPD 4351-9, sec. 3; Memo,

WPD for CofS, 3 Dec 41, sub: Status of USO in Overseas Bases, WPD 4351-9, sec. 6.
408 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

they were to live. In the selection of units the only deference to local sensibilities was the decision not to send Negro troops to the West Indian bases,

a decision that was amended in April 1942 without undue disturbance. The

attitude of white troops toward the colored citizens, an equally fertile source

of trouble, was given little weight in choosing the original units for the

Trinidad garrison. "The character of the men in command of the bases,"

Ambassador Winant wrote at the conclusion of the base negotiations, "is

of tremendous importance especially in the beginning. If they are the right

kind and ready to carry out our part of the agreement in a friendly and understanding spirit they can do much to inaugurate ninety-nine years of good

neighborliness."

 65

 Only professional competence, however, and what might

be called the exigencies of the service guided the selection of commanding

officers. Dexterity in the art of diplomacy, a certain skill in getting along

with people who lived differently, and the ability to follow the established

channels of intercourse between nations were not considered. In the personnel files of G-1 there were scarcely any measurement data or code numbers for qualities of this sort. It was a matter of chance and not of choosing

when an officer with these qualities was placed in command.

65

 Rad 1207, Mr. Winant to Secy State, 27 Mar 41, OPD Exec 13, item 15.
CHAPTER XVI

The Caribbean in Wartime

The Panama and Caribbean defenses felt the initial impact of war

chiefly in the shape of repercussions from Washington. At least two fields

of activity were affected, namely, the problem of command and the matter

of reinforcing the garrisons. The entry of the United States into the war

radically and immediately altered the situation in each of these fields.

The First Effects of War

As a result of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the vexing problem of who

should command when the forces of two or more services were involved

was, as far as it concerned the North Atlantic bases, pushed farther away

from a solution; but, as far as the Caribbean-Panama area was concerned,

the problem was disposed of immediately. The only difficulty that remained

was to make the solution work. On this general subject Secretary Stimson's

biographer has observed: "The attack at Pearl Harbor emphasized again the

importance of unity of command; all the armed forces in any area must

have a single commander. Stimson was ashamed that the lesson had to be

so painfully learned; for months he had read it in the experience of the

British in North Africa, Crete, and Greece. Incautiously he had assumed that

it was equally well learned by others. . . ."

 1 As late as 5 December the ArmyNavy Joint Planning Committee had been struggling with the task of formulating a statement of general policy governing the application of unity of

command. No agreement had been reached by the time the attack on Pearl

Harbor occurred. Then, out of the flood of rumors and alarms that followed

the Japanese onslaught came a report that two hostile aircraft carriers had

been sighted off the west coast of Mexico. General Andrews was immediately

instructed to "take all necessary precautions in reconnaissance" and to notify

the naval commander. In Washington, GHQ, learning that Navy patrol

1

 Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War (New York:

Harper and Brothers, 1948), p. 407.
410 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

planes based on Coco Solo were part of a task force under the commander

in chief of the Atlantic Fleet, raised the question of command, but on being

referred to General Andrews in Panama the question became one of liaison

rather than command.2

On Friday, 12 December, five days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Secretary Stimson was amazed to find that no scheme for establishing unity of command in Panama had been worked out. Aroused by the thought that the

canal would probably be one of the next objectives of the Japanese, he had

General Marshall draw up a proposed directive placing all Army and Navy

forces in the Panama Coastal Frontier, except fleet units, under Army command, and later in the day Mr. Stimson laid the proposal before the Cabinet.3

The President approved the idea by taking a map, writing "Army" over the

area of the Panama Coastal Frontier, but at the same time writing "Navy"

over the Caribbean Coastal Frontier, and then adding his "O.K.—F.D.R."

As presented by Secretary Stimson, the draft proposal had said nothing

about the command of the Caribbean area except that "the Commanding

General, Caribbean Defense Command, within his means and other responsibilities, will support the Naval Commander of the Caribbean Coastal

Frontier." During the afternoon General Gerow discussed the Panama command with Admiral Stark, without referring to the Caribbean, and after the

Cabinet meeting he took the papers that had been approved by the President

to a conference with Admirals Stark and King, and Rear Adm. Richmond

Kelly Turner. Admiral King, Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet, and soon

to become Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet, thought Secretary Stimson's

proposal might possibly be a practical solution, but Admiral Turner, head

of the Navy War Plans Division, was opposed. His view was that unity

of command was appropriate only for regularly organized task force operations, that once established it ought not to shift back and forth according to

which service had "paramount interest," and that for general defensive

operations the appropriate method of co-ordination was mutual co-operation,

not unity of command.4 But the President's intent with respect to Panama

2

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 10 Dec 41, sub: Aircraft Carriers off Mexican Coast (for dispatch

to CG CDC), WPD 4622-13; Memo, WPD for TAG, 10 Dec 41, sub: Reported Jap Concentration West of Canal (for dispatch to CG CDC); Memo for Rcd, Col Slocum (WPD), 10 Dec 41.

Last two in WPD 4622-14. Rad, CG CDC to GHQ, 13 Dec 41, GHQ G-3 file, Corresp With

CDC.

3

 Stimson Diary, entry of 12 Dec 41; Memo, Gen Marshall for Gen Gerow, 5 Dec 41, WPD

2917-32. 4

 Memo, WPD for Adm Stark, 12 Dec 41, with draft proposal and map attached, WPD

2917-34; Memo, WPD for CofS, 12 Dec 41; Memo, CNO for CofS, (12 Dec 41). Last two in

WPD 2917-35.
THE CARIBBEAN IN WARTIME 411

was clear, and at a meeting of the Joint Board held the next day Admiral

Stark accepted the decision to establish unity of command under the Army.

A major consideration was the view that "unless unified control was affected

[effected?] by joint agreement between the Army and the Navy, the establishment of a department of National Defense, appointed by the Administration, might be considered a certainty."

 5

Over the weekend, the Navy War Plans Division prepared a written

statement on the subject, which Admiral Stark forwarded to General Marshall on Monday, 15 December, and which brought into the discussion the

question of command in the Caribbean. The Navy's position was that the

President's notation on the map of the Caribbean Coastal Frontier indicated

that he intended unity of command to be established under the Navy in that

area, as in Panama under the Army. This was what the Navy had proposed

almost a year before. The Army countered with the same argument that had

brought on the previous stalemate: that it was impossible to consider the

Army defenses of the Panama-Caribbean area except as a unit and that,

if unity of command were necessary in the Caribbean, it should, as in Panama,

be under the Army. When the question came up for discussion at a further

meeting of the Joint Board, on 17 December, the only agreement was that

efforts to reach one would be continued. But the same consideration that

helped to bring the Army and Navy into agreement on the Panama command doubtless played a similar part with respect to the Caribbean. In any

event, on the morning of 18 December, General Marshall instructed the

War Plans Division that in the Caribbean the Navy would exercise unity of

command. Thus, within a week after Secretary Stimson became aware of

the serious situation the question of who should command was solved.6

In two or three days more, all the details of the directives to be issued

were likewise settled. In order to allay any possible uneasiness on the part

of the naval commander at Panama, General Marshall had first proposed a

list of special restrictions and exceptions that would have limited the Army's

exercise of command, but they were soon laid aside, at Admiral Stark's

suggestion, in favor of a simple, more easily interpreted directive modeled

on the one that had been adopted for Hawaii. All forces "assigned for

operations" in the respective coastal frontiers came within the scope of the

5

 Min, JB Mtg, 13 Dec 41. 6

 Memo, Col Slocum (WPD) for Gen Gerow, 16 Dec 41, and Memo, Gen Marshall for Adm

Stark, 16 Dec 41. Both in WPD 2917-35. Memo, Adm Stark for Gen Marshall, 17 Dec 41, WPD

2917-37; Min, JB Mtg, 17 Dec 41; Typed notation on Memo, Gen McNair (GHQ) for CofS,

18 Dec 41, OCS 21278-9.
412 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

orders, which were limited only by the provisions of Joint Action of the

Army and the Navy.7 The urgency of the situation had prevented the War

Department from consulting General Andrews. Now the success of the

decision rested on his good judgment. He promised to do his best. The

decision presented him with a difficult problem of organization; but barring

an immediate interruption in the shape of a serious threat to the Caribbean,

the plan, he believed, could be made to work.8

While the War Plans Division, General Marshall, and Secretary Stimson

had been occupied chiefly with the question of command, GHQ and General

Andrews had been more concerned with reinforcing and strengthening the

Caribbean garrisons. By directing the various commanders to put the RAINBOW 5 war plan into effect, the War Department brought on a veritable

barrage of requests for reinforcements, since the deployment of forces provided in RAINBOW 5 was incomplete. Because the Canal seemed to be one of

the objectives of the Japanese war makers, General Andrews' requests fared

better than most. On 12 December GHQ noted that two infantry regiments,

two barrage balloon units, one field artillery battalion, and two hospital

units were to be sent to Panama in addition to some 1,800 coast artillery filler

replacements. A few days later, arrangements were made to send the 53d

Pursuit Group to reinforce the air garrison. Negotiations were started to

acquire 72 40-mm. antiaircraft guns from the British and to dispatch one

heavy bomber squadron and one flight of pursuit planes to Talara.9 The

December 1941 reinforcements, both ground and air, were more than double

those in the entire first eleven months of the year. By the end of December the

Panama garrison had risen to about 39,000 men; and at the end of January

it had reached 47,600.

Puerto Rico, unlike Panama, appeared to lie beyond reach of the

Japanese. In common with all the Atlantic bases similarly situated, Puerto

Rico felt the immediate effect of the Pearl Harbor attack as a temporary

disruption of its defense build-up. The War Department gave careful

scrutiny to requests for reinforcements submitted before the Japanese assault,

and in December less than 200 men were added to the Puerto Rican garrison.

The same rate of increase was maintained during the next two months, so

7

 Msg, CNO to Comdr, Panama Naval Coastal Frontier, 19 Dec 41, and Memo, WPD for

TAG, 19 Dec 41 (dispatched as Rad 7 to CG CDC). Both in WPD 2917-37. Memo, Adm Stark

for Gen Marshall, 17 Dec 41, WPD 2917-35. 8

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 19 Dec 41 (dispatched as Rad 9 to CG CDC); Rad, Gen Andrews

to Gen Marshall, 20 Dec 41. Both in WPD 2917-37. 9

 GHQ Conf Rpts, 12 Dec, 15 Dec, 19 Dec, 22 Dec, and 27 Dec, GHQ 337 Staff Confs,

binder 2.
THE CARIBBEAN IN WARTIME 413

that the total strength, which at the end of November 1941 had amounted

to about 21,200 men, had risen to only 22,000 at the end of February 1942.10

The naval forces available for purposes of local defense were, like

the Army garrison, concentrated in the Panama area, where Rear Adm.

F. H. Sadler, Commander Panama Naval Coastal Frontier, had at his

disposal a small and motley force of patrol planes, submarines, and subchasers. For "heavy" units, Admiral Sadler had two old destroyers and a

gunboat, and the rest of his command consisted of 6 submarines, 3 converted yachts, 5 subchasers, 1 mine sweeper, and 12 patrol planes with their

tender. Even before General Andrews was given over-all command, his

superior responsibility had been informally acknowledged by Admiral Sadler,

who considered himself somewhat as a task force commander under General Andrews as well as a task group commander under the Commander in

chief, U. S. Atlantic Fleet.11 In the Caribbean, Rear Admiral J. H. Hoover's

naval forces were divided between a patrol force consisting of two old

destroyers, three small submarines, two subchasers of World War I vintage,

and twelve patrol planes, and smaller local surface forces at Guantánamo

and Trinidad. The latter were virtually undefended; at Trinidad on 7 December 1941 there were only two converted yachts, two "Yippies" (district patrol

craft, YP-63 and YP-64) and four of Admiral Hoover's patrol planes.12

As in the case of the Army, the Navy's first reaction was to strengthen

the defenses at the Pacific end of the Canal. On 14 December the War

Department learned that the Navy had sent two submarine divisions (8-12

vessels) and a patrol squadron of twelve planes to Panama with orders to

establish advanced patrol bases in the Galapagos Islands and Gulf of

Fonseca.13

Somewhat better progress had been made in operational planning under

RAINBOW 5 than in the deployment of troops. In October 1941 a group of

General Andrews' staff officers headed by Brig. Gen. Harry C. Ingles, G-3

of the Caribbean Defense Command, arrived in Washington to prepare an

operations plan for the Caribbean theater. A draft had been made ready

10

 Strength figures for both Panama and Puerto Rico are based on the statistical summary,

Strength of U.S. Army Forces . . . , compiled by Statistical Section, OCMH. 11

 Memo, CNO for CofS GHQ, 4 Dec 41, on D/F, WPD to GHQ, 11 Dec 41, WPD 4415-15;

Morison, Battle of the Atlantic, pp. 148-51; Ltr, Gen Andrews to Gen Marshall, 16 Dec 41, WPD

4452-16. In February 1942 the coastal frontiers were renamed sea frontiers. 12

 Memo, CNO for CofS GHQ, 4 Dec 41, on D/F, WPD to GHQ, 11 Dec 41, WPD 4415-15;

Ltr, Adm J. H. Hoover (ret) to Acting Chief of Military History, 23 Apr 59, in OCMH files;

Morison, Battle of the Atlantic, p. 146. A local naval command was shortly established at Curaçao. 13

 Memo, WPD for CofS GHQ, 14 Dec 41, WPD 4622-40.
414 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

by GHQ on the model of the Iceland plan prepared a few months earlier.

When General Ingles and his group returned to Panama on 31 October,

the current estimate of the situation and the intelligence plan prepared by

GHQ had been brought into agreement with the views of the Caribbean

Defense Command. The rest of the work was to be done in Panama and to be

submitted to GHQ for approval. By the date of the Pearl Harbor attack

the operations plan itself, the basic document, had been completed, but not

all the seventeen annexes were finished.

Based as it was on the RAINBOW 5 war plan, the Caribbean operations

plan faced toward the Atlantic and anticipated a war in which Germany and

Italy would be the major opponents, the Atlantic and Europe the principal

battleground, and the Caribbean relatively immune to attack. It contemplated a garrison of a little more than 112,000 men for the Caribbean theater. Considering the fact that the actual deployment of forces in November

1941 was based on the possibility of a carrier raid against the canal from the

Pacific, that the total garrison of the Caribbean Defense Command amounted to less than 60,000 men at the end of November, and that the establishment of separate unified commands in Panama and the Caribbean created

a different scheme of organization from that envisaged by GHQ, there

might have been some question of the practicality of the operations plan.14

As it turned out, the canal itself was never seriously threatened from either

side, nor were the outposts, except for Aruba and Curaçao, ever fired upon.

Nevertheless, the Caribbean Defense Command garrison was built up to a

peak of 119,000 men in December 1942. More than half of them were in

Panama guarding the canal from attack or sabotage.

Provisions for armed assistance to recognized governments of the Latin

American republics and for the protective occupation of colonies belonging

to European powers were a feature of the RAINBOW 5 war plan; but these

provisions were specifically excepted when the plan was ordered into effect

after the attack on Pearl Harbor.15 The Dutch islands of Aruba and Curaçao

were then the principal focus of attention, but, before American troops

could be sent to the islands, the approval of the Netherlands Government

was desirable, arrangements with the local authorities for the arrival of the

troops were necessary, and provision for the departure of the British had to

be made. All this took time. It was not until the end of January that these

14

 On the Caribbean theater operations plan of December 1941, see historical monograph by

the Hist Sec, CDC, War Plans and Defense Measures, pp. 33-59. 15

 Rad, GHQ to CG, CDC, 11 Dec 41, GHQ G-3 file, Corresp With CDC.
THE CARIBBEAN IN WARTIME 415

preliminary details were finally disposed of. On 26 January 1942 the War

Department informed General Andrews that the Netherlands Government

had agreed to entrust the defense of the islands to American troops. Two

days later, Col. Peter C. Bullard, commanding officer of the designated

forces, and his staff, arrived at Curaçao to make the necessary arrangements

for the landing. Had it not been for some dissatisfaction on the part of the

Dutch over command arrangements in the Far East and their unwillingness

to permit Venezuelan participation in the defense of Aruba and Curaçao,

and for some reluctance on the part of the United States Government to

press the issue until after the Rio de Janeiro Conference of Foreign Ministers, faster progress might have been made.16

Meanwhile, in mid-January six A-20 light bombers were stationed, with

the permission of the Netherlands Government, on the two islands. Some

question had arisen whether the islands were within the Panama Coastal

Frontier and thus under General Andrews' jurisdiction or within the Caribbean Coastal Frontier and under Admiral Hoover. The 1940 Joint Army and

Navy plan for the defense of the Panama Canal had included both Aruba

and Curaçao in the Panama Coastal Frontier; but the boundaries established

by the RAINBOW 5 plan, under which General Andrews was now operating,

clearly placed them within the limits of the Caribbean Coastal Frontier.17

Both Admiral Hoover and General Andrews, without informing each other,

made arrangements to send planes to the islands. An embarrassing situation

was averted only by a narrow margin when an information copy of an order

of Admiral Hoover was received by the Puerto Rican Department and forwarded by it to General Andrews' headquarters.18

The ground troops, to the number of about 2,300 men, sailed from New

Orleans for Aruba and Curaçao on 6 February and arrived at the islands on

11 February. The British garrison, about 1,400 strong, departed three days

later. Before the American forces had their guns and searchlights ready, the

enemy struck and won, as at Pearl Harbor, an initial victory.

16

 Memo, J.T.L. [Maj John T. Lewis] for CofS, 10 Jan 42, with notation by Gen Marshall

for SW, AG 320.2 (9-23-41); Memo, Asst Secy State Adolf A. Berle, Jr., for the President,

28 Jan 42, WPD 4577-15; Memo, President Roosevelt for Asst Secy State Berle, 29 Jan 42,

Roosevelt Papers, II, p. 1281; Monograph by Hist Sec, CDC, Occupation and Use of Bases in . . .

Aruba and Curaçao, OCMH, pp. 14-16, 20. 17

 Illustrative maps are in CDC Monograph, Army and Navy Boundaries of the Caribbean

Defense Command, ff. pp. 7, 8, 25, 33, 45. 18

 Memo, CofS for USW, 10 Jan 42, OCS 21358-2; Ltr, Adm Hoover to Adm Stark, CNO,

7 Jan 42, AG 320.2 (9-23-41); Ltr, Gen Andrews to Gen McNair, 15 Jan 42, WPD 4452-19;

Memo, G-2 for CofS, 26 Jan 42, WPD 4440-25.
416 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Shaping the Local Commands

The dispatch of American troops to Aruba, Curaçao, and Surinam, and

the entry of the United States into the war as an associate of Great Britain

and the Netherlands, raised a problem of command relationships not only

between the Army and the Navy, but also between the United States and its

allies. A unique feature of the situation in the Caribbean was the fact that

the over-all command was strictly unilateral, while several of the subsidiary

commands were combined commands. In Trinidad and in Jamaica an AngloAmerican headquarters was set up; in Aruba and Curaçao there was a combined Dutch-American headquarters.

Conversations between representatives of the War Department and

members of the British Military Mission in Washington had been held during the late spring and early summer of 1941 on the subject of co-ordinating

local defense measures in the British colonies where the new United States

bases were located. Because the United States was not a belligerent, this

subject had not been included in the base agreement of March 1941, but the

dispatch of American garrisons during the ensuing months seemed to make

some arrangement essential.19 There were a number of complicating factors, among them the special relationship between the colonial Governors

and the military forces of the colony, the matter of offshore air and naval

patrols, and the question of who should command. The authority of the

colonial Governors was clarified by a British statement, later incorporated

into the final agreement, to the effect that, although bearing the title of

commander in chief, the Governor was not vested with command authority

except on special appointment from the King, and thus he was not entitled

to take the immediate direction of military operations.20 Agreement on the

remaining points was soon reached, and the whole signed in final form on

30 August 1941.21

On the salient point, it was agreed that unity of command of the forces

of both powers would be established either on instructions from the two

governments in the event of an attack on the territory, or as soon as the

"Associated Powers" became "mutually associated in a war against a common enemy." The nationality of the officer exercising unity of command

would be determined generally by the strengths of the forces involved and

19

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 17 Apr 41, WPD 4351-100. 20

 Note submitted by British delegation to the Jt U.S.-British Committee on Coordination,

20 Jul 41, WPD 4351-100. 21

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 31 Jul 41, WPD 4351-100; Text of the agreement in TBC, Hist

Sec, CDC, Hist of TS and BC, III, app. A.
THE CARIBBEAN IN WARTIME 417

the tactical or strategic importance to the respective powers of the locality

concerned. Specifically it was agreed that the American commander at

Bermuda, Jamaica, Antigua, St. Lucia, Trinidad, and British Guiana would

exercise command over the combined forces, subject to a review of the situation at any time at the request of either government.22

Co-ordination was provided for through the medium of a Local Combined Defense Committee to consist of the colonial Governor, as chairman

and convening authority, the senior officers of the American and British

military and naval forces, and whatever other local authorities might be

necessary as advisers. The actual preparation of a co-ordinated local defense plan for all the combatant services—American and British—was to

be the task of a Local Joint Military Defense Subcommittee, presided over

by the commander of the Combined Local Defense Forces, i.e., the commander of the American forces. The several military defense plans prepared by the subcommittee and the civil defense plans prepared by the

colonial authorities were to be co-ordinated into a combined defense plan

by the Local Combined Defense Committee.23

The agreement was approved by the Joint Board on 19 September. After

minor revisions were made it was approved by the Secretaries of War and

Navy and sent to the President on 1 December. When the attack on Pearl

Harbor brought the United States into the war, President Roosevelt, on 12

December 1941, gave his approval to the agreement.24

Meanwhile, in Trinidad the co-ordination of local defense measures had

been informally explored in conversations between the British commander,

Brigadier J. F. Barrington, and representatives of General Talbot's planning staff. The Governor, Sir Hubert Young, wished to bring the discussions

into the framework of existing machinery and suggested several times that

a U.S. Army representative be appointed to the local defense committee

through which he, as Governor, exercised his responsibility for the defense

of the colony. To General Talbot these proposals seemed to involve a surrender of authority on his part, which he was unable to accept; as a result

there was no formal co-ordination of defense plans until after the United

States entered the war.25

22

 Articles 17, 20, 21 of the agreement of 30 Aug 41, cited in preceding note. 23

 Articles 5-9 of the agreement of 30 Aug 41, cited above. 24

 Min, JB Mtg, 3 Nov 41, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 14, p. 1063; Ltr, Comdr L. R. MacDowell,

USN, to British Jt Staff Mission, 13 Nov 41; Memo, Col William P. Scobey for CofS, 12 Dec 41.

Both in WPD 4351-100. 25

 Ltr, Gen Talbot to Gov Young, 21 Aug 41; Ltr, Gen Talbot to CG CDC, 28 Aug 41. Both

in WPD 4351-20.
418 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

On 16 December Governor Young received a telegram from the Colonial Office informing him of the agreement that President Roosevelt had approved four days earlier. In accordance with the provisions of the agreement the Governor called a meeting of the Local Combined Defense Committee on 20 December, for the purpose of discussing the scale of attack for

which preparations would have to be made and of deciding upon the composition of the two committees. A second meeting was held on 3 January.

As for the scale of attack, it was generally agreed that the only thing to do

was "to guard against the possibilities outlined by higher authority with the

forces available," and that if the turn of events increased the possibilities

"higher authority would decide whether or not to make further provision

against them."

 26

 As for the composition of the Local Combined Defense

Committee, it was decided that the colonial secretary and the American

consul should be members, in addition to the Governor and the military

and naval commanders as provided in the basic agreement. The Local Joint

Military Defense Subcommittee was to consist of General Talbot, chairman,

the British military and naval commanders, the commandant of the United

States Naval Base, and a representative of the Caribbean Air Force

(USAAC). The question arose during the first meeting whether the Combined Defense Committee or the Joint Military Defense Subcommittee

should prepare the initial draft of the co-ordinated military-civil defense

plan. There was general agreement that the actual drafting should be done

by the military subcommittee, that the plan should then be submitted to the

Combined Defense Committee for approval, and that any points of difference arising in the military subcommittee should be referred to the Combined Defense Committee for resolution. On this last point the instructions

received by General Talbot and Governor Young were perhaps none too

clear. The intent, as General Andrews who was then in Trinidad pointed

out, had apparently been to have a joint advisory board to which both the

Combined Defense Committee and the military subcommittee would submit any differences; but General Talbot and Governor Young both agreed

that any differences of opinion arising in the Joint Military Defense Committee would be submitted to the Combined Defense Committee before

they were referred to higher British and United States authorities.27 With

these organizational preliminaries out of the way, the business of preparing

26

 Min, Local Combined Def Comm Mtg, 3 Jan 42; par. 11, TBC, Hist Sec, CDC, Hist of TS

and BC, III, app. C. 27

 In addition to Min, Local Combined Def Comm, Mtg, 3 Jan 42, see also Min, Mtg, 20 Dec

41; ibid., app. B.
THE CARIBBEAN IN WARTIME 419

the various joint plans—port security, air raids precaution, medical, censorship, antiaircraft defense, et cetera—was parceled out to the appropriate

authorities. To General Talbot was allocated the responsibility for planning

the machinery by which operational intelligence and military facilities could

be mutually exchanged between the two powers.

Although the measure of co-operation between the American forces and

the government of the colony in the month following the attack on Pearl

Harbor was high, the previous difficulties had left a permanent scar. General Andrews, during his visit in Trinidad, had been much concerned about

the situation and had come to the conclusion that it required an officer of

higher rank and more diplomatic experience than General Talbot.28 But all

the rank of the Archangel Michael and the wisdom of Solomon would have

been of no avail to the American commander without a will to co-operate

on the part of the Governor. Whether the fact of association with Great

Britain in the war would have produced complete co-operation in Trinidad

was not really put to test, for it was decided to make a fresh start. Early in

January 1942 Maj. Gen. Henry C. Pratt assumed command of the Trinidad

Base Command, and not long afterwards a change of Governors took place.

By the beginning of April, when Under Secretary of War Patterson made an

inspection trip to the Caribbean, the atmosphere was noticeably clearer.29

Most of the machinery of collaboration set up in the weeks immediately

after the entry of the United States into the war was working full blast by

the first of June. The first joint defense plans had been turned out. A Joint

Operations Center, the kingpin of the system, had been organized. In effect

the Joint Operations Center was the command post of the commander of

the Combined Local Defense Forces, the instrument by which his orders

were transmitted to the subordinate commands. Through control officers representing the Army, the Air Force, and the Navy, he exercised operational

control and maintained liaison with the headquarters of the British forces.30

The only British island, other than Trinidad, that had any sizable local

defense forces was Jamaica, where a Canadian infantry battalion had been

on guard since early in the war. The American garrison was outnumbered,

and its commander outranked, and for this reason it had been decided in

January 1942 that the brigadier commanding the Canadian and British

troops should exercise command over the Combined Local Defense Forces

"until such time as the strength and composition of the United States gar28

 Corresp relating to General Pratt's appointment in OCS 21042-48/50. 29

 Memo, USW for SW, 8 Apr 42, WDCSA-CDC. 30

 TBC, Hist Sec, CDC, Hist of TS and BC, III, 49-51, app. D.
420 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

rison . . . warranted the assumption of command by an appropriate United

States Army officer."

 31

 The arrangement satisfied neither Admiral Hoover

nor the American commander in Jamaica. By October 1942 reinforcements

had raised the strength of the American garrison to a level that was perhaps

slightly higher than that of the British and Canadian forces, and to Admiral

Hoover it seemed time to raise the question of command. He had received

a report from Col. Earl C. Ewert, the local American commander, which

related difficulties in organizing combined field exercises, and which expressed a fear that the British were proposing to place the local police and

the volunteer militia in the same category as regular troops. This would

more than double the actual British-Canadian forces. Colonel Ewert further reported that there was a plan on foot to raise the rank of the British

commander to that of major general. Colonel Ewert's and Admiral Hoover's

concern about the command situation in Jamaica was not shared by the War

Department, whose position was that the original circumstances had not

changed sufficiently to warrant a change in command. The Navy Department agreed that a change was undesirable at this particular time in view

of the possibility of labor disturbances on the island.32 Admiral Hoover,

although not persuaded that a shift of command was unwarranted, concurred in the view that it would be impolitic to make one just then.33

 The

United States had now been at war a full year, and the American garrisons

in the Caribbean were at their peak strength. After December 1942 the contraction began. It was at first almost imperceptible, and in fact a few of the

smaller garrisons, including the one at Jamaica, were increased slightly in

the early months of 1943; but by June 1943 the reduction of the Jamaica

garrison was well under way. The command arrangements continued unchanged until the end of the war.

The formula by which the question of command in the British colonies

had been decided, namely, the relative strength of the respective forces and

the strategic importance of the place, was not similarly employed in the initial negotiations with the Netherlands Government over the defense of

Aruba and Curaçao. That it could be used and would operate to give command of the combined defense forces to the United States was no doubt the

reason why the Netherlands Government wished to set the number and com31

 Ltr, Maj Gen Thomas T. Handy, ACofS OPD to COMINCH, 29 Oct 42, WPD 384 CDC

(3-9-42) sec. I, case 18. 32

 Ltr, Adm Hoover to Gen Andrews, 8 Oct 42; Ltr, Gen Handy to COMINCH, 29 Oct 42,

and Note for Rcd, n.d. All in WPD 384 CDC (3-9-42), sec. I, case 18. 33

 OPD D/F 3 Dec 42, sub: Unity of Commd in CDC, with Note for Rcd, ibid., case 17.
THE CARIBBEAN IN WARTIME 421

position of the American garrison. In transmitting his government's formal

request that an American garrison be sent, the Netherlands Minister had

written to Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles that "the number and

the composition of the necessary troops will be communicated by the Netherlands Government in due course," and he had further pointed out that

"the British troops [who were being relieved by the Americans] were

present in the islands as an allied force, the costs of which were borne by

the British authorities while they were placed under the command of the

Dutch military commander in Curaçao acting under the supreme command

of the Governor. . . ." The Netherlands Government, he concluded, presumed that the same arrangement would be kept with respect to the American forces.34

 The only point to which the American Government took

exception was that concerning the size and composition of the force. Decision in this regard was considered to be a matter for determination by consultation between the two governments and not by the Netherlands Government alone.35

 The American forces that landed in Aruba and Curaçao on

11 February 1942 were not, however, placed under the Dutch military commander. Colonel Bullard's instructions were merely to co-operate closely

with the Governor and to act under his general supervision, provided he

could do so without jeopardizing the success of his mission. Then came the

U-boat assault against Aruba and the tanker route from Maracaibo. Unity

of command under an officer of the United States Navy was one of the first

measures that Admiral Hoover suggested after the attack, but his suggestion

ran afoul of General Andrews' insistence that command be vested in an

Army officer.36 At the same time the State Department began pressing the

Netherlands Government for unified command of all Dutch and American

forces under an American officer. Agreement on the matter was finally

reached at the end of March when the Netherlands Government accepted

Rear Adm. Jesse B. Oldendorf, USN, as supreme commander of all forces

in the Aruba-Curaçao area. Admiral Oldendorf, who had been placed in

command of all American forces in the area earlier in the month, now

organized a joint staff with Captain Van Asbeck, the local Dutch commander, as his chief of staff. For purposes of operations the Dutch forces would

be commanded by their own officers, under Admiral Oldendorf, who was in

34

 Ltr, Dr. A. Loudon, Netherlands Minister, to Under Secy State Welles, 6 Jan 42, WPD

4577-10. 35

 Ltr, Under Secy Welles to Netherlands Minister, 7 Jan 42, WPD 4577-10. 36

 Hist Sec, CDC, Bases in . . . Aruba and Curaçao, pp. 21, 33-35.
422 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

turn under Admiral Hoover, commander of the Caribbean Sea Frontier. The

constitutional position of the Dutch colonial Governor was recognized and

nominally upheld by considering Admiral Oldendorf's orders as being given

under the authority of the Governor.37 Once established, the command arrangements in Aruba and Curaçao appear to have been satisfactory to all

concerned. They were maintained, apparently without friction, for the

duration of the war.38

In Surinam, the Dutch colony on the South American mainland, where

American troops had arrived early in December 1941, no arrangement for

combining all forces under one command was made. When General Talbot,

immediately after the troops arrived, directed the commanding officer to assume command of all forces in the colony, the Governor, who had taken a

dim view of the proceedings from the very start, was unreservedly and justifiably indignant. General Andrews and the War Department moved quickly

and almost simultaneously to countermand the order.39 The incident seemed

to point to the need for an agreement on the subject, and on 22 December

Secretary Stimson asked the State Department to negotiate one by which

unity of command over all forces in Surinam would be vested in the senior

U.S. Army officer present. But discussions with the Government of the

Netherlands over the question of sending troops to Aruba and Curaçao

were now in full swing, and until an agreement on this score was reached

it appeared desirable to postpone the question of command in Surinam. As

soon as the American forces had landed in Aruba and Curaçao, Secretary

Stimson again brought up the question of command.40 The ensuing negotiations resulted only in the agreement respecting the two islands.

In Surinam the relationship between the Dutch and American forces

continued to rest on "mutual cooperation." The local colonial forces, which

were the principal element in the command problem, played, for the most

part, a very minor role in the war. Their opportunity would have come had

the enemy attempted to land or perhaps attack by air; but nothing of this

sort took place.

37

 Ibid., pp. 37-38; Memo, Under Secy Welles for Gen Marshall, 12 Mar 42; Memo from

Netherlands Govt, same date. Last two in OCS 21278-22. Memo, Rear Adm F. J. Horne, for

Under Secy State Welles, 12 Mar 42, WDCSA 381; Memo, OPD for TAG, 26 Mar 42, OPD 384

CDC (3-9-42) sec. I. 38

 Hist Sec, CDC, Bases in . . . Aruba and Curaçao, p. 38. 39

 Hist Sec, CDC, Entry of United States [troops] into Surinam, pp. 29-30. 40 Memo, WPD for CofS, 19 Feb 42; Memo, SW for Secy State, 19 Feb 42. Both in WPD

4580-49.
THE CARIBBEAN IN WARTIME 423

The First Blow

The battle of the Caribbean, heralded by the attack at Aruba, took the

form of a sustained and extremely damaging U-boat assault against shipping. Its first victims were five tankers—four of them British ships and the

other a Venezuelan—that were torpedoed and sunk during the early morning hours of 16 February 1942. Insult was added by the fact that two of the

ships were sent down while lying at anchor in San Nicolas harbor, Aruba,

by a U-boat that entered the anchorage, sank the two tankers, then came

boldly to the surface and lobbed a few shells at the Lago oil refinery. Fifteen

or twenty minutes after the attack, a guard at the airfield, about ten miles

away, reported that a fire had broken out at the refinery, and the air commander immediately placed his unit on the alert. Ten minutes later a plane

was sent up to reconnoiter. It reported ships on fire in the harbor and oil

burning on the water, although nothing about gunfire or submarines. Shortly afterwards, the airfield received a request for an air patrol over the refinery area until daylight; but still no indication was given that hostile action had taken place or might be impending. An hour and a half after the

attack the first report of U-boat activity reached the commander of the air

unit. An antisubmarine patrol was instituted at once. While the planes were

investigating a questionable contact forty-five miles off the island, an American tanker that was tied up at the Eagle refinery dock, only four miles from

the airfield, was torpedoed and severely damaged. Reinforcements amounting to six additional planes soon arrived from Puerto Rico and Trinidad,

and patrols were extended to cover the tanker route between Aruba and

Maracaibo. During the next two days at least seven U-boats were reported

sighted in the vicinity, one of them not more than four hundred yards off

the airfield. Five of them, according to the air unit's reports, were attacked

by the planes; but without radar, with crews untrained in antisubmarine

warfare, and armed only with 300-lb. demolition bombs, the planes had

little luck against the wily U-boats. Possibly the mere presence of the planes

forced the submarines to a more cautious approach than they would otherwise have made, for General Andrews, who was making an inspection tour

of the Caribbean and happened to be in Aruba during the attack, wrote to

General Marshall that "it was fortunate that we had airplanes there, otherwise the oil plants would have been in for a good shelling."

 41

Actually only three U-boats were responsible for all the havoc, and a

41

 Quoted in Memo, CofS for Admiral Stark, 24 Feb 42, OCS 21203-45.
424 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

prematurely exploding shell in the deck gun of U-156, which seriously

wounded two of the crew and forced the raider to retire, was of greater

good fortune to the oil refineries of Aruba than the presence of American

planes. When one of the other U-boats attempted to shell the oil installations the following night, Aruba was completely blacked out. This and the

air and surface patrols during the day made further shelling of land targets

impossible. Two attempts on the part of the third U-boat to shell Curaçao

were frustrated by naval patrol vessels. The primary object, however, was

to destroy shipping, and in this the operation was an unqualified success.

Reinforced during the next two or three days by the arrival of two more Uboats, the German raiders sank 21 ships totaling about 103,000 tons in the

space of two weeks. Losses to the shallow-draft Maracaibo tanker fleet

seriously cut the oil production of the huge refineries on Aruba and Curaçao.

The onslaught reached a new peak in May, when eight U-boats sank 35

ships totalling more than 145,000 tons in the Caribbean Sea Frontier west of

the shipping control line. In June there were 14 undersea raiders operating

in the entire Caribbean Sea Frontier and the adjacent waters of the Gulf

and Panama Sea Frontiers. By the middle of the month, 22 percent of the

bauxite fleet had been destroyed, 20 percent of the ships in the Puerto Rican

run had been lost, and of 74 vessels allocated to the Army for the month

of July, 17 had already been sunk. By the end of the year 1942 the enemy

had sunk in the Caribbean, in the Atlantic sector of the Panama Sea Frontier, and in the nearby fringes of the Gulf Sea Frontier, a total of 270

vessels, comprising more than 1,200,000 tons of shipping.42

The Watch on the Canal

Although General Andrews recognized the U-boat campaign as "a definite menace to our war effort," he considered the canal to be "the one real

enemy objective" and its protection to be his "paramount mission." Although he was somewhat concerned about the possibility of German surface

42

 B.d.U. War Logs, 1 Jan 42-30 Jun 42; Memo, Gen Marshall for Admiral King, 19 Jun 42,

quoted in Ernest J. King and Walter M. Whitehill, Fleet Admiral King: A Naval Record (New

York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1952) p. 455; CDC Monograph, Antisubmarine Activities in the Caribbean Defense Command 1941-46, pp. 37-43, 52, app. B. Losses in the Gulf Sea

Frontier south and east of a line from Cape Sable, Fla., to Veracruz, Mexico, have been included.

Although the Caribbean Sea Frontier had actually no eastern boundary short of the midocean

strategic limits, a line, for the purpose of controlling shipping, was established from 65° west,

25° north, to 50° 20' west, 4° 20' north; and all losses east of this line, as well as sailing vessels

lost, are excluded from the above totals. See Table 5, Shipping Losses in the Caribbean Area,

January 1942-July 1944.
THE CARIBBEAN IN WARTIME 425

OPTICAL HEIGHT FINDER MOUNTED ON OLD EL MORRO FORTRESS, San Juan,

Puerto Rico. U.S. Army post is visible in background.

raiders penetrating the Caribbean, he was more than ever convinced that

the principal threat was by carrier-borne aircraft from the Pacific.43

The means for detecting an enemy carrier force before it launched its

planes and for sighting the enemy planes before they reached the canal were

the nerve center of the Panama defenses. Patrol planes, operating at about

the 900-mile radius, were depended upon for the initial warning of an

enemy's approach. Long-range radar (the SCR-271 and its mobile version,

the SCR-270) was relied upon for the detection of enemy planes at distances up to about 150 miles. Still closer-in, the fixed antiaircraft defenses

relied upon short-range, height-finding radar (SCR-268) for searchlight

and fire control.

43

 Ltr, Gen Andrews to Col Deane, SGS, 8 Apr 42, WDCSA 381; Memo, DCofS for Air for

G-2, 10 Feb 42, OCS 21347-72; Ltr, Mr. Watson-Watt to Lt Col Eugene L. Harrison, 28 Mar 42,

Stimson file, ASV.
426 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

At the time of the Pearl Harbor attack serious deficiencies existed in the

warning and detection system. There were not enough planes and operating

bases to carry out the search as planned. There were only two SCR-271

radars in operation, one at each end of the Canal. Although three additional

sets arrived by the end of December and were being installed on the Pacific

side of the Isthmus, the work was slowed down by a shortage of trained

radar engineers and mechanics. There was as yet no airborne equipment

for surface vessel detection (ASV) in use and about one-fourth of the 3-

inch antiaircraft batteries were without SCR-268 sets.44 Well aware of the

situation, the War Department on 22 December gave General Andrews

broad authority "to sub-allot funds and take such other action as is necessary for the construction and installation of AWS Detector Stations, Filter

Centers and Information Centers. . . ." to the full extent of the require

ments as determined by General Andrews.45

There were nevertheless certain deficiencies which were not entirely the

result of a shortage of equipment and trained men. Tests in Panama repeatedly disclosed that low-flying planes approaching directly over the Bay

of Panama were not detected by the radar system. Visiting British experts

had noted this characteristic in American sets and attributed it to a basic

defect of the equipment, but the Signal Corps insisted that, properly placed

and operated by competent crews, the American equipment in this respect

was just as good as, if not better than, the British radar. Whatever the cause,

the blind spot remained. Furthermore, neither the SCR-270 nor the SCR271 was designed to show the elevation of the approaching plane, and

neither gave a continuous tracking plot. These qualities were indispensable

for ground-controlled interception (GCI), which British experience had

demonstrated to be the most successful method for conducting an air defense.46

Much of the construction activity in Panama during these early months

of 1942 was devoted to the preparation of sites for additional radar equipment, to the building of access roads, and the construction, at some of the

sites, of landing strips. A number of SCR-268 sets were converted for use

against low-flying planes, and a proposal was studied to establish picket

patrol boats off the coast for visual sighting. Meanwhile, at the suggestion

44

 Rpt by ASN for Air, quoted in Memo, G-2 for GHQ and WPD, 17 Dec 41, WPD 4452-20.

Hist Sec, CDC, Communications and Radar in . . . the Caribbean Defense Command, in OCMH,

p. 73; see also above, pp. 345-46. 45

 Ltr, CofAAF to TAG, 22 Dec 41, OCS 21203-26. 46

 For a detailed discussion of radar problems, see Thompson et al., Signal Corps: The Test,

ch. III.
THE CARIBBEAN IN WARTIME 427

of Mr. Watson-Watt of the British Air Commission, Secretary Stimson had

taken steps to obtain special low-angle equipment (British CHL [Chain

Home Low] radar) from Canada and had personally requested the Canadian Minister of Defense to give first priority to four sets for the defense of

the Canal. This the Canadian Government promised to do. The sets were

scheduled for delivery in Panama during March and early April.47 At the

request of Secretary Stimson, Mr. Watson-Watt, after inspecting the radar

defenses of the west coast, undertook to survey the situation in Panama.

The report submitted by Mr. Watson-Watt was as unfavorably critical

as the one he had made a few weeks earlier on the west coast situation, and

it aroused much the same reaction. Since he viewed things in the light of

British developments in ground-controlled interception, it was inevitable

that Mr. Watson-Watt should find the SCR-271 and SCR-270 to be very

poor instruments, operated by untrained and apathetic crews. He recommended that both models be replaced as soon as possible with Canadian

CHL sets.48 His major point, one of such importance that he reiterated it in

a separate, personal memorandum for Secretary Stimson, was the necessity

for equipping the long-range air patrols with ASV (air-to-surface vessel

[radar]) sets. This, he stated in his note for Mr. Stimson, was "one contribution to the air defense of the Panama Canal so outstanding in importance, urgency and early practicability that it transcends all others. . . ."

Since Christmas Day 1941, Mr. Watson-Watt continued, ASV equipment

had reached the United States from Canadian factories at the rate of 15 to

20 sets a day, and more than 500 officers and men of the Navy and Marine

Corps had been trained in its operation in Canadian schools. "In these circumstances," he concluded, "the complete absence of so much as one installation . . . can only be due to the fundamental failure to visualize the co

plete transformation which these equipments can work in carrier search."

 49

Although the actual deliveries to the Army of Canadian ASV sets were far

from the figures cited by Mr. Watson-Watt, nevertheless there were indications that the full potentialities of ASV had not yet been appreciated.50

47

 Ltr, SW to Mr. J. L. Ralston, Minister of National Defense, Ottawa, 13 Feb 42, OCS

21203-37; Memo, Col Sherrill for Gen Eisenhower, 24 Feb 42, WPD 4186-23. 48

 Digest of Rpt in app. I Hist Div, CDC monograph, Communications and Radar in . . .

CDC.

49

 Memo, Mr. Watson-Watt for SW Stimson, by Ltr to Col Harrison, 28 Mar 42, Stimson

file, ASV. 50

 See comment by CG 6th AF on Watson-Watt Rpt, 2 May 42, in app. II, Hist Div, CDC,

Communications and Radar in . . . CDC, and James Phinney Baxter 3d, Scientists Against Time

(Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1946), pp. 31-32.
428 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

In mid-March, immediately after Mr. Watson-Watt made his report,

Secretary Stimson himself went to Panama. He returned convinced that the

radar defenses of the Canal, particularly ASV equipment, were of the highest priority. Persuaded that without ASV the air patrol would be of very

little value and that with ASV the number of planes needed for patrol purposes could be substantially reduced, Secretary Stimson on his return gave

"a considerable stimulus to the varied elements of the new defense system."

 51

Mr. Stimson's prodding, the efforts of the Signal Corps and Air Forces,

construction activity in Panama, and mounting production of radar equipment began to have a cumulative effect. By 1 May, ten long-range detectors

(SCR-270 and SCR-271) were in operation in the vicinity of the canal, two

were being installed, and another would be available after reconditioning.

Six SCR-268 sets had been modified for GCI application and were in operation. Two of the Canadian CHL sets were being installed, and the other

two were either on hand or en route. Two other British GCI sets were

expected, but the delivery date had not been set. In addition, there was an

SCR-270 in operation at Salinas and four SCR-271's were to be shipped to

the Galapagos base during the next six or eight weeks.52

By the midsummer of 1942 the equipment situation had been brought

fairly well under control. The production and installation of ASV sets

would have been taken off the Signal Corps' critical list except for the fact

that the equipment had no sooner been placed in the hands of the Air Forces

than it became obsolete as a result of the development of microwave ASV.

Nevertheless, a shortage, not so much of equipment as of trained operators

and maintenance crews, continued to hamper the build-up of the antiaircraft

defenses in Panama; and in spite of more and better equipment and more

expert, scientific placing of the sets there still remained a blind spot at low

altitudes over the Bay of Panama.53 This blind spot was not corrected until

the end of the year. Furthermore, the special equipment for ground control

of interception had been slow to arrive. The first two sets were not installed

until September and did not begin operating until the following month.

51

 Stimson Diary, entries of 11 Mar 42 and 16 Mar 42; Memo, President Roosevelt for SW,

16 Mar 42, Stimson file, White House; Ltr, SW to Gen Andrews, 17 Mar 42, SW file, Panama

151; Gen Council Min, 24 Mar 42. The quotation is from Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service,

p. 407. 52

 6th Ind, Hq AAF to CG CDC, 1 May 42, to Ltr, Hq Caribbean AF to CG CDC, 30 Jan 42,

AG 320.2 (3-5-41) (A). 53

 Thompson el al., Signal Corps: The Test, ch. IX; Hist Sec, CDC, Communications and

Radar in . . . CDC, p. 152.
THE CARIBBEAN IN WARTIME 429

Until then, "all interceptions were made either by air alerted patrols near

the canal or by dead reckoning the fighter into the filtered radar tracks."

 54

During all these months the air and naval forces had been engaged in

combat with the U-boats in the Caribbean. Although ASV equipment had

become available by the end of June to the planes that were seeking out and

giving battle to the submarines, plans for sealing the gaps in the Antilles

screen by installing ground radar on the islands progressed more slowly.55

The inescapable conclusion is that the spotlight which fell on Panama in

1942 had its source in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, not in the Uboat assault in the Caribbean.

The War Against the U-Boat

The Army's unpreparedness for the submarine assault that actually

materialized was not entirely owing to a shortage of long-range bombers for

seeking out and destroying enemy U-boats, although this was part of the

reason. Partly to blame also was the reluctance of air officers to employ their

bombers in this fashion. The Navy, which was just as reluctantly coming

around to the opinion that escort of convoy was the only successful way of

handling the submarine menace, was equally unprepared. Both elements of

an ideal escort force—ships for surface escort and planes for air coverage—

were lacking; and the Army, which had the planes, was unwilling to use

them for convoy escort and patrol under Navy command.

For one reason or another the air strength available at any one time for

antisubmarine operations in the Caribbean, or even the total strength actually on hand, is not a matter of clear record. From War Department records

it would appear that in April 1942 there were on hand in the vast region

bounded by Salinas on the coast of Ecuador, the Galapagos Islands, Guatemala City, Guantánamo, the island of Puerto Rico, and Zanderij Field in

Surinam, a total of 28 heavy bombers (15 of them equipped with ASV

radar), 30 medium bombers, 16 light bombers, and 34 PBY patrol bombers—in addition to pursuit planes.56

 For the protection of the Atlantic Sec54

 Ibid., pp. 152-53, 161, and for the quotation, p. 157. 55

 Ibid., pp. 149, 158. TBC, Hist Sec, CDC, Hist of TS and BC, III, 191-92; ibid., IV, 36-37;

Hist Div, CDC, Antisubmarine Activities in CDC, pp. 62, 64, 109; Morison, Battle of the

Atlantic, pp. 153-54. 56

 Memo, Brig Gen Thomas T. Handy (OPD) for CNO, 24 Apr 42, WPD 3558-26. Records

of the Antilles Air Task Force (USAF, History of Antilles Air Command 1940-1945, OCMH,

pp. 63-64, 67), which comprised all tactical air units in the Caribbean Sea Frontier, show the

following deployment of units available for antisubmarine operations:
430 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

tor of the Panama Sea Frontier there were the bombers of the Sixth Air

Force in Panama; but the Sixth Air Force was committed to the principle

of a striking force, a principle which was not strictly consonant with the

developing doctrine of antisubmarine operations. The Sixth Air Force had

also taken on most of the task of patrolling the Pacific approaches to the

Canal and was reluctant to spare more than a few bombers for antisubmarine operations on the Atlantic side. In mid-June, at the height of the

U-boat blitz, ten Army bombers were shifted into the Atlantic sector of the

frontier, where they were joined by the twenty-four Catalinas (PBY's) of

Navy Patrol Wing 3; but this move took place only after all four squadrons

of the 40th Bombardment Group were transferred from Puerto Rico to

Panama.57

During the summer and early fall of 1942 the antisubmarine forces

received substantial reinforcements. Although the Navy withdrew some of

its PBY's to buttress the defenses of Alaska when the Japanese invaded the

Aleutians, sufficient air and surface craft were assembled in the PanamaCaribbean area to organize a convoy system in July. In August a Royal Air

Force (RAF) squadron arrived at Trinidad and immediately proved a welcome addition. By the end of September, according to War Department

calculations, there were in the whole area a total of 44 heavy bombers, 65

medium bombers, 22 light bombers, and 105 observation planes plus Navy

Catalinas and RAF Hudsons.58

After the first encounters in February 1942, there had been few contacts

between bombers and U-boats until June, when planes—Army and Navy—

Camaguey, Cuba: Flight "A," 27th Reconnaissance Squadron (later 417th Bombardment

Squadron)

Vernon Field, Jamaica: Detachment, 27th Reconnaissance Squadron

Borinquen Field, P.R.: Headquarters and Headquarters Squadron, 25th Bombardment Group;

10th Bombardment Squadron; Headquarters and Headquarters Squadron, 40th Bombardment Group;

29th Bombardment Squadron; 44th Bombardment Squadron; 45th Bombardment Squadron; 27th

Reconnaissance Squadron (less units at Camagüey and Jamaica); 5th Reconnaissance Squadron

(later 395th Bombardment Squadron)

Benedict Field, St. Croix: 12th Bombardment Squadron

Coolidge Field, Antigua: 35th Bombardment Squadron

Beane Field, St. Lucia: 5th Bombardment Squadron

Waller Field, Trinidad: Headquarters and Headquarters Squadron, 9th Bombardment Group;

1st Bombardment Squadron

Atkinson Field, British Guiana: 44th Reconnaissance Squadron (later 430th Bombardment

Squadron)

Zanderij Field, Surinam: 99th Bombardment Squadron

Curaçao: Flight "B," 59th Bombardment Squadron (from Panama)

Aruba: Flight "C," 59th Bombardment Squadron (from Panama) 57

 Ibid., p. 49; Morison, Battle of the Atlantic, pp. 152-53. 58

 OPD Weekly Status Map, 1 Oct 42.
THE CARIBBEAN IN WARTIME 431

TABLE 5—SHIPPING LOSSES IN THE CARIBBEAN AREA

JANUARY 1942-JULY 1944

1

 The boundary between the western and eastern portions of the Caribbean Sea Frontier is the shipping

control line from 65° W, 25°N to 50°20'W, 4°20'N. 2

 Only that portion of the Gulf Sea Frontier lying south and east of a line drawn from Cape Sable,

Fla., to Veracruz, Mex., is included. 3

 Not shown in source document.

Sources: CDC Hist Sect, Anti-Submarine Activities in the CDC, 1941-46, Appendix B.
432 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

TORPEDOED VESSEL BEING TOWED INTO SAN JUAN HARBOR, Puerto Rico.

of the Panama Sea Frontier joined surface forces in a wild chase after one

of the German submarines that was causing so much trouble off the Atlantic

entrance to the Canal. Three other U-boats were attacked by Army planes

in June. But in the same month shipping losses reached a dismal high: 29

vessels totaling 136,400 tons in the Caribbean, 13 in the Atlantic sector of

the Panama Sea Frontier, and 16 in the adjacent margins of the Gulf Sea

Frontier. Most of the sinkings took place in the waters around Trinidad or

in the approaches to the Canal, but no air attacks against U-boats were

recorded in the Trinidad area and only one in the vicinity of the Canal.59

In July air units in the Caribbean reported ten or a dozen attacks against Uboats. None of the attacks ended with a kill. Few of them, indeed, resulted

in damage; but the number of ships lost to submarines in July was perceptibly lower. In August, Army, Navy and RAF planes delivered at least 18 at59

 USAF, Hist of Antilles Air Comd, pp. 71-75.
THE CARIBBEAN IN WARTIME 433

tacks against the marauders, and on 22 August the air forces chalked up

their first score. The victim was U-654, caught and sunk off Colon by planes

of the 45th Bombardment Squadron. But in August the U-boats were again

taking a heavy toll of shipping, chiefly in the vicinity of Trinidad and east

of the Windward Islands. In the Caribbean, west of the shipping control

line, the same number of ships were lost in August as in June; in tonnage,

the losses were the highest yet. East of the line, 15 ships totaling 76,800 tons

were sunk. During the next month, September, losses continued to run high

in the mid-Caribbean area, west of the shipping control line, and Army

pilots reported only eight air attacks against U-boats in the entire Sea Frontier; but in the marginal areas shipping losses declined.

Despite their successes, the U-boats were not having things all their own

way. In addition to U-654, five others had failed to return from raids in the

Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. Reports reaching Admiral Karl Doenitz

from his U-boat commanders began to note the danger from fast, land-based

aircraft and from numerous patrol vessels, which made it necessary for the

U-boats to remain submerged during much of the day, with a consequent

heavy strain on the crews. The U-boats, furthermore, did not like the convoy

system; their favorite victims were lone, defenseless ships. As a result, Admiral Doenitz decided to pull most of the U-boats out of the Caribbean and

the Gulf of Mexico and to concentrate instead on the area east of Trinidad,

where convoys had not yet been reported, where air activity was considerably

less, and where surface patrols had been only recently observed for the first

time.60 In October, for the first time in six months, not a single vessel was

sunk by an enemy submarine in the Gulf and Panama Sea Frontiers. Losses

throughout the Caribbean area were the lowest in six months; in the western

portion of the Caribbean Sea Frontier they were the lowest since the beginning of the blitz in February.

The cyclical pattern of the U-boat assault had already manifested itself.

That the October lull would be followed by renewed activity was expected,

but it was impossible to foretell precisely how high the new peak would

reach. November began inauspiciously. On the very first day of the month

a ship was sunk on the extreme eastern edge of the Caribbean Sea Frontier,

about six hundred miles west of the Cape Verde Islands. Then the U-boats

began closing in on the eastern approaches to Trinidad, and, before the first

week of November was over, eleven more ships had gone down. The indications were that the grievous blows of May and June would be repeated.

60

 Situation reports in B.d.U. War Logs, Aug-Sep 42.
434 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Meanwhile, three weeks had gone by without a single counterattack by

Army airmen. At last, on 8 November, a plane of the 10th Bombardment

Squadron discovered and bombed a U-boat in the vicinity of Trinidad. The

pilot reported that minor damage had been done to the submarine. Several

days later a bomber from Curaçao spotted and attacked another U-boat.

Although these were the only attacks reported by Army planes in November,

Navy PBY's and the RAF bombers made five other attacks, while surface

craft were responsible for an additional four.61

The biggest event of the month, one that had an important effect on

the Battle of the Caribbean, was the landing of American troops in North

Africa on 8 November. German submarines began concentrating off the

shores of Morocco and along the convoy routes to Africa, and the assault in

the Caribbean began to subside. In December only 10 vessels totaling about

50,000 tons were sunk in the Caribbean Sea Frontier. In no subsequent month

did the score ever again reach that figure.62 Looking back from the vantage

point of the historian, it can be seen that November 1942 marked a real

turning point, although at the time not even the most optimistic observer

could have said that the end was in sight.

In no other phase of the war did the conflict of instrument employed

versus the element in which it was employed and the ancient tug of theater

versus function, as the basis for command, produce more sound and fury.

Although the stress and strain of it primarily affected the upper levels of the

War and Navy Departments, the local commanders and local operations

could not entirely escape. Within two weeks after command of the Caribbean

was turned over to the Navy, the matter of reinforcements and their control

had become a problem, and the question later became confused when the need

of air reinforcements to meet the U-boat attack arose. From time to time

during 1942 elements of four different Army Air Forces organizations were

dispatched to the Caribbean to reinforce the Antilles Air Command, but because of the command situation each of them was retained under the control of its parent organization.63

It was something of a paradox that the organizational confusion resulted

in the first instance from the fact that the Navy and the Army Air Forces

61

 USAF, Hist of Antilles Air Comd, p. 81; Hist Div, CDC, Antisubmarine Activities in

CDC, p. 69. 62

 See Chart I, Morison, Battle of the Atlantic, pp. 352-53; Morison, Operations in North

African Waters, pp. 167-74. 63

 On this subject, see Memo, CofS CDC to CG FF, 30 Dec 41, GHQ G-3 file, Corresp With

CDC; USAF, The Antisubmarine Command, Apr 45, OCMH, p. 139; Craven and Cate, eds.,

Plans and Early Operations, p. 537.
THE CARIBBEAN IN WARTIME 435

held almost identical theories of organizing antisubmarine forces, namely,

on a functional, or task, basis rather than an area basis. In order to give

sea-based aviation the flexibility and mobility required for its effective employment, the Navy had made it part of the fleet instead of placing it under

the control of local "area" commanders who might have been reluctant to

give up forces specifically assigned to the defense of the area—whether naval

district or sea frontier. To minimize the pull of local commander and fleet

commander, resort was frequently had to the practice of issuing two, and

sometimes three, hats to the same individual. Thus, Admiral Hoover was

not only Commander, Caribbean Sea Frontier, and Commandant, Tenth

Naval District, but also Commander, Task Group 6.3, of the Atlantic Fleet

Patrol Force. In his capacity as task group commander under the commander

in chief of the Atlantic Fleet, and not as sea frontier commander, Admiral

Hoover had command of the Navy patrol bombers that fought the U-boats

in the Caribbean.64 On the other hand, it was as commander of the Caribbean

Sea Frontier that he exercised unity of command in the area, and Army

planes under his control in that capacity could only with extreme difficulty

be moved elsewhere. Much the same situation prevailed along the eastern

seaboard, where Army planes were placed under the control of the Sea

Frontier commander. As a result, quite apart from reasons of tactical doctrine, the Army Air Forces carefully began to build its own antisubmarine

organization. Within a framework of research and development, the First

Sea-Search Attack Group was activated on 8 June and units of its Second

Sea-Search Squadron later operated in the Caribbean. The First Bomber Command, under whose operational control the First Sea-Search Attack Group

was placed, had been engaged in the antisubmarine war in the Eastern Sea

Frontier, and, in August, units of the 40th Bombardment Squadron of the

I Bomber Command were sent on detached service to Puerto Rico and

Trinidad. Air Force plans now pointed toward the First Bomber Command

"as the organization that would be responsible for AAF specialized antisubmarine activity wherever it might be undertaken."

 65

These plans matured in mid-October with the activation of the Army

Air Forces Anti-Submarine Command, the cadre of which was the First

Bomber Command. Early in December, a squadron of the Antisubmarine

64

 Memo, CNO for CofS GHQ, 4 Dec 41, WPD 4415-15. 65

 Craven and Cate, eds., Plans and Early Operations, p. 537. Also on this same subject, see

ibid., pp. 548-50; Morison, Battle of the Atlantic, pp. 237-44; King and Whitehill, Fleet Admiral

King, pp. 445-59; USAF, The Antisubmarine Comd, p. 138; USAF, Hist of Antilles Air Comd,

p. 80.
436 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Command arrived at Trinidad, on detached service from the 26th Antisubmarine Wing at Miami, Fla. It was made clear to the commanding general

of the Caribbean Defense Command that this reinforcement was a temporary

arrangement only.66 Partly on this account the new arrivals "found no very

satisfactory place" in the administrative and operational structure already

set up by the Army and Navy in Trinidad.67

The German U-boat campaign now erupted with renewed vigor in the

North Atlantic. As a result of the extremely grave situation, an inter-Allied

conference was held in Washington—the Atlantic Convoy Conference—to

explore all sides of the problem and decide upon an allocation of planes for

antisubmarine purposes. The President was insistent "that every available

weapon" be put to use "at once."

 68

 But the discussions that followed, between

Admiral King, General Marshall, and General Arnold, invariably reached a

deadlock over the matter of command. The establishment of the Tenth Fleet

in May 1943 for the purpose of centralizing and more closely integrating the

Navy's antisubmarine activities clearly invalidated the argument that the

Army Air Forces could offer a more flexible, functional organization. The

arguments then shifted over to different grounds. The issue remained the

same. Since neither side would give way, the result was an agreement by

which the Navy, recognizing the Army's primary responsibility in the field of

long-range strategic bombing, took over full responsibility for the conduct

of antisubmarine operations. Long before this agreement was worked out

and accepted, on 9 July 1943, the peak of the U-boat battle in the Caribbean

had been passed and the theater was in the process of contracting.69

Passing the Peak

After January 1943 the enemy was never again a menace in the Caribbean,

only a nuisance. Never again did the toll of sinkings approach that of 1942.

Never, after January 1943, were the tanker routes from Maracaibo and Trinidad, the bauxite routes from the Guianas, and the approach to the Panama

Canal in serious jeopardy. Only a few more than half as many vessels were

lost in the Caribbean area in the entire year of 1943 as in the one bad month

66

 USAF, The Antisubmarine Comd, p. 141. Ltr, CofS to Lt Gen George H. Brett, 1 Dec 42,

CofS files—CDC (A387). 67

 USAF, The Antisubmarine Comd, p. 139. 68

 Quoted in Craven and Cate, eds., Europe: TORCH to POINTBLANK, p. 387. 69

 Accounts of the controversy, from the points of view of the respective services, are in King

and Whitehill, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 451-71; Craven and Cate, eds., Europe: TORCH to

POINTBLANK, pp. 380-92, 402-11; Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, 510-14.
THE CARIBBEAN IN WARTIME 437

of June 1942; in tonnage, the year's loss was less than one-third that of

June 1942. This result was due partly to the increased strength, improved

equipment, and better training of the antisubmarine forces. It was in part

a tribute to Allied victories in more distant waters, and in part a reflection

of the shift of German U-boats away from the Caribbean. From October

1942 to the end of June 1943 there was only one brief period when more

than three or four U-boats ventured at any one time west of the Caribbean

shipping control line. This was in early March 1943, when three of them

penetrated into the margins of the Gulf Sea Frontier while three others were

raiding in the Caribbean. In December, and again in May and June there was

only one U-boat in the area. Then, during the last two weeks of July 1943,

the U-boat offensive in the Caribbean suddenly flared up again. As a result

of the success of Allied aircraft in the North Atlantic, Admiral Doenitz

decided to shift operations to safer waters and ordered thirteen of his U-boats

to make a concerted attack on shipping in the vicinity of Trinidad and Puerto

Rico. But in contrast to the sorry toll exacted by a force of fifteen to eighteen

U-boats the previous summer, only six vessels now fell victim to the marauders. Four of the U-boats never returned to their base.70

By the middle of August all but a few submarines had withdrawn from

the Caribbean, and thereafter only an occasional U-boat ventured into the

area. After July 1943 Allied shipping losses amounted to three vessels in the

Caribbean Sea Frontier, six small vessels in the Atlantic Sector of the Panama Sea Frontier, and one vessel in the adjacent waters of the Gulf Sea Frontier. Although shipping losses stood in direct proportion to the number of

U-boats in the area, the tally of U-boats sunk by American forces in 1943 was

exactly what it had been in 1942.71

The beginning of contraction and retrenchment in Panama and the Caribbean coincided with the beginning of the end of the U-boat threat, but the

connection was only fortuitous. As early as February 1942 the War Plans

Division had been concerned about the demands for reinforcements that

were coming in from all directions. General Gerow, in rejecting a Navy suggestion that the problem of command in Bermuda could be solved by relieving the British garrison, expressed himself thus: "I believe we should make

every effort to limit further dispersion of our forces. Unless we call a halt

70

 B.d.U. War Logs, 1 Jan 43 et seq. 71

 USAF, Hist of Antilles Air Comd, pp. 68-70, 80-82, 111-13; Morison, Battle of the Atlantic, pp. 347-48; Hist Div, CDC, Antisubmarine Activities in CDC, pp. 111-16; List of Enemy

Submarines Captured and Sunk by U.S. Forces . . . , CNO OPNAV P-33-100-NEW-5-46.
438 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

somewhere, we will never have forces for an offensive."

 72

 Against this concern there had to be weighed the desire to provide the fullest possible defense

for the Canal, the need of completing and defending the air route to Brazil,

and the fact that the Army garrisons were below their authorized strength.

In February, the very month in which General Gerow was voicing his concern, about 3,500 troops went to Panama and the Caribbean; and in the

next month, March 1942, over 9,500 reinforcements and replacements arrived

from the United States. By October the straws in the wind had begun to

blow in a different direction. Brazil had entered the war against the Axis in

August. Preparations for the North African landings were in the final stage.

In the far Pacific the Japanese Navy was so involved with the growing Allied

offensive as to render completely improbable any sneak attack against the

canal. The possibility of a reduction in the troop basis for the Caribbean Defense Command was accordingly discussed with General Andrews in October, and a decision was reached to place the ceiling tentatively at 110,000

men.73 This was approximately the actual strength as of that moment, but

in the three months' interval before the decision began to take effect nearly

10,000 additional troops arrived in Panama and the Caribbean. The peak

strength of something more than 119,000 men was reached at the end of

December. The build-up had taken thirteen months to complete.

Beginning in January 1943, the reduction continued throughout the remaining two and a half years of war. In April 1943, the category of defense

for the Caribbean Defense Command was reduced from "D," which considered the area as exposed to major attack, to a modified category "B," which

admitted the possibility of only minor attacks and permitted some relaxation

of defense measures. By the end of June 1943 the strength of the Army

forces had dropped to about 111,000 men.74

Aside from the general fact that to reduce the strength of any command

was always a more complicated and lengthier process than the buildup, there

were two elements in the particular situation that helped to explain why the

process of contraction gathered momentum as slowly as it did. These elements were, first, a recrudescence of the Martinique problem, in the spring

of 1943, and second, the gradual replacement, beginning in January 1943,

of continental troops by Puerto Ricans.

72

 Memo, Gen Gerow for Adm Turner, 9 Feb 42, WPD 4351-8, sec. 2. 73

 War Council Min, 21 Oct 42, OCS files, SW Conf, binder 2; Memo, Maj Gen Thomas T.

Handy (OPD) for CofS, 4 Jan 43, CofS files, CDC (A387). 74

 Memo, Brig Gen John E. Hull (OPD) for DCofS, 13 Oct 43, CofS files, CDC (A387);

Hist Div, CDC, Hist of Caribbean Theater, II, 550-51.
THE CARIBBEAN IN WARTIME 439

The Allied landings in North Africa and the adherence of General Henri

Giraud and Admiral François Darlan to the Allied cause had badly shaken

the pro-Vichy regime in Martinique and French Guiana. On 17 March 1943

Admiral Robert, High Commissioner for the Vichy Government, lost his hold

on French Guiana when the Governor of that colony announced his allegiance

to the Giraud government and declared his intention of co-operating fully in

the war against the Axis. Admiral Robert was attempting to keep Martinique

in line by stern, repressive measures, and the possibility of his using force

to suppress the defection of French Guiana could not be lightly dismissed.

American naval and air patrols in the vicinity of Martinique were strengthened, and a military mission was hastily dispatched to Cayenne. Although

Admiral Robert quickly disclaimed any intention to use force against Guiana,

there remained the possibility of a de Gaullist coup and there existed the

further consideration that Cayenne Airport, which had been improved by

Pan American Airways under the Airport Development Program, might be

useful in the antisubmarine campaign. On 20 March the first detachment of

American troops entered French Guiana. Le Gallion Field at Cayenne proving unsuitable for large planes, the construction of a new airfield was begun

in April, but neither field had an opportunity to prove its value.75

Meanwhile, anti-Vichy sentiment had been spreading in the French

islands. In Guadeloupe street demonstrations against Admiral Robert reached

such proportions that on the night of 26 April 1943 local police and soldiers

were forced to fire on the crowds and several people were wounded. Martinique was on the verge of civil war. The moment was propitious, the State

Department decided, for breaking relations with Admiral Robert's tottering

regime. The American consul general was recalled, and a joint Army-Marine

Corps task force was organized for the occupation of Martinique. The ground

components of the force consisted of the 295th Infantry (minus one battalion)

and the 78th Engineer Battalion, both from Puerto Rico, the 13th Defense

Battalion (USMC), and the 33d Infantry (minus one battalion), and 135th

Engineer Battalion from Trinidad. With attached medical detachments,

the total strength came to 5,550 officers and men. Air and naval support

forces and the 551st Parachute Battalion were also assigned to the operation.

Throughout the month of May the several elements of the task force underwent intensive training in landing operations, in the establishment of a beach75

 G-2 Strategic Estimate-Martinique (1943), 22 Feb 43, WPD 380 Axis (3-5-42), case 33;

TBC, Hist Sec, CDC, Hist of TS and BC, I, 262-69; ibid., II, 76-77; Hist Div, CDC, Hist of

Caribbean Theater, II, 592-94, 599-601; USAF Hist of the Antilles Air Comd, p. 59, an. 2.
440 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

head, in street fighting, and in all the various aspects of an amphibious operation such as the invasion of Martinique would require. A completed plan of

operations was ready by 6 June. Perhaps Admiral Robert had some intimation

of what was in motion, for at the end of June he announced his readiness to

turn over control of the colonies to the French Committee of National Liberation. His offer was immediately accepted. Two weeks later a representative

of the committee arrived to take up the reins, and Admiral Robert departed.

Thus a long-standing, potentially dangerous trouble spot was finally removed. The troops in Trinidad and Puerto Rico settled back into their old

and by now tedious role of watchful waiting.76

While the Martinique affair was approaching a crisis, the War Department had gradually changed its policy respecting the employment of Puerto

Rican troops. At the beginning of the year 1943 there were approximately

17,000 Puerto Ricans under arms, including the 65th Infantry, and all of

them were stationed either in Puerto Rico itself or in the Virgin Islands.

The situation, according to the chief of staff of the Puerto Rican Department,

was unsatisfactory from the standpoint of training, discipline, and morale;

but to send Puerto Rican troops elsewhere in the Caribbean area hinged upon

the willingness of the various governments to accept them. Negotiations

with the Republic of Panama on this subject had offered little encouragement for approaching the others. When the War Department proposed to

send the 65th Infantry to Panama as a replacement for continental troops

that were to be withdrawn for service in the Pacific, the Panamanian Government insisted on a careful screening of the unit despite the fact that it was a

Regular Army regiment and was to be stationed within the Canal Zone. The

record of the 65th Infantry in Panama, where it arrived in mid-January, gave

considerable satisfaction to the staff of the Puerto Rican Department and

served as an argument for replacing continental troops elsewhere. At the

urging of the Puerto Rican Department a small detachment of insular troops

was sent to Cuba in late March as a guard for Batista Field, and again the

experiment was successful. The War Department consequently decided

upon a general replacement of continental troops not only in Panama, but

in the bases on British Islands as well, to the extent permitted by the availability of trained Puerto Rican units. Eventually, it was hoped, 20,000 Puerto

Rican troops could be made available. A sharp increase in the Puerto Rican

induction program was immediately authorized, and arrangements for ob76

 TBC, Hist Sec, CDC, Hist of TS and BC, I, 213-26, III, 136-38; Hist Div, CDC, Hist of

Caribbean Theater, II, 597-98; Hull, Memoirs, II, 1223-24.
THE CARIBBEAN IN WARTIME 441

taining the approval of the British Government were begun at once.77 Although the new policy took shape precisely at the time when the plans for

an invasion of Martinique were being developed, it rested on the assumption

that the Caribbean was a quiescent theater.

Since the induction of Puerto Ricans into the army was accelerated more

speedily than the replacement of continental troops, the immediate effect of

the new policy was to hold back the reduction in over-all strength. After the

summer of 1943 the movement of troops away from the theater and the general curtailment of activities began to pick up speed. By the end of the year

nearly 5,000 Puerto Ricans were in Panama; Puerto Rican units had replaced

some of the continental troops in Trinidad, Antigua, Jamaica, Surinam, and

Curaçao, and the over-all strength in the Caribbean Defense Command had

been reduced to about 91,000 officers and men.78 By VE-day, in May 1945,

the strength was down to 67,500, approximately 10,000 more than on the

day the United States entered the war.

77

 General Council Min, 11 Jan 43, 29 Mar 43, 12 Apr 43, OCS files; Hist Div, Antilles Dept,

CDC, Puerto Rican Induction Program and Use of Puerto Rican Troops, pp. 47-48, 50-61. 78

 Hist Div, Antilles Dept, CDC, Puerto Rican Induction Program and Use of Puerto Rican

Troops, pp. 71-75. Memo, Col Walter C. Sweeney, Jr. (OPD) for Col Kenner F. Hertford

(OPD), 5 Oct 43, and Memo, Gen Hull for DCofS, 13 Oct 43; both in WDCSA 42-43, CDC.
CHAPTER XVII

Greenland: Arctic Outpost

During 1940, while the United States had been looking to its defenses

in Alaska, Hawaii, and Panama, while the exchange of destroyers for a

string of Atlantic bases was under negotiation, and then, while plans and

preparations for developing the new bases were getting under way, Britain

and Canada were consolidating their position in the North Atlantic by stationing troops in Iceland and were attempting to counter German activities

in Greenland. Although the United States Government had acquiesced in

the garrisoning of Iceland, it had no desire to see Britain make the same

move into Greenland; for Greenland, although a Danish colony, was, unlike

Iceland, definitely within the Western Hemisphere and within the scope of

the Monroe Doctrine. Should Canada take protective action in Greenland,

it was feared that a precedent might be established which would give Japan

an excuse to seize the Netherlands East Indies if the Germans invaded Holland. British, Canadian, and American diplomacy went through a good many

convolutions, more fittingly described elsewhere, before the lines of policy

took shape.1 The official American position, simply stated, rested on nonintervention, on the traditional "hands off" policy of the Monroe Doctrine,

and on noninterference. The United States, for several reasons, had refused

to commit itself to the defense of Greenland and at the same time had declared its objection to any military action in Greenland by Britain or Canada

or to any attempt on their part to establish control over Greenland.

The War Department's interest in Greenland was not at first a very active

one. Greenland figured to some extent in the RAINBOW 4 war planning, and

in this connection the advice of Arctic experts was sought and studies undertaken that added considerably to the meager store of data the Army had.2

1

 See Langer and Gleason, Challenge to Isolation, chs. XII and XX. 2

 In addition to the usual staff studies, the War Department had engaged the noted explorer

Vilhjalmur Stefansson to prepare a work on Greenland. His manuscript, A Guide Book for Greenland, 3 vols., is a detailed description of the climate and physical features of the country. A

highly useful summary of information is Austin H. Clark, Iceland and Greenland, Smithsonian

Institution, Publication 3735 (Washington, 1943).
GREENLAND: ARCTIC OUTPOST 443

A number of possible sites for airfields, at the head of Søndre Strømfjord,

about six hundred miles up the western coast from Cape Farewell, were disclosed by an Air Corps survey flight in August 1940, but the Army made no

plans for developing any of them. While this survey was in progress, the

State Department hastily called to the Army's attention a Canadian proposal

to establish a landing field on the southern tip of Greenland, near Julianehaab, and, doubtless thinking it a matter over which the Army should be

concerned, the State Department spokesman, Assistant Secretary Adolph A.

Berle, Jr., was surprised when the War Department informed him that it

had no objection to the Canadian proposal.3

Growth of American Interest in Greenland

During the next six months the views of the War Department changed.

Strategic planning was shifting away from the dismal assumption that

Britain had only a small chance of surviving. American bases were under

construction in Newfoundland and American troops were there. And finally,

new data indicated that it was really possible to build an airfield in the

vicinity of Julianehaab. At the same time Mr. Berle was prodding the War

and Navy Departments with the suggestion that further inaction on the

part of the United States might result in the Canadians moving into Greenland. At a meeting in his office on 6 February 1941, representatives of the

War and Navy Departments agreed that this would be less desirable than

if the defense of Greenland were to be in U.S. hands. The nature of American military interests, as the War Department now viewed them, was presented at the same meeting by Lt. Col. Clayton L. Bissell of the War Plans

Division. He summarized them as follows: first, the defense of the American

bases in Newfoundland and of the northeastern United States would be

affected by a military air base in Greenland; second, the United States should

control whatever aviation facilities were constructed in Greenland, or at

least insist on equal rights in the use and operation of any facilities built by

anyone else; and lastly, further German efforts to obtain weather data from

Greenland were to be expected. The conference ended in a general agreement and recommendation that a survey party should be sent to Greenland

3

 Memo, CofS for SW, 28 Aug 40, WPD 4330-3; Memo, WPD for CofS, 4 Feb 41, sub:

Proposed Canadian Expedition to Greenland . . . , WPD 4173-2; Ltr, F. R. McCoy to Brig Gen

George V. Strong, ACofS WPD, 18 Jun 40, WPD 4300-4. An Air Plan for the NewfoundlandGreenland Theatre, 29 August 1940, is in WPD 4300; an Operations Plan and Brief Estimate

of the Situation are in WPD 4590.
444 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

to investigate airfield sites and to examine the possibility of constructing the

various facilities—radio, navigational aids, and the like—that would be necessary for developing the airfields. It was further agreed that it would be to the

best interests of the United States if the Danish authorities in Greenland were

to undertake the actual construction with the financial and technical assistance of the United States.4

 These decisions were the springboard for all

subsequent American activities in Greenland.

Presidential approval and the consent of the Danish authorities in Greenland followed the conference of 6 February without much delay. By the end

of the month a Coast Guard vessel had been made available for the survey

party, lists of special clothing and equipment were being compiled, and the

Army members of the party were designated.5 Then, almost on the eve of

sailing, an important decision was made, which completely changed the

expedition's focus. At a meeting of Army, Navy, Coast Guard, and State

Department representatives in Mr. Berle's office on 5 March it was agreed

that "considerations of defense, jurisdiction, operation and maintenance"

made construction of the facilities by the Danish authorities in Greenland

impracticable, that the Army would therefore build the necessary landing

fields, and that the State Department would negotiate an appropriate agreement with the responsible authorities.6

 On 17 March the survey party under

the command of Comdr. William Sinton, USN, boarded the Coast Guard

cutter Cayuga at Boston and sailed for Greenland.7 A Royal Canadian Air

Force observer accompanied the party.

After a difficult voyage through heavy ice the expedition arrived in southern Greenland. In this area and in the vicinity of Holsteinsborg and the

Søndre Strømfjord at least a dozen possible sites were investigated, the

most promising of which were at Narsarssuak, Ivigtut, and Søndre Strømfjord, on the glacial moraine at the head of the respective fjords.8

Meanwhile important developments had been taking place in Washington. The ninth of April was the anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Denmark,

4

 Min, Mtg in Asst Secy State Berle's office, 6 Feb 41, WPD 4173-2; Ltr, W. H. Hobbs,

Ann Arbor, Mich., to Gen Gerow, ACofS WPD, 24 Jan 41, WPD 4173; Ltr, Hobbs to Gerow,

17 Feb 41, WPD 4173-4. 5

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 12 Feb 41, WPD 4173-2; WPD Note for Rcd sgd LTG [Leonard

T. Gerow], 14 Feb 41, sub: Air Facilities in Greenland, WPD 4173; Memo, WPD for TAG,

26 Feb 41, WPD 4173-5. 6

 Summary of Points . . . Agreed Upon at a Meeting . . . , 5 Mar 41, WPD 4173-11. 7

 The Coast Guard at War: Greenland Patrol, (Historical Section, Political Intelligence Division, Headquarters, U.S. Coast Guard, 15 July 1945), II, 10. 8

 Ibid., pp. 10, 18-19; Memo, CNO for Ship Movements Div et al., 6 May 41, sub: Army

and Navy Operations in Greenland, 1941, WPD 4173-45.
GREENLAND: ARCTIC OUTPOST 445

and on this date an agreement guaranteeing the security of Greenland with

the United States as guarantor was signed by Secretary of State Hull and

Mr. Henrik Kauffman, the Danish Minister. Preparations for sending a

construction party and a defense force to Greenland were begun immediately. A survey of the east coast, which the Air Corps had decided was necessary, was quickly organized.9

 The Greenland defense agreement was the

culmination of the State Department's efforts to meet the problem posed by

the convergent interests in Canada, Great Britain, and the United States;

while these other preparations followed both from the agreement itself and

from the expanding activities of the Air Corps.

With a bow in the direction of the Act of Havana, which authorized unilateral measures of hemisphere defense in times of emergency, the HullKauffman agreement gave the United States the right to construct, maintain,

and operate in Greenland such airfields, seaplane facilities, and other defense

facilities as were necessary to protect the sovereignty of Denmark and the

territorial integrity of Greenland. The rights granted to the United States

were extensive. They included, among others, the authority to deepen harbors

and anchorages, to construct roads and fortifications, and, in general, "the

right to do any and all things necessary to insure the efficient operation,

maintenance and protection" of whatever defense facilities were established.

It was agreed that the areas necessary for these purposes would be leased

to the United States. A comparison with the British Base Agreement, signed

only twelve days before, is unavoidable. Of the two, the Greenland defense

agreement was much less comprehensive and thus permitted the United States

considerably more latitude. That is to say, there was far more room for discussion and negotiation and possibly misunderstandings. Both agreements

committed the respective governments to a speedy execution of formal

leases and both provided that the use of the leased areas by the United States

was not to be delayed pending the execution of the leases.10 The Greenland

agreement then granted to the United States three particular rights by explicit provision: the right of exclusive jurisdiction over all persons within the

leased areas except Danish citizens and native Greenlanders; the right to

establish postal facilities and commissaries; and the right of exemption from

9

 The agreement of 9 April 1941 has been published in Department of State Executive Agreement Series 204, Publication 1602, See also Memo, WPD for Gen Bryden, 10 Apr 41, sub:

Greenland, WPD 4173-25; Memo, Gen Arnold for CofS, 2 Apr 41; Ltr, SW to President,

3 Apr 41. Both in WPD 4173-16. 10

 Greenland Defense Agreement, 9 Apr 41, Article V; Agreement for the Use . . . of Certain

Bases, U.S.-Great Britain, 27 Mar 41, Article XXIV.
COAST GUARD TUG AIDING FREIGHTER OFF GREENLAND
GREENLAND: ARCTIC OUTPOST 447

customs duties on all materials and equipment used in the defense areas and

from all personal taxation on American workmen and military personnel.11

Only three limitations on the exercise of these rights were expressly laid

down: the United States, in locating the defense areas, undertook to give

the "fullest consideration consistent with military necessity . . . to the welfare, health and economic needs of the native populations"; as for the facilities to be built there, the United States promised that they would be made

available to the aircraft and vessels "of all the American Nations" for purposes of hemisphere defense; and lastly the United States undertook to "respect all legitimate interests in Greenland" as well as all laws and customs

pertaining to the native population and to give "sympathetic consideration to

all representations" by the local authorities respecting the welfare of the inhabitants.12

Greenland's Strategic Importance Reappraised

By this time the impetus that had originally turned the War Department's

attentions toward Greenland was given new force by the Air Corps, which

had been casting about for the best way to assist the transatlantic ferrying

operations of the British. A number of proposals were considered. One of

the more modest of them was presented by General Arnold himself, and this

suggestion, that the United States take over the delivery of planes from the

factory to some transfer point like Montreal or Presque Isle, Me., was quickly

adopted. It was decided, also, to establish an air transport service between

Washington and the United Kingdom. During March, April, and May, other

proposals were studied and rejected. The question of whether to develop a

route for short-range planes was still unsettled when the Japanese attacked

Pearl Harbor. A proposal that the United States accept responsibility over

the entire transatlantic ferry route, which had been rejected in the spring, had

not been accepted by the time the United States became an actual belligerent.

Whether laid aside or still in question, these two proposals nevertheless provided justification for building airfields in Greenland. Even if other means

for delivering short-range planes to England could be provided sooner, an

air route should be developed simultaneously, argued General Arnold. And

apart from this matter of ferrying short-range planes, it was sound aviation

doctrine, he pointed out, to have alternate fields available for use in the transport operations already decided upon, or in patrol and reconnaissance opera11

 Greenland Defense Agreement, 9 Apr 41, Articles VI, VII, VIII. 12

 Ibid., Articles V, IV, and IX, respectively.
448 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

tions.13 These considerations explain the Army's interest in the survey of

Greenland that was planned for the early summer of 1941.

Although in General Arnold's opinion there were only two reasons for

establishing bases in Greenland, namely, protecting convoys and ferrying

planes, there was in actual fact another element which was becoming increasingly decisive.14

 This was the defense of Greenland itself. The problem—

for, because of the terrain, the climate and general physical features, it could

not be considered otherwise—was a dual one. It involved, first, the fact that

Greenland was a major source of cryolite for the aluminum industry of the

United States and Canada and, second, that it was the breeding ground of

western Europe's storms.

One well-directed shot from the deck gun of a German submarine or a

clever act of sabotage by one of the workmen could have seriously damaged

the cryolite mine at Ivigtut, might have perhaps put it out of operation and

thereby disrupted the Canadian aluminum industry, on which Allied aircraft

production was heavily dependent. To prevent this, the local authorities had

organized a mine guard armed with rifles and a few machine guns and had

obtained from the United States a 3-inch antiaircraft gun manned by former

U.S. Coast Guard gunners. Then, during the first weeks of April 1941, the success of German arms in the Mediterranean aroused President Roosevelt's

concern for the safety of the Atlantic outposts. At his insistence the War

Department hastened to garrison Bermuda and Trinidad and to send reinforcements to Newfoundland. As soon as the Greenland defense agreement

was signed, the general question of a defense plan was tossed into the lap

of the Army-Navy Joint Board.15 As early as 16 April, on several occasions

during the next three months, and particularly after the Bismarck episode,

the Canadian Government expressed its doubt and solicitude about the adequacy of the defenses at Ivigtut. The War Department unhesitatingly rejected a Canadian offer to provide a garrison, although both the War and

Navy Departments shared to some extent the concern of the Canadian

Government. While the State Department in an aide-mémoire drawn up

with the advice of the War Department was informing the Canadian Gov13

 Ltr, SW to President, 3 Apr 41, WPD 4173-16; Memo, Lt Col C. W. Bundy for ACofS

WPD, 20 May 41, sub: Delivery of Aircraft to Great Britain, WPD 4323-36; Memo, DCofS (Air)

for Lt Col William P. Scobey, Secy JB, 13 Jun 41, DCS 15205-241. 14

 For General Arnold's view see, Memo, DCofS (Air) for Col Ward, SGS, 17 Jun 41, WPD

4173-71. See also, Henry H. Arnold, Global Mission (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1949),

pp. 211, 241. 15

 Memo, ASW (Air) for SW, 11 Apr 41, sub: Greenland, Stimson file, Misc Countries;

Conf in ODCofS, 11 Apr 41, OCS Conf, binder 13, Apr 41; Memo, Acting CofS (Gen Bryden)

for JB, 12 Apr 41, OCS 21068-21.
GREENLAND: ARCTIC OUTPOST 449

ernment that "the measures which have been and will be taken . . . are

believed to be all that are practical both from the point of view of timeliness and of extent," the War Plans Division was at the same time informing the Chief of Staff that these measures were inadequate and that the estimated size of the garrison planned for Ivigtut should be increased from

approximately 100 men to about 480.16 After this increase had been approved

and the plans changed accordingly, the War Plans Division considered the

cryolite mine to be sufficiently well protected, although the first defense force

did not actually arrive at Ivigtut until well after the beginning of the new

year, 1942. By that time it had been whittled down to one officer and twelve

enlisted men.17

The second factor in the defense problem—the value of Greenland as

a base for meteorological observations—had been responsible for what

turned out to be the first violations of Western Hemisphere territory by Nazi

Germany. During the summer of 1940 the German Government had organized in Norway a number of expeditions for the purpose of establishing radio

and weather stations in northeastern Greenland, in the neighborhood of

Scoresby Sound. Although manned, it would seem, by Norwegians and

Danes, and led by a Dane, these weather stations were under German control

and were operated for the purpose of assisting the German naval and military effort. The British therefore undertook immediate countermeasures. A

mixed British-Norwegian landing party seized a supply of aviation gasoline,

dismantled several radio stations, and took into custody a number of heavily

armed Danish "hunters" found on the coast. This was in late August or early

September 1940. A few weeks afterward the British intercepted another vessel

off the coast of Greenland with about fifty Germans, some of them meteorologists, on board.18

 All this activity at the top of the Western Hemisphere was

a source of much concern to Secretary of State Hull. The British in Iceland

were maintaining close watch, attempting by means of radio direction finders

to locate any clandestine weather broadcasts from Greenland; but in the

absence of continuous air and naval patrols German intruders ran a fair

16

 Ltr, SN to Secy State, 8 May 41, WPD 4173-50; Aide-mémoire, State Dept to Canadian

Legation, 6 Jun 41; Memo, Secy State for SW, 7 Jun 41. Both in WPD 4173-72. Memo, WPD

for CofS, 9 Jun 41, WPD 4173-70. 17

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 17 Jul 41, WPD 4173-99; Ltr, SW to Secy State, 30 Jan 42, WPD

4173-111; 3d Ind, CG Greenland Base Comd for CG AAF, 23 Mar 42, on Memo, CG AAF for

WPD, 19 Feb 42, WPD 4173-155. 18

 Ltr, Secy State to SW, 16 Jun 41, inclosing Memo written by a member of one of the 1940

expeditions, WPD 4173-100; Memo, CNO for Ship Movements Div et al., 6 May 41, sub: Army

and Navy Operations in Greenland, 1941, WPD 4173-45; Langer and Gleason, Challenge to

Isolation, pp. 686-87.
450 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

TROOPS EXAMINE GERMAN PARACHUTE KIT found at site of abandoned German

radio base in Greenland.

chance of being undisturbed. By the spring of 1941 there was a strong suspicion in Washington that one of the German-controlled weather stations was

still operating. Reports continued to reach the War Department of German

planes sighted over Scoresby Sound, of an unidentified vessel off Julianehaab,

of a strange plane high over Disko Bay, and of German plans to land a

force somewhere on Greenland's eastern coast.19

The information that a German landing impended came to the War Department from the Navy, but at the same time the Navy Department made

it clear that the report was of questionable reliability. In the meantime a

dispatch from the military attache in London reported that a German detachment was believed to have already established itself in the neighborhood of

Scoresby Sound. President Roosevelt, who a few days earlier had asked the

19

 Memo, WPD for G-2, 4 Apr 41, sub: German Flights Over Greenland, WPD 4173-15;

Cable, Brig Gen Raymond Lee, London, to WD, 22 Apr 41, WPD 4173; Memo, G-2 for CofS,

23 Apr 41, Stimson file, Misc Countries; Memo, WPD for CofS, 14 May 41, WPD 4173-49.
GREENLAND: ARCTIC OUTPOST 451

War and Navy Departments for recommendations to forestall an act of

this kind, brought the matter up at a Cabinet meeting on Friday, 25 April.20

As Secretary Stimson later remembered it:

The President mentioned the rumor that had come up to the effect that the Germans

already had a force landed on the east coast of Greenland. He said that the British

Admiralty and the Navy were not inclined to believe the rumor but the War Department

did believe it and that he was inclined to believe the War Department.21

The President agreed with his advisers that the situation called for a wellarmed naval expedition rather than an Army garrison. He approved the

idea of sending one or two Navy patrol planes to Iceland for an inspection

flight or two over the Scoresby Sound area, but he disagreed with the suggestion that Iceland be used as a more or less permanent base of patrol plane

operations. The upshot was that the Navy proceeded to organize an east coast

"survey" party for which the Coast Guard provided specially equipped vessels

and experienced crews. For the time being the Army's assistance was not

required.22 The War Department could therefore concentrate its attention,

so far as concerned Greenland, on constructing the airfields and on garrisoning the west coast.

Establishing the BLUIE Bases

As soon as the negotiations with the Danish Minister were sufficiently

advanced, President Roosevelt authorized the War Department to go ahead

with the preparations for building the airfields. For this purpose he gave

his approval to the expenditure of approximately $5,000,000 from funds

previously allocated for constructing the bases acquired from the British.

General Arnold, who, as Chief of the Air Corps, was at once placed in

charge of all matters pertaining to the Greenland airfields, was immediately

directed to start assembling the necessary construction equipment, materials,

and personnel, but within a week some of his responsibility had been shifted

over to the War Plans Division. For the sake of conformity, Colonel

Anderson, acting head of the War Plans Division, proposed on 9 April that

the development program be placed under the direction and co-ordination of

20

 Memo, G-2 for CofS, 23 Apr 41, Stimson file, Misc Countries; and Cable, Lee, London,

to WD, 22 Apr 41, WPD 4173. Memo, President for SW, SN, and Secy State, 18 Apr 41, WPD

4173-28. 21

 Stimson Diary, entry for 25 Apr 41. 22

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 18 Apr 41, sub: Northeast Greenland, WPD 4173-28; Memo, SW

and SN for President, 22 Apr 41; Memo, President for SW and SN, 30 Apr 41; Memo, WPD

for CofS, 6 May 41. Last three in WPD 4173-30.
452 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

the War Plans Division, as had been done in the case of all the other outlying

bases. His recommendation, approved on 11 April, was formally adopted on

17 April.23

During the following month the several interested divisions of the General Staff worked out the various details of the construction force. A momentary hitch developed when the Navy Department decided it could not spare

any of its transports because of the two months' layover that would be required at the base; but this particular problem was solved by the War Department's transferring to the Navy a recently acquired Army transport, the

U.S.S. Munargo, to be fitted out and used for the movement, and in addition to the Munargo, the veteran troopship Chateau Thierry was later

assigned. As decided upon in mid-April, the Greenland force consisted of

one battalion (minus one company), 21st Engineers (AVN), reinforced by

a composite battery, 62d Coast Artillery (AA), plus the necessary service

troops. The departure, originally scheduled for 19 May, was delayed a

whole month for repairs to be made to the Munargo; but on 19 June the

two ships sailed out of New York Harbor with the 469 officers and men of

the Greenland force on board.24 Col. Benjamin F. Giles, Air Corps, was in

command.

Six days later the Munargo and the Chateau Thierry were at Argentia,

Newfoundland, taking on fuel and fresh water and awaiting word of ice

conditions farther North. Soon the bay became a busy place. One evening,

a day or two after the Greenland force arrived, a flotilla of United States

destroyers, followed by four or five Navy transports, loomed out of the heavy

fog and slipped into the harbor. By next morning two battleships of the

Atlantic Fleet, several more destroyers and the cruisers Nashville and Brooklyn had joined the assemblage along with four troopships loaded with marines.

These new arrivals—transports, troopships, destroyers, battleships, and cruisers

—were the ships of Task Force 19, the first task force organized by the Navy

for foreign service in World War II.25 It was bound for Iceland. The plans

23

 Ltr, President to SW, 5 Apr 41, OCS 21068-16; Memo, WPD for CofAC, 5 Apr 41,

WPD 4173-17; Ltr, TAG to CofAC, 7 Apr 41, WPD 4173-16; Memo, WPD for CofS,

9 Apr 41; Ltr, TAG to USW, Chiefs of Arms, Services et al., 17 Apr 41. Last two in WPD

4173-21. 24

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 12 Apr 41, sub: Garrison for Construction and Def of Airfields in

Greenland; Memo, WPD for CofS, 10 May 41, same sub. Both in WPD 4173-23. Ltr, TAG to

CG, 1st Army, 6 May 41, WPD 4490; Memo, CNO for CofS, 17 Apr 41, WPD 4173-24;

Rpt, The Story of the Embarkation of the BLUIE WEST Force Garrison for Greenland, in OCT

HB—Greenland, 1940-41. 25

 Memo, Maj Richard S. Whitcomb, Argentia, for Col Theodore H. Dillon, Chief Trans Div,

OQMG, 27 Jun 41, OPD-GHQ INDIGO "A." Morison, Battle of the Atlantic, p. 75.
GREENLAND: ARCTIC OUTPOST 453

for this movement had been going through the mill simultaneously with the

Greenland preparations, for the President early in June had decided to

establish an American garrison in Iceland and to set up a base there for patrol

operations like those he had vetoed at the end of April. The marines were

the first element of the garrison, to be followed in the course of the summer

by sizable units of the Army Air Forces and of the 5th Division so that by

August Iceland would bulk larger than Greenland in Army planning; but

of these subsequent doings neither the marines nor Colonel Giles and his

men could have had any knowledge. Leaving the Iceland convoy behind, the

Greenland force resumed its voyage on 30 June and a week or so later

arrived off Narsarssuak. There the major U.S. Army and Navy base in

Greenland, BLUIE WEST 1, was built.26

By the end of September 1941, when the contractor's people arrived, the

troops at BLUIE WEST 1 had erected 85 buildings, about two-thirds of the

total needed for the initial force, and had begun to install the necessary

utilities. They had built three miles of access roads, constructed a temporary

dock, and started work on the airfield. By the time the civilian construction

force arrived they had finished grading one of the two runways and had a

metal landing mat partly laid. BLUIE WEST 1 was thus one of the earliest

U.S. Army airfields, if not the first, to make actual use of steel matting in

runway construction, an important engineering development that was still

being tested two months later in the Carolina maneuvers and one that afterwards contributed greatly to the winning of the war, in the Pacific particularly. After the arrival of the civilian construction force the engineer battalion,

reinforced by a company of the 42d Engineers (General Service), concentrated exclusively on airfield construction. They continued to do so until

February 1942 when the civilian force took over this work as well. By then

the first runway was ready for limited use.

Meanwhile, similar progress had been made at Søndre Strømfjord (BLUIE

WEST 8), where the first construction party, a civilian force, arrived late in

September. The airfield, begun during the first two weeks of November, was

almost completely graded by the beginning of January 1942, when the first

plane landed on the runway.27 During the following summer, when the

26

 In a memorandum (WPD 4173-95), dated 8 July 1941, to the Assistant Chief of Staff,

Colonel Crawford, reports the Munargo as having entered the fjord that morning and being

delayed there by ice. On the other hand, the arrival date is given as 6 July in U.S. Army Bases,

Greenland, Section IV, pages 1, 4 (North Atlantic Division, Corps of Engineers, in OCMH).

BLUIE was the code name for Greenland. 27

 North Atlantic Div, CE, U.S. Army Bases, Greenland, secs. IV, V.
454 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

movement of the Eighth Air Force to England put the two Greenland airfields

to their severest test, migrating aircraft had to share the runways with bulldozers and rollers and all the other paraphernalia of construction; for work

was still in progress although the fields were usable.

The troops at BLUIE WEST 1 were added to from time to time during

the late summer and early fall of 1941 until by mid-October they numbered

about 665 men, two-thirds of whom were Engineers. A small detachment

of about thirty men made up the entire Army force at BLUIE WEST 8. An

even smaller party operated a radio range and direction finding station on

Simiutak Island, about 45 miles from the main base at BLUIE WEST 1, and

another detachment manned a weather station at Angmagssalik, on the east

coast near the Arctic Circle. When war engulfed the United States in December the Army's Greenland forces altogether totaled approximately 750

men.28

From the beginning the garrison enjoyed excellent relations with the

local populace. The Danish authorities in Greenland gave the American

command their full co-operation and advice at all times, without which the

problems of establishing the bases would have been greatly magnified. Troops

and civilian workmen acquitted themselves well.29 That there were no

AWOL's or desertions is perhaps not too surprising since there were no

places to go, but the fact that there were likewise no courts-martial, at least

during the first year, is a record of which any commanding officer can be

proud.

Command arrangements followed the precedent recently worked out for

the Newfoundland Base Command. Tactical control was at first vested in

the Commanding General, First Army and responsibility for supply in the

Commanding General, Second Corps Area. The latter's responsibility did

not however extend to construction matters, all the administration and supply

of which were controlled by the Chief of Engineers through the Division

Engineer, Eastern Division. When Greenland, along with Newfoundland,

was placed directly under GHQ in July the Commanding General, First

Army, was thereby relieved of his responsibility for tactical command. The

intention was that as soon as the necessary facilities were constructed the

Greenland Base Command would be constituted and would operate as a

task force under GHQ. Although the Greenland Base Command was not

28

 Memo, Col Scobey, Secy JB, for Gen Edwin M. Watson, 17 Oct 41, WPD 4482-1;

statistical summary Strength of U.S. Army Forces . . . , compiled by Statistics Sec, OCMH. 29

 Ltr, Maj Gen Benjamin F. Giles, USAF (Ret.), to Acting Chief of Military History, 26

Apr 59, OCMH files.
GREENLAND: ARCTIC OUTPOST 455

formally activated until 26 November 1941, the Army forces in Greenland

were going by that name as early as 15 July, which was the date they had

passed under the control of GHQ.30 The appointment of an Air Corps

officer, Colonel Giles, to command them followed the same principle of

functional allocation on which the appointment of an Air Corps officer to

command at Newfoundland had been based. It was an explicit recognition

of the fact that the principal operations would consist of "staging operations

involved in the movement of medium range aircraft to England and air operations involved in the defense of Greenland, particularly the air base and

Ivigtut." 31

The Defense of Greenland

With Greenland, as with many other outposts of the Western Hemisphere,

the War Department faced the problem of passing safely between the Scylla

of remote contingency and the Charybdis of immediate need. The question

of what ought to be planned for and what on the other hand could be, or

had to be, provided posed a dilemma that would have to be resolved if plans

and preparations were to bear any relation to each other.

Throughout the summer and fall of 1941, while the construction program

was being pushed forward, the War Plans Division and the Army-Navy Joint

Board were drawing up the specifications for the defense of Greenland,

which GHQ then converted into the actual blueprints. As the Army-Navy

Joint Board viewed it, the defense of Greenland would require, first, fleet

operations to deny major enemy forces access to the Greenland area, second,

the local defense of vulnerable points, third, surface and air patrols of the

entire coast during seasons favorable to minor enemy operations, fourth, a

system of civilian observation posts, and fifth, appropriate reserve forces held

in readiness to repel minor attacks and dislodge enemy units. According to

the Joint Board planners the most vulnerable points, those that would require local defenses, would be any American installation in Greenland and

the cryolite mine at Ivigtut. Because of the terrain and the climate these defenses could be mutually supporting only to the extent of providing small

detachments of troops specially trained and equipped and serving with the

principal garrisons who would be ready at all times to move by sea to the

vicinity of any threat. Depending upon the state of aviation supplies at the

30

 Ltr, TAG to CG, First Army, 6 May 41, WPD 4490; Memo, WPD for CofS, 10 Jun 41,

WPD 4482; Memo, WPD for TAG, 10 Jul 41, sub: Comd of U.S. Army Units in Greenland,

WPD 4173-95; Ltr, TAG to CofS GHQ, AC'sofS WD, 26 Nov 41, sub: Activation of Greenland

Base Comd, WPD 4173-140. 31

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 3 Jun 41, WPD 4173-68.
456 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

airfields in Greenland, the use of air reinforcements "of minor strength" from

Newfoundland would be possible.32 These considerations were the basis of

the permanent garrisons authorized for BLUIE WEST 1 and Ivigtut. Upon

the departure of the initial forces in June the approved figures stood at 181

officers, 20 nurses, and 1,849 enlisted men for BLUIE WEST 1 and 21 officers,

2 nurses, and 459 enlisted men for Ivigtut. A reduction in the Ivigtut garrison, down to 302 officers and men, was effected by eliminating the infantry

unit; otherwise the authorized strength in October remained the same as it

had been four months before.33 After orders had gone out to all the Atlantic

bases in September to resist by force the intrusion of any German or Italian

military planes and vessels of war there had been some thought that a garrison of 1,500 men could be established in Greenland before winter set in.

But very shortly the build-up was postponed until the following spring. Until May 1942 the only combat unit in Greenland was the antiaircraft battery at

BLUIE WEST 1. Meanwhile GHQ had drawn up the defense plans for Ivigtut

and the cryolite mine and for air warning installations.34

The problem of the defenses at Ivigtut had two sides: one, whether additional measures in protection of the cryolite mine were required at the moment; and second, what should be done after 1 April 1942, when the contract of the civilian mine guard expired. On the immediate question, GHQ

and the War Plans Division, as well as the commanding officer in Greenland, Colonel Giles, were agreed that to send an Army defense force to Ivigtut was not an urgent matter. The building that would have to be done at

Ivigtut, it was decided, might interrupt the more essential work at BLUIE

WEST 1. Should it seem expedient for other than military reasons to replace

the mine guard by American troops, as the State Department intimated it

might be, the arrival of a garrison would be hastened, the War Department

suggested, by putting some of the cryolite company's employees to work

erecting the necessary housing, which the Army could supply in prefabricated form. Nothing came of the suggestion. The officials of the mining

company, who had not concealed their misgivings over what they considered

the defenseless state of the place, were agreeable to the use of their employees; but they considered the Army's proposal impracticable, while the State

Department and the Office of Production Management believed that it

32

 Jt Planning Comm Rpt to the JB, 5 Sep 41, sub: Def Installations in Greenland, JB 325,

Ser 683-1, citing Army-Navy Jt Basis Plan for Def of Greenland, JB 325, Ser 683, 31 May 41. 33

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 17 Jun 41, sub: Greenland Def Forces, WPD 4173-70; List of

Approved Garrisons for Overseas Bases, 9 Oct 41, WPD 4351-176. 34

 GHQ Quarterly Rpt, Jul-Sep 41, Oct-Dec 41, GHQ 320.2-B, 1/1.
GREENLAND: ARCTIC OUTPOST 457

would, if acted upon, temporarily disrupt the mining operations. The question of what to do in the spring was more easily answered (perhaps one

might say more easily avoided), since the Army expected to be able by that

time to start building the housing and other facilities necessary for a garrison

at Ivigtut. A naval vessel, the Greenland Government suggested, could be

stationed at the cryolite port to bridge any gap between the departure of the

mine guard and the arrival of an Army garrison.35 There the matter was

resting when the attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into the

war.

Immediately the War Department was made acutely aware of even the

smallest chink in the nation's armor. Within a week G-2 began calling attention to the inadequacy of the Ivigtut defenses. Officials of the State Department, of the War Production Board, of the Ivigtut mining company and

of one of the two principal cryolite processing companies in the United

States all expressed anxiety about the situation. Toward the end of December a naval vessel was stationed in the harbor to reinforce the mine guard,

an arrangement which accorded with the Greenland Government's suggestion and which both GHQ and the War Plans Division considered adequate

for the time being.36 Conferences with the manager of the mine and the commander of the Coast Guard's Greenland Patrol resulted in the Army's agreeing to take over the duties of the mine guard on 1 April 1942, except those

that had to do with internal protection for which the Greenland Government

would provide. When the first construction forces went to Ivigtut late in

March a defense unit of one officer and twelve enlisted men was sent out

from BLUIE WEST 1 to replace the mine guard.37

An interesting contribution to the defense of Greenland was the Northeast Greenland dog sledge patrol organized in the summer of 1941 as a

joint endeavor of the Army, the United States Coast Guard, and the Greenland Government. All the activity on the east coast the year before had

demonstrated the ease with which anyone could establish a foothold in the

vast Arctic wastes, the near impossibility of finding a hostile force that had

established itself, and the difficulty of dislodging one, once it was discovered.

An air patrol of the east coast, even after the new bases were completed, 35

 Entry for 3 Sep 41, GHQ Staff Conf, 7/23/41 to 10/31/41, AGF 337; Memo, WPD for

CofS, 30 Sep 41; Ltr, SW to Secy State. Last two in WPD 4173-111. 36

 Memo, G-2 for CofS, 16 Dec 41; Memo, WPD for CofS, 23 Dec 41. Both in WPD 4173-

145. Memo, WPD for TAG, 6 Feb 42, WPD 4173-111; Memo, WPD for G-4, 26 Jan 42,

inclosing G-2 Rpt Notes on Ivigtut, Greenland . . . , WPD 4173-151. 37

 Ltr, SW to Secy State, 30 Jan 42, sub: Def of Ivigtut, WPD 4173-111; 3d Ind, CG

Greenland Base Comd to CG AAF, 23 Mar 42, on Memo, CG AAF for WPD, 19 Feb 42,

WPD 4173-155.
458 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

would be extremely difficult, since the distance that would have to be covered

was as far as from Newfoundland to Key West, Fla. The naval patrol maintained by the Coast Guard was limited by ice conditions. What appeared to

be the ideal solution, and the one recommended by the Coast Guard, was to

organize a dog sledge patrol for reconnoitering the isolated areas of the east

coast. After some hesitation the War Department agreed to bear the expense,

to furnish part of the equipment, and to provide what air coverage it could.

The Coast Guard, for its part, would transport the patrols and equipment to

their stations and keep them supplied. The Greenland administration in turn

agreed to recruit the men and provide the dogs.

The patrol had scarcely begun operations when it proved its worth by

assisting in the capture of the trawler Buskoe on 12 September, as that vessel,

a small German-controlled Norwegian ship, was attempting to establish a

radio and weather station in the Mackenzie Bay area. There had been some

skepticism, however, in the War Department, and by the end of the year

there were those who had begun to wonder whether the results justified the

expense involved.38 Had it been a matter of merely hiring a few Eskimos

to patrol the neighborhood of their villages with their own dog sledges the

$2,000 or so the Army was spending each month on the patrol might have

been excessive indeed. But as it was, except on the west coast north of Holsteinsborg, dog sledging was unknown in Greenland and, except for the

settlements at Angmagssalik (BLUIE EAST 2) and Scoresby Sound, the entire

east coast was uninhabited. This meant that dogs, sledges, and drivers had

to be brought in either from halfway up the west coast, a distance to Scoresby Sound of at least 2,400 miles, or from the continent.39

 On one occasion

a team of sledge dogs was imported from the United States by way of

Iceland. The patrol, whose principal function was to report Nazis attempting to land in the guise of innocent hunters, had to be recruited from Danish

and Norwegian hunters of proven loyalty. All this was expensive. The

sledge patrol nevertheless survived the early doubts within the War Department, was afterward given military status as a unit of the U.S. Army, and

in 1943-44, when the tempo of operations increased, the patrol found

itself in the thick of combat. But that is another chapter of the story.

38

 Memo, Col F. W. Browne, Asst Budget Officer, for Budget and Liaison Planning Br, OCS,

22 Aug 41; Memo, Brig Gen Albert E. Brown, Chief, B. & L. Planning Br for WPD, 23 Aug 41.

Both in OCS 20168-104. Entry for 27 Aug 41, GHQ Staff Confs, 7/23/41 to 10/31/41, AGF

337; Memo for Rcd on Memo, WPD for CofAAF, 8 Dec 41, sub: Northeast Greenland Sledge

Patrol, WPD 4173-113; Headquarters, U.S. Coast Guard, The Coast Guard At War, pp. 162-66. 39

 See Stefansson, A Guide Book for Greenland, pp. 193-95; and Clark, Iceland and Greenland, pp. 67-68, 80.
CHAPTER XVIII

Planning the Iceland Operation

During the first year and a half of World War II the interest and

attention of the War Department had for the most part been focused in

the direction of South America. But the pull on American resources, on

staff planning, and on actual operations exerted by the exigencies of hemisphere defense was neither uniform in strength nor constant in direction.

It swung through an arc extending northward from the bulge of Brazil,

past the Azores, and beyond Newfoundland to Iceland. Nevertheless the

true pole of attraction was to the south. The establishing of American bases

in Newfoundland, the sending of American troops to Greenland, and an

American garrison to Iceland did not result from a major shift in policy.

In each case the desirability of the measure was determined by its own

circumstances, which were sometimes peripheral even to hemisphere defense

as a whole although the feasibility of each step was appraised in the light

of what was being done elsewhere at the same time. This was particularly

true of the Iceland operation.1

Early in the European conflict both the British and the Germans had

recognized what the Vikings had demonstrated ten centuries before, namely,

that Iceland was an important steppingstone between Europe and the New

World. Hitler several times toyed with the idea of a descent upon the

island and laid preliminary plans for it; but to forestall such a move

British troops, soon joined by a Canadian force, had landed in Iceland on

10 May 1940. Icelandic annoyance with the British and Canadian garrison,

and British losses in the war, which made a withdrawal of the Iceland garrison seem desirable, plus American concern for the Atlantic sea lanes,

combined to bring Iceland within the American defense orbit.

By the early spring of 1941 the British position in the Mediterranean

had become extremely precarious. Weakened by the withdrawal of some

50,000 troops to Greece and surprised by greatly reinforced German and

Italian forces, Britain's Army of the Nile had been driven back, with serious

1

 A substantially similar version of the first two-thirds of this chapter appeared as study 3 of

the OCMH edition of Command Decisions.
460 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

losses, across the African deserts to the Egyptian border. Disaster in Greece,

following hard upon the rout in North Africa, added 11,000 dead and

missing to the casualties of the African campaign. The British therefore

felt a pressing need for the 20,000 or so troops tied down in Iceland. Meanwhile the Battle of the Atlantic had taken a critical turn when, in March,

German U-boats moved westward into the unprotected gap between the

Canadian and British escort areas. Shipping losses mounted steeply. Although

the Royal Navy immediately established a patrol and escort staging base

in Iceland, a dangerous gap in the ocean defenses still remained.

American concern in the protection of the North Atlantic sea lanes,

and in the defense of Iceland as well, had been acknowledged in the

recently concluded Anglo-American staff conversations. Although Britain,

in its own interest and on its own initiative, had already committed itself

to both tasks, they were recognized as matters of mutual responsibility in

the final staff report, the so-called ABC-1 agreement. Britain, it was decided,

would provide a garrison for Iceland as long as the United States remained

a nonbelligerent; should the United States be forced into the war against

the Axis Powers, American troops would then relieve the British garrison.2

By admitting and accepting this measure of responsibility, however conditional it was, the United States laid itself open to an appeal for assistance

whenever Britain should find the defense of Iceland too burdensome. If

the United States, instead of awaiting formal entry into the war, were to

undertake immediately the responsibility it had accepted for relieving the

British troops in Iceland, then British losses in North Africa and Greece

could be to some extent replaced without undue strain on British manpower.

Iceland, no less than Britain, was anxious to have the British garrison

depart. Intensely nationalistic, proud of their ancient civilization, the Icelanders chafed under the "protective custody" in which they found themselves placed. They felt at first, when Canadian troops made up a large part

of the total force, that a wholly British contingent would be preferable, but

when the Canadians were later replaced by British troops most Icelanders

seemed to find their lot no more bearable than before. As the scope of

Germany's aerial blitzkrieg widened, the people of Iceland grew more

uneasy; for it to be "defended" by one of the belligerent powers, they felt,

was an open invitation to attack by the other. The Icelandic Government

shared the apprehensions of the people and found further annoyance in

Britain's control of Iceland's export trade.

2

 See Conn and Fairchild, Framework of Hemisphere Defense, pp. 99-100.
PLANNING THE ICELAND OPERATION 461

The Shifting Focus of American Interest

Taking a pessimistic view of England's chances of survival the Icelandic

Government had, as early as mid-July of 1940, approached the Department

of State concerning the possibility of Iceland's coming under the aegis of

the Monroe Doctrine. Although the impetus for this idea came from concerns of the moment, a sense of affinity with the North American continent

had long been part of Icelandic tradition. In September and December the

question was again raised, and on one of these occasions the Icelandic

consul general suggested the possibility of his country granting the United

States air and naval bases in return for economic and commercial advantages.3

In Iceland it was apparently expected that a simple declaration by the

United States to the effect that Iceland lay within the Western Hemisphere,

and therefore within range of the Monroe Doctrine, would make the

presence of foreign troops unnecessary. If a garrison was required, it was

thought that American troops, being those of a nonbelligerent power, would

not draw German attacks. And once Iceland was accepted as part of the

"Monroe Doctrine Area" it was hoped that a favorable trade agreement

could be arranged with the United States.4

Toward all these informal, exploratory inquiries the United States

Government adopted a noncommittal attitude. Unwilling to make a definite

decision until circumstances required it, the Department of State pointed

to the necessity of not tying its hands with prior commitments. The War

Department was in full accord with the view of the Department of State.

When staff conversations with the British concerning America's future course

got under way, early in 1941, both the War Plans Division and G-2 recommended that no action be taken at that time relative to any possible request

by Iceland for American protection.5 Accordingly, on 11 February Secretary

Stimson informed the Secretary of State that the War Department shared

the latter's views that the United States should "neither discourage nor

encourage an approach to this Government by the Government of Iceland."

 6

3

 Langer and Gleason, Challenge to Isolation, p. 688. 4

 Memo of Conv Between S. J. Stefansson, Icelandic Minister for Foreign Affairs, and B.

Eric Kuniholm, American Consul, Reykjavík, 18 Dec 40; Dispatch, Kuniholm to Dept of State,

24 Dec 40. Both in AG 380 (2-1-41) Iceland; Ltr, Under Secy State Sumner Welles to SN

Frank Knox, 20 Jun 41, OPD-GHQ, INDIGO "A." 5

 Memo, WPD, for CofS, 10 Feb 41, WPD file 4493, sec. 1. 6

 Ltr, SW to Secy State, 11 Feb 41; Telg, Secy State to American Consul at Reykjavík (No. 1),

18 Jan 41. Both in AG 380 (2-1-41) Iceland.
462 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Then came the British reverses in the Mediterranean and increasing German success in the North Atlantic.

After the conclusion of the ABC Conversations in March, Washington's

interest in Iceland had quickened as an outgrowth of the problem of placing

American planes and supplies in the hands of the British and as part of

the task of making the United States Navy's "neutrality patrol" more

effective. On 10 April, while picking up survivors from a Dutch vessel torpedoed off the coast of Iceland, the American destroyer Niblack, which

earlier in the month had been given the job of reconnoitering the waters

about the island, went into action against a U-boat whose approach was

taken as an intention to attack. This was the first of a number of "incidents"

that were to take place in the waters south of Iceland, where from this

time on the safety zone of the Western Hemisphere and Germany's blockade

area overlapped. On the very same day President Roosevelt decided to extend

the neutrality patrol. At the end of a long conference with his chief military

and naval advisers, the President took out a map and drew a line, roughly

down the middle of the Atlantic, a few days later fixing it at the 26th meridian, but including the waters adjacent to the whole of Greenland and

around the Azores. Also on 10 April, Mr. Harry Hopkins, the Presidential

adviser on lend-lease matters, and his legal aide, Mr. Oscar S. Cox, were

considering the possibility of the U.S. Navy escorting convoys within the

Western Hemisphere, a step which the President was not yet prepared to

take, and the feasibility of transshipping goods to Britain from ports within

some defined boundary of the Western Hemisphere. This led to the further

thought, expressed in a memorandum from Cox to Hopkins on 12 April,

that public vessels of the United States could be used to transport men and

materials to the American bases recently acquired in the Atlantic and that,

in fact, nothing in the Neutrality Act of 1939 prohibited public vessels from

going anywhere with anything.7 Then on 13 April President Roosevelt

received assurances from Prime Minister Churchill that Britain was determined to fight through to a decision in North Africa. American goods and

munitions would perhaps be the deciding factor in the campaign. On the

following day, Mr. Hopkins and Under Secretary of State Welles met with

the Icelandic consul general and reopened the question of American protection for Iceland.8

At the end of the month, the War Plans Division recommended that an

7

 Stimson Diary, entry of 10 Apr 41; Calendar of Hopkins Papers, bk. IV, items 3, 4. See

also Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, p. 368. 8

 Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, p. 290.
PLANNING THE ICELAND OPERATION 463

Army survey party be sent to Iceland for the specific purpose of preparing

detailed plans for its defense. Merely calling attention to the plans for Iceland under the ABC-1 Agreement, the War Plans Division gave no sign

of anticipating that the Army would soon be called upon to relieve the British garrison. No great haste was made in organizing the party. Although the

Chief of Staff gave his approval on 2 May, it was not until some ten days

later that messages went out requesting the commanding officers of the units

provisionally assigned to a move into Iceland, of which the 5th Division

was one, to designate officers for the survey party.9 The possibility of a

German move into Spain and Portugal, which shifted attention away from

the North Atlantic, and changes in the prospective assignments of two of

the units designated for use in Iceland, along with a shortage and rapid

turnover of officers, all contributed to a further delay.

During the early days of May, Nazi propaganda drums, in characteristic

preinvasion fashion, had begun beating out a crescendo of anti-Portuguese

accusations. Every omen seemed to point to Spain and Portugal as the next

victims of German aggression.10 Deeply anxious, the Portuguese Government

prepared to move to the Azores, of which some of the largest and most

important islands lay within the bounds of the American neutrality patrol.

And by one of the facts of geography, the sea and air routes from Europe

to South America and the Panama Canal could be controlled from the Azores.

The concern of the United States can be roughly measured by the high priority

assigned to the preparation of a strategic survey of those islands. In a list

of seventeen areas, arranged in order of urgency, which the War Plans

Division submitted to G-2 on 7 May, the Azores were given second place.

Top priority was assigned to the region around Dakar, in French West

Africa, whereas Iceland, in sixteenth place, was far down the list.11 That

a declaration of war by Germany would follow the landing of American

troops on either the Azores or Iceland was regarded by War Department

planners as almost certain; but sending troops to the Azores was considered

to be more easily justified as a measure in defense of the Western Hemisphere than a move into Iceland.12

9

 Memo, Brig Gen Harry J. Malony, Acting ACofS WPD, for CofS, 30 Apr 41, WPD 4493,

sec. 1; Memo, Col Orlando Ward for CofS, 2 May 41, CCS Confs, binder 15. Ltr, TAG to CG

5th Div et al., 13 May 41, and 1st Ind to foregoing from Col Bird S. Dubois, to TAG, 19 May 41.

Last two in WPD 4493, sec. 1. 10

 Memo, Gen Malony, Acting ACofS WPD for CofS, 16 May 41, WPD 4300-10; Morison,

Battle of the Atlantic, pp. 66-67; Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, p. 296. 11

 Memo, Gen Malony, Acting ACofS WPD, for ACofS G-2, 7 May 41, WPD 4300-7. 12

 Memo, unsigned, undated, OPD-GHQ INDIGO "A." A fuller account of the Army's Azores

planning appears in Conn and Fairchild, Framework of Hemisphere Defense, ch. V.
464 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

As the month of May passed, German designs became more obscure, and

American apprehension shifted from one danger spot to another. The French

West Indies had been considered a potential threat ever since the fall of

France, and at the first sign of skullduggery on the part of Admiral Robert,

Vichy High Commissioner at Martinique, American plans contemplated an

immediate landing of marines supported by the 1st Infantry Division. Meanwhile, a modus vivendi that had been presented to Admiral Robert in 1940

seemed to be successfully keeping him in line. Nevertheless, alarming

reports of a West Indies crisis appeared in American newspapers on Sunday, 18 May, and the spotlight briefly pointed at Martinique. Then it swung

away. Although estimates of Hitler's intentions toward Spain and Portugal

were conflicting and although the actual moves the Germans made were

hard to interpret, the Azores again assumed importance. On 22 May President

Roosevelt directed the Army and Navy to be ready within thirty days to forestall a German attack on the Azores by getting there first.13

 The naval

balance in the Atlantic, which an Azores landing might easily swing in

Britain's favor, was thrown into uncertainty just at this time by the daring

foray of the powerful German battleship Bismarck and her consort Prinz

Eugen. On the same day that President Roosevelt ordered the Azores preparations started, Bismarck and Prinz Eugen were slipping past the British

Home Fleet into the North Atlantic. Two days later, after a sharp five-minute

engagement the two ships sank the British battle cruiser Hood, severely

damaged the newly commissioned Prince of Wales, and then disappeared

into the fog and mist of the Denmark Strait. The threat to the Azores, indeed

to the entire Atlantic area, lasted until British air and naval units ran down

and sank Bismarck off the coast of France on 27 May and forced Prinz Eugen

into refuge in Brest.

While the chase after Bismarck was on, the target of German intentions

gradually became more discernible. In the early morning of 20 May a

swarm of German paratroopers descended on the island of Crete. The

British garrison, without adequate air protection and naval support, was

unable to beat off the invaders, and ten days later Crete fell victim to the

German war machine. In defense of the island some 13,000 British and other

Commonwealth troops and ten ships of the Royal Navy were lost.14 The

13

 Conf in Secy Stimson's office with Gen Marshall et al., 19 May 41, Pearl Harbor Attack,

pt. 15, p. 1631; 1st Ind (to Memo, Gen Malony for G-2, 16 May), G-2 to WPD, 20 May 41,

WPD 4300-10; Ltr, "Betty" [Adm Stark] to Adm Kimmel, CINCPAC, 24 May 41, Pearl Harbor

Attack, pt. 16, pp. 2168-70. 14 Edgar W. McInnis, The War: Second Year (London: Oxford University Press, 1941), pp.

186-92.
PLANNING THE ICELAND OPERATION 465

ensuing possibilities were ominous. Using Crete as a springboard, the Germans might jump either southward to meet up with Rommel's North African

army in Egypt, or eastward into Vichy-controlled Syria, thence through riottorn Iraq and north to the Caucasus. A move in the latter direction would

be in keeping with Prime Minister Churchill's strong conviction and reports

received by the Department of State to the same effect: that German armies

were poised in central Europe for an imminent attack on Russia. Everything

pointed to a spread of war to the eastward.

The situation in the Mediterranean lent an element of compulsion to the

withdrawal of the British garrison in Iceland. The reduction of German

naval strength in the Atlantic had somewhat eased the threat to the Azores,

and to the Cape Verde and Canary Islands, to the extent that Britain felt

capable of undertaking their defense without, at this time, any American

assistance. And finally a German involvement with Russia would make less

likely a declaration of war on the United States in the event of an American

move into Iceland. The Azores soon lost the precedence assigned to them

only a week or so before.

Meanwhile, the War Department had already taken steps to facilitate

putting into effect one of the American commitments under the ABC-1

Agreement. On 18 May, General Chaney arrived in London as head of the

military mission which, should the United States enter the war, was to be

the command headquarters of United States Army Forces in the British Isles,

but which, for the time being, went by the more euphemistic designation of

Special Observer Group (SPOBS), London. Iceland was envisaged as a

prospective theater of operations geographically within the sphere of the

Special Observer Group. When General Chaney's instructions were being

drafted and the composition of his group was being decided upon, in early

April, the indications had been that American forces would not be sent to

England or Iceland before the following September at the very earliest.15 On

this account, and no doubt to maintain as much of the fiction of neutrality

as possible, General Chaney was given no specific instructions concerning

Iceland or any other field of proposed Anglo-American co-operation. He

was merely directed to establish the channels by which that co-operation

could at some future time be carried out and to govern himself in accordance

with those paragraphs of the staff agreement that provided for the exchange

of missions and defined in general terms their purpose.16 The Special Observer

15

 Memo, G-2 for CofS, 7 Apr 41, WPD 4402-5, sec. 1. 16

 Ltr, CofS to Gen Chaney, 24 Apr 41, sub: Ltr of Instr, WPD 4402-5, sec. 1.
466 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Group had scarcely begun to take soundings in those channels when the

decision to dispatch troops to Iceland was taken.

The President's Decision and the War Department's Response

The decision was made by the President between 3 and 6 June, with the

vigorous and enthusiastic backing of Secretaries Stimson and Knox and,

according to Stimson, the indorsement of the Chief of Staff. General Gerow,

head of the War Plans Division, and some of his subordinates, were opposed

to it.17

Preparations for sending an Army survey party, which had been dormant

since early May, were hastily resumed. Lt. Col. Kirby Green of the 5th Division and three other officers chosen for this purpose were ordered to Washington on 3 June; but, since it was apparent that they would not be able to

leave for Iceland until the end of the month, the War Plans Division requested General Chaney to send out a survey party from London and then to

advise the War Department how the relief of the British garrison should be

carried out. He was asked to advise what American troops would be required,

what quantities of ammunition and supplies should be sent, and how much

would be turned over to the American forces by the departing British.18 Discussions between General Chaney's staff and British officers had begun on 4

June on such matters as housing the American troops, the antiaircraft defense

of Iceland, and the necessary fighter plane strength; and it was decided that a

joint Admiralty, Air, and War Ministry committee would collaborate with the

Special Observer Group in planning the relief of the British forces.19 Apparently the stage was set for General Chaney to play a prominent role in the

formulation of plans for the Iceland movement.

The War Department began its preliminary planning at once. Since only

a meager body of firsthand data was available, the point of departure had to

be the decision itself (that American troops would immediately and completely relieve the British garrison) and from that point planning had to proceed on the basis of the two known factors: that approximately 30,000 troops

would be required, and that either the 1st or 5th Division would provide the

nucleus of the force.

17

 For details of this decision see Conn and Fairchild, Framework of Hemisphere Defense,

pp. 121-25. 18

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 3 Jun 41, sub: Special Observers to Iceland; Memo, WPD for

TAG, 5 Jun 41, sub: Iceland Reconnaissance. Both in WPD 4493, sec. 1. 19

 SPOBS, The Special Observer Group Prior to the Activation of the ETO, Hist Monograph,

OCMH.
PLANNING THE ICELAND OPERATION 467

In the absence of other data the chief consideration governing the strength

and composition of the proposed Iceland garrison was that it must be comparable to the British units for the relief of which the American force was

intended. The report of the reconnaissance made by USS Niblack, a copy of

which had been forwarded to the War Department on 7 May, placed British

ground strength in Iceland at about 25,000 men, although this, it appeared

later, was an overestimate. The Royal Air Force was reported to have about

500 men, with five Sunderland flying boats and six Lockheed Hudson bombers, for antisubmarine patrol, and about a dozen Fairey-Battle seaplanes and

two Moth fighters.20 The British deficiency in fighter plane strength, which

the War Department soon afterward pointed out and London readily conceded, was a matter of concern from the very beginning, and the earliest War

Department calculations included somewhat heavier air strength than the

British garrison enjoyed. Given the size and nature of the British garrison,

the War Department went ahead with plans for a relief force that would

consist of one infantry division reinforced with two antiaircraft regiments, a

harbor defense regiment, an engineer regiment, and the usual services. The

combat aviation planned for the American force would consist of one bombardment and one headquarters squadron, totaling eighteen medium bombers,

and one pursuit squadron of twenty-five planes. The troop strength of the entire force totaled 28,964.21

Since the 5th Division was scheduled to be ready for field service by midsummer, it had been provisionally assigned to the Iceland operation as long

as that operation belonged to the fairly remote and indefinite future. Although the division would not be completely prepared for combat, no armed

opposition to the initial landings in Iceland was expected.22 The decision to

make an immediate move required, however, that an immediately available

unit be substituted. As a result, in the preliminary planning and the discussions

that took place during this first week in June, the 1st Division was scheduled

for the job in lieu of the 5th. The shift of units apparently was made with

some misgivings, for the 1st Division was the best equipped infantry division

in the Army, the only one that approached a state of readiness for combat involving landings on a hostile shore.23

 To tie the division down in Iceland

20

 Rpt, Comdr D. L. Ryan to CNO, 2 May 41, WPD 4493-1, sec. 1; Memo, Capt R. E.

Schuirmann for Gen Marshall, 7 May 41, GHQ 333.1-IBC, binder 38. 21

 Tentative List of Units for Iceland (no date, filed wth WPD Memo to CofS, 5 Jun 41),

OPD-GHQ INDIGO "A." 22

 Chart Showing Readiness of Divisions for Field Service (as of 31 March 41), WPD 4416. 23

 Emergency Expeditionary Force Plan, inclosure to Memo, WPD for CofS, 15 May 41, WPD

3493-11; Memo, WPD for CofS, 9 Jun 41, sub: Readiness of Combat Divs, WPD 4416-1.
468 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

would make impossible the fulfillment of the missions assigned to it by current war plans and thus give a cast of unreality to those plans.

Problems, Remote and Immediate

Two of the problems that later on were to harass the War Department

planners remained in the background for the time being. Legislative restrictions on the use of selectees, of members of the Reserve, and of the National

Guard did not, in these early stages of planning, seem to jeopardize the Iceland operation. And that there would be adequate shipping also seemed fairly certain.

The question of shipping, in late May and early June 1941, appears to

have been not primarily whether vessels were available, but rather where

they should be employed. The problem was one of allocation, which in turn

depended upon decisions of strategy that were as yet unmade, on future requirements that could seldom be calculated with accuracy, on the Maritime

Commission's co-operation which, as the War Department saw it, was not

always assured, and upon the fullest use of commercial shipping and voyage

charters, which the Army at this time was extremely reluctant to employ. The

situation, as it concerned troop transports, was complicated just at this time

by the transfer of six or seven of the Army's largest vessels to the Navy for

operation and control. Although the immediate effect was something of a

dislocation, since the Navy laid up several of the ships for conversion into attack transports, the net result was a gain to the combined transport fleets because the Maritime Commission at once turned over to the Army six fair-sized

passenger liners to replace the tonnage that had been transferred to the

Navy.24

As soon as the decision to relieve the British Iceland garrison had been

taken, the head of the Transportation Section of G-4, Col. Charles P. Gross,

discussed the matter of transportation with a representative of the Navy. The

problem, simply stated, was to place in Iceland, as soon as possible, nearly

30,000 men with 231,554 ship tons of equipment, weapons, and supplies, and

to provide thereafter some 25,000 tons of shipping each month for maintenance.25

 The Navy Department gave assurances, however, that on five days'

24

 Memo, Gen Moore, DCofS, for SW, 10 Jul 41, sub: Utilization of Army Vessels,

G-4/29717-26. See also Chester Wardlow, The Transportation Corps: Responsibilities, Organization, and Operations, UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1951),

ch. V, and Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics and Strategy, 1940-43, ch. II. 25

 Memo, Gross, G-4, for Gen Gerow, WPD, 5 Jun 41, OPD-GHQ INDIGO "A," and Memo,

unsigned, sub: Tonnage and Cubage of Equipment of Army Troops, n.d., filed with it.
PLANNING THE ICELAND OPERATION 469

notice three naval transports with a total capacity of 4,000 men could be provided for the Iceland movement; that on 20 June or thereabout four Army

transports being converted by the Navy and with a capacity of about 6,000

men could be made available; and that by 28 June transportation for the entire

Iceland force could be provided. In forwarding this information to the Chief

of Staff on 5 June, the War Plans Division pointed out that to provide transportation for the entire Iceland force would nevertheless require the "use of

all Marine transports" and would "immobilize the Marine Force for the time

being."

 26

At the same time, the War Plans Division raised inquiry concerning the

effect of the legal restrictions that prohibited the National Guard, members

of the Reserve, and men drafted under the Selective Service Act from serving

outside the Western Hemisphere and that limited their terms of military

service to a period of twelve months. For purposes of naval defense, the

President had placed the Atlantic frontier of the western world, quite arbitrarily, along the meridian 26° west, which, to be sure, excluded the whole of

Iceland.27 The question was one of policy, not geography; and if policy for

the moment dictated a course of exclusion, circumstances at any future time

might well prescribe a change in policy. Whatever concern was felt during

these first days in June seems to have arisen over the time limit rather than the

controversial geographical restriction. On this basis it was entirely rational for

the Office of the Chief of Coast Artillery to observe that selectees would have

to be used in constituting the harbor defense regiment proposed as part of the

Iceland garrison.28 In any event the problems posed by the legal restrictions

did not seem insuperable as long as the 1st Division was being considered

for the nucleus of the force. Although 75 percent of the officers of that division had been drawn from the Reserve, it was presumed that most of them

would volunteer for duty in Iceland. The problem, in this respect, was considered to be one of maintaining secrecy. As for enlisted men, only a "small

percentage" of them were selectees, and only about 10 percent of the men of

the two antiaircraft regiments—the 61st and 68th—were subject to the restrictions written into the Selective Service and National Defense Acts.29

26

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 5 Jun 41, sub: Transports for Movement to Iceland, WPD 4493-3,

sec. 1. 27

 Ltr, TAG to CG's, 21 May 41, sub: Navy Western Hemisphere Defense Plan 2, WPD

4414-1. 28

 Memo, Lt Col Hugh N. Herrick, Asst OCofCA, for ACofS WPD, 5 Jun 41, WPD 4493-29,

sec. 1. 29

 Strengthening the National Defense, Statement of General George C. Marshall (Testimony

of 9 Jul 41 in Hearings Before the Committee on Military Affairs, U.S. Senate, 9 Jul 41)

(Washington, 1941); Memo, Col Herrick for ACofS WPD, 5 Jun 41, WPD 4493-29.
470 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Harbor conditions and the lack of facilities at Reykjavík were recognized

as the real limitation. Although Reykjavík, the capital of Iceland, was the

largest town and chief port, its harbor was shallow, subject to occasional hurricanes, and had a fairly wide range of tide. Both G-2 and Naval Intelligence

reported a depth of only sixteen feet alongside the piers at low water, whereas the available ships drew from twenty-five to thirty feet. As a consequence,

all troops and cargo would have to be lightered ashore and the rate of discharge would therefore be slow.30

 For this reason the Navy recommended

that the movement be handled in four convoys sailing at intervals of about

three weeks beginning 15 June. Each convoy would consist of four troopships

and four cargo vessels carrying approximately 7,000 men and 60,000 tons of

cargo. Each would make the trip to Iceland in about ten days and require

fifteen days for discharge. Since the vessels that made up the first two convoys

could thus repeat their voyages, only sixteen ships would be needed, the Navy

optimistically reported. With the departure of the last convoy from Iceland,

about 10 September, the entire operation would be completed. On 5 June the

War Plans Division submitted the Navy's neatly drawn blueprint to the Chief

of Staff. The outstanding points, the War Plans Division noted, were: that

the Iceland and Azores operations could not be carried out simultaneously

because of the shipping situation; that the Iceland movement should be

conducted in stages because of meager housing and harbor facilities; and

that it would be impossible to conduct the operation in secrecy.31 But before

further action could be taken, the course of affairs had taken a new turn as

the result of Stimson's conference with the President that same day, 5 June.

In discussing with Secretary Stimson the effect the Iceland movement

would have on the use of expeditionary forces for all other purposes under

the basic war plans, the President expressed his opinion that a unit of marines

would have to go in the first contingent to Iceland. Although this solution

was not thoroughly to the liking of the Chief of Staff, he recognized that it

would permit substituting the 5th Division for the more indispensable 1st

Division as the basic component of the force and that thus the latter division

would once more be available for the role originally assigned to it in the war

plans. Accordingly, on 7 June, General Marshall informed War Plans Division

that the Iceland preparations should be based upon using the 5th Division

with a Marine Corps unit for the first wave of the force.32 The 6th Regiment

30

 Memo, Gross, G-4, for ACofS WPD, 5 Jun 41, OPD-GHQ INDIGO "A." 31

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 5 Jun 41, sub: Transports for Movement to Iceland, WPD 4493-3,

sec. 1. 32

 Gerow Diary, entry of 7 Jun 41.
PLANNING THE ICELAND OPERATION 471

of marines, which had been ordered east from San Diego when the Azores

operation was still in the air late in May, was at this moment en route to the

east coast by way of the Panama Canal. It was now, with appropriate reinforcement, designated the 1st Marine Brigade (Provisional) and on 12 June,

while the regiment was still at sea, orders were drafted for the newly created

brigade to depart for Iceland ten days later under the command of Brig. Gen.

John Marston, USMC.33

Simultaneously, the War Department took the initial steps required by

the shift of units. Personnel of the 5th Division were "frozen" in their assignments. The commander of the division, Maj. Gen. Joseph M. Cummins, was

ordered to Washington to participate in the planning. The respective divisions of the General Staff were asked to prepare embarkation plans, to make

ready special clothing and equipment, and to investigate and plan the necessary housing. The required change in the convoy schedule previously recommended by the Navy was sketched out. The new timetable, submitted to the

War Department on 16 June, tentatively provided for three convoys sailing

at ten-day intervals, beginning 20 August, each carrying 8,500 men.34

The shift of units brought forward the problem of personnel. In contrast

to the 1st Division, as many as 41 percent of the enlisted men of the 5th

Division were selectees and from 75 to 88 percent of the officers were members of the Reserve. Earlier, when the 5th Division had been provisionally

designated for a possible Iceland expedition under the ABC-1 Agreement,

General Marshall had pointed out that volunteers and Regular Army personnel could be substituted for the selectees while the division was awaiting

its ocean transportation.35 Now G-1 estimated that, by shifting troops within the division, one infantry regiment and one field artillery battalion could

be prepared for movement within a week after orders were issued; or by

transferring men from at least three other divisions, the entire 5th Division

could be made ready within three weeks. The War Plans Division favored

the second course of action on the ground that the alternative would lower

the combat efficiency of those units of the division from which the three-year

33

 Draft Ltr of Instr, CNO to CINCLANT, 12 Jun 41, OPD-GHQ INDIGO "A." The official

mimeographed orders were dated 16 June. See also, John L. Zimmerman, The First Marine

Brigade (Provisional): Iceland, 1941-42 (Historical Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps,

1946), p. 6. 34

 Memo, G-1 for CofS, 9 Jun 41, OCS 21176-6; Telg, TAG to CG 5th Div, 11 Jun 41;

unsigned Memo reference a Conf held in WPD on 12 Jun, 13 Jun 41. Last two in WPD 4416-1.

Memo, unsigned, OCNO, 16 Jun 41, sub: Tentative Schedule for Move of Army to INDIGO,

OPD-GHQ INDIGO "A." 35

 Notes on Conf in Office of the SW, 19 May 41, OCS file, Emergency Measures—1939-40,

binder 1.
472 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

enlisted men were drawn. The preparation of detailed plans for shifting personnel was assigned to G-1 and G-3 on 12 June, but the execution of the

plans was to be deferred until specifically ordered.36

By mid-June at least seven different offices and agencies were to one extent

or another involved in planning for the Iceland expedition, and very shortly

GHQ would enter the picture. In London, General Chaney's Special Observer

Group was working out a program premised upon the relief of the British as

the principal object and designed primarily to provide a satisfactory timetable. In the War Department, G-1 and G-3 were preparing the plans

through which suitable, adequately trained personnel would be available.

G-4 was engaged in planning the embarkation and transportation of the

troops and in preparing plans for housing and equipping them. The War

Plans Division had the task of working out such details as command and

interservice relations and of drawing together the various plans into a comprehensive whole that would conform to broader strategy. Furthermore, the

Navy was involved in the formulation of Army plans so far as they concerned

convoys and shipping. Finally, the Joint Board of the Army and Navy,

through its Joint Planning Committee, was responsible for the basic Army and

Navy directive, which would be the definitive joint plan for the operation.

INDIGO Planning, First Phase37

By mid-June, American reconnaissance parties were descending upon

Iceland in a flurry of activity. First to appear was Lt. William C. Asserson,

USN, officer in charge of the Navy's Greenland survey. His report on possible

patrol plane bases in Iceland did not reach the War Department until the end

of the month, and by then the Army's plans had already been laid, changed,

and superseded. The survey party sent out from London by General Chaney

was next to arrive and spent nearly a week gathering data on housing and

living conditions, on air, coast, and harbor defenses, the state of airdromes,

mine fields, docking facilities, communications, and the like. On 12 June, the

days after the SPOBS survey party arrived from London, two Army officers

and a Marine Corps survey party arrived from the United States. The Army

officers were Lt. Col. Geoffrey M. O'Connell, who had been designated a

member of the group organized on 3 June, and Capt. Richard R. Arnold.

After spending a total of thirty hours in Iceland and conferring briefly with

36

 Memo, Lt Col Lee S. Gerow for Gen Gerow, WPD, Jun 41, sub: Readiness of the 5th

Division, WPD 4416-1. 37

 INDIGO was the code name used for Iceland.
PLANNING THE ICELAND OPERATION 473

Lieutenant Asserson in Argentia, Newfoundland, Colonel O'Connell and

Captain Arnold returned to Washington and presented a nineteen-page report on their reconnaissance.38

Within three days after Colonel O'Connell and Captain Arnold returned,

the War Department received two other reports on Iceland; one from General Chaney and a second from Maj. Gen. H. O. Curtis, general officer commanding the British forces in Iceland. Fearing the limitations that would affect the proposed operations were not properly understood, General Curtis

had placed before the American survey parties his views on the various

problems of command, housing, and transportation, which he then sent off

as a long dispatch to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff.39 In accordance

with General Curtis' recommendation, the British Embassy forwarded a summary of his dispatch to the War Plans Division on the same day that Colonel

O'Connell and Captain Arnold were submitting their report; and a few days

later the full text was received by the War Department. General Chaney

summarized his own recommendations in a lengthy cable to the War Department on 19 June; and on 24 June Lt. Col. George W. Griner, Jr., one of the

members of the SPOBS survey party, arrived in Washington with General

Chaney's complete plan.40

All three reports highlighted these aspects of the problem: first, the lack

of harbor facilities at Reykjavík and the outports, which would impose limitations on shipping; second, the availability of housing, which was conditioned

upon the British evacuating their Nissen huts; and third, the onset of winter

gales and snow after late September, which established a deadline for the

operation. Each report differed from the others in the relative weight assigned

to these factors, in the thoroughness with which they were covered, and, in

some cases, in the matter of factual detail as well. As a presentation of the

basic data necessary for formulating any plan, the O'Connell-Arnold report

reflected the haste in which the data had been gathered. All the thirty-five

topics it dealt with were, with a few exceptions, treated in superficial, far

from specific fashion.41

38

 The other members of the Army survey party of 3 June were sent with the 1st Marine

Brigade and therefore did not reach Iceland until 7 July. 39

 Cable, ALABASTER to TROOPERS (Personal from Gen Curtis to Chief of the Imperial

General Staff), 13 Jun 41, OPD-GHQ INDIGO "A." 40

 Hist Div, U.S. Forces European Theater, Administrative and Logistical History of the

European Theater of Operations, pt. I, The Predecessor Commands: The Special Observers

(SPOBS) and United States Army Forces in the British Isles (USAFBI), Hist Monograph,

OCMH, pp. 40-41; Rad, TAG to SPOBS, No. 16, 27 Jun 41, WPD 4402-34, sec 2. 41

 A copy of the report by Colonel O'Connell and Captain Arnold (9-16 June 1941) is in

OPD-GHQ INDIGO "A."
474 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

General Chaney's report was in the nature of counsel on matters of policy,

on the decisions that were required, and the way they should be executed.

The data on which he based his recommendations were included in nine annexes covering the various arms and services.42

 Where General Curtis, in his

dispatch, emphasized the shipping and cargo-handling difficulties that would

be encountered, General Chaney, on the other hand, was inclined to stress the

housing problem. In either case the conclusion was that the entire operation

must be completed before the advent of winter weather late in September

and that the utmost co-operation between British and Americans would be

required.

The distinguishing feature of General Chaney's plan was its bilateral approach in providing a timetable not only for the movement of American

troops to Iceland but for the withdrawal of the British garrison as well. Both

moves and the relief of the marines were to be accomplished in five stages.

The first four contingents of American troops were to consist of about 6,000

men each. The relief of the British was to begin as soon as the second convoy

completed discharge and was to proceed successively following the arrival of

each American convoy thereafter. When the last American contingent, of

some 4,500, had landed, the marines would return to the United States and

the last of the British units would depart for England. The entire movement

would be completed by the end of September. So precise was the schedule as

to demand what would have been in fact a united Anglo-American effort.

General Chaney in his plan provided for such an effort. None of the others

did so.

Shipping requirements and the housing problem seem to have been the

rocks on which the Chaney plan foundered. On both subjects, General Chaney

and the War Department disagreed in several particulars.

As for housing, General Chaney's plan was to make use of the Nissen

huts vacated by the British units scheduled for relief. The total number of

men who could thus be housed would come to about 22,000, but the British,

he reported, would deliver enough material for huts to accommodate the remainder of the American forces. The inevitable overlapping period between

the arrival of troops from America and the departure of corresponding British

units for England would, according to General Chaney, present the gravest

problem. During this period either the British or Americans would have

to live in tents. He therefore regarded it as absolutely essential that the first

American Army contingent arrive in Iceland by 1 August. When he informed

42

 Rpt of Reconnaissance of Iceland, General Chaney to CofS, 19 Jun 41, WPD 4493-20, sec. 1.
PLANNING THE ICELAND OPERATION 475

the War Department that the British would deliver the material for all additional huts necessary, General Chaney had neglected to say how many this

would be. War Plans Division, clearly skeptical, requested immediate confirmation that the British could furnish the 3,128 huts that War Department

figures indicated would be required.43 General Chaney, it then transpired, had

calculated that less than half this number would be necessary. Whereas the

War Department estimated that accommodations for 10,000 additional men

would be needed (including any British units remaining through the winter),

General Chaney figured 7,000. The War Department estimate for hospital

facilities and storage was three times as high as his. And finally, General

Chaney took no account of space for headquarters, mess, kitchens, and day

rooms, for which the War Department figured an additional 1,008 huts would

be needed. What the British would provide was a total of 1,336 huts, General

Chaney replied to War Plans Division, and, unable to make out how the War

Department total of 3,128 had been reached, he referred the War Plans Division to Colonel Griner for complete details.44

Discrepant calculations in the matter of shipping requirements were the

root of further confusion. On the subject of harbor conditions, General

Chaney's observations controverted a number of assumptions from which

War Department planning had proceeded. Whereas the War Department

was basing its preparations on lightering troops and cargo ashore, on account

of the low depth of water at the Reykjavík piers, General Chaney considered

this impossible. There were no lighters at Reykjavík, he pointed out, no cargo

cranes on the piers, and the availability of coastal shipping for lighterage purposes was questionable. It was feasible, he continued, to dock vessels with a

maximum draft of twenty-one feet. He therefore based his calculations on

berthing all the cargo vessels alongside the piers and discharging them by

means of the ships' booms. According to his convoy schedule the operation

would require a total of thirty-one ships, nearly twice the number that the

Navy had been figuring upon using. They might have been found without

too much difficulty had it not been that practically all the cargo transports

under Army and Navy control were larger and deeper than those called for

in the Chaney plan. And even if his shipping requirements had been com43

 Cables, SPOBS to TAG, No. 13, 18 Jun 41, WPD 4493-11, sec. 1; SPOBS to TAG, No.

15, 19 Jun 41; OPD-GHQ INDIGO "A"; TAG to SPOBS, No. 11, 23 Jun 41, AG 320.2 (6-9-

41). For the breakdown of the War Department estimate, see note on copy of foregoing radiogram

in OPD-GHQ INDIGO "A." 44

 Rad, SPOBS to TAG, No. 19, 25 Jun 41, OPD-GHQ INDIGO "A." General Chaney was

probably basing his figures on British Army housing scales, which allotted considerably less

space per man than the corresponding American tables.
476 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

pletely met, the total cargo capacity of the thirty-one vessels, including repeated voyages and the use of troopships to their maximum capacity, would

have been at least 43,000 tons short of the figure which two weeks earlier had

been the basis of War and Navy Department shipping calculations. Anomaly

was added to discrepancy when General Chaney recommended a level of supply somewhat higher than that used by the War Department to estimate the

cargo requirements. Furthermore, General Chaney incorporated in his report

a British request that, because of their own shipping shortage and to reduce

port congestion in Iceland, certain American transports be made available for

the movement back to England of British troops and equipment. This request

the War Department absolutely and unconditionally rejected.45

Meanwhile, the War Plans Division had been working along the lines of

the convoy schedule drawn up by the Navy on 16 June. But no sooner was

the schedule set up than a modification seemed necessary. Convinced that a

serious lack of housing and storage was in prospect, especially in the northern and eastern outports, the War Plans Division proposed that a construction party of 2,200 engineers precede the first regularly scheduled contingent

in order to make certain that the necessary huts were in place by the end of

September.46 This would add a fourth convoy to the schedule. Even more consequential was the change made in the level of reserve supplies. The War Department's early plans of 5 June had been based on an initial level of 60-day

supply, to be raised and maintained at a 90-day level by the time the operation was completed. But on 21 June the Chief of Staff approved a recommendation made by the War Plans Division on the same day that supply requirements (except ammunition) be increased to a 90-day level, to be raised

to a 180-day level within the period scheduled for the troop movement. The

effect was that cargo requirements were doubled. Instead of approximately

230,000 ship tons of cargo to be handled along with the troops, the figure now

jumped to the neighborhood of 450,000 tons. By thus changing one of the

basic conditions, the War Department made General Chaney's plan entirely

impracticable; for if the limitation on the draft of vessels, insisted upon by

General Chaney and the British, were to be observed, the Navy noted, a total

of seventy-five cargo vessels would be necessary.47

45

 Rad, TAG to SPOBS, No. 18, 28 Jun 41, OPD-GHQ INDIGO "A." 46

 Memo (unused) WPD for CofS, 19 Jun 41, sub: Relief of British Troops in Iceland,

OPD-GHQ INDIGO "A."; Memo, WPD for CofS, 21 Jun 41, sub: U.S. Forces for INDIGO, WPD

4493-15- sec. 1. 47

 Memo, Gross, G-4, for ACofS WPD, 5 Jun 41 and accompanying Tonnage and Cubage

of Equipment of Army Troops, OPD-GHQ INDIGO "A"; Memo, WPD for CofS, 21 Jun 41,

sub: U.S. Forces for INDIGO, WPD 4493-15, sec. 1; Memo Capt Oscar Smith, USN, for Lt Col

Leven C. Allen, WPD, 20 Jun 41, sub: Logistics Involved . . . , OPD-GHQ INDIGO.
PLANNING THE ICELAND OPERATION 477

Using troop and cargo figures furnished by the War Plans Division, the

Navy Department now worked up a convoy schedule adapted to the War Department's new requirements. Four convoys, sailing 20 July, 25 August, 4

September, and 14 September, were scheduled. To transport the 29,000 or so

troops and 445,200 ship tons of cargo there would be required a total of

forty-one ships, including the three largest vessels in the American merchant

marine. Only three cargo ships of less than twenty-one feet draft were provided, and these were intended for the northern and eastern outports. To mitigate unloading problems at Reykjavík, three steam lighters were to be taken

along, under tow, in the first convoy. In submitting the schedule on 20 June,

Capt. Oscar Smith of the Navy Department gave no assurance, however, that

the required vessels would be available. The shipping situation, he pointed

out, had become serious, and on this account it was essential, he continued,

that requirements be reduced to the minimum.48

The general situation was further beclouded by growing uncertainty within the War Department. Despite the substitution of the 5th Division for the

1st Division, the War Plans Division continued to view with alarm the effect

of the Iceland expedition upon the Army's readiness to put its basic war plans

into execution. The selectee problem was emphasized at every opportunity.

The cost of the construction program was stressed. And when the President

began to express his fears that the proposed force was inadequate and intimated that it might be well for the British garrison to remain in addition to

the American forces, General Gerow countered with the thought that the

whole operation be called off, since it was dictated by political considerations

rather than military necessity.49

G-4, the Logistics Division of the General Staff, took a similarly pessimistic view. The bottleneck, according to G-4, was not shipping but rather the

inadequate wharf facilities at Reykjavík and Hvalfjördhur. And on this premise, Brig. Gen. Eugene E. Reybold, chief of the division, questioned the

feasibility of all the proposals so far considered. It was evident, he asserted,

that the efforts of the War Department would have to be pointed toward any

one or all of the following: toward extending the relief movement beyond

September in spite of the danger of stormy weather; toward cutting down the

force by perhaps providing for a joint United States-British garrison; and toward reducing equipment and supplies to bare necessities.50

 By recommending

that the expedition be limited to a total of 200,000 ship tons of cargo, that

48

 Memo, Smith for Allen, 20 Jun 41, OPD-GHQ INDIGO. 49

 Gerow Diary, entries of 19 and 20 Jun 41. 50

 Memo, G-4 for ACofS, WPD, 25 Jun 41, WPD 4493-38, sec. 1.
478 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

current planning be modified to conform to this limitation, and that even

then the risk of partial failure be accepted, General Reybold helped to knock

the Iceland plans into a cocked hat.

Meanwhile, the administrative change was taking shape by which some

planning functions held by the War Plans Division were to be turned over

to GHQ. GHQ was to have the task of drafting detailed theater plans for the

operations assigned to it, while the War Plans Division would continue to

draw up the strategic plans that defined and prescribed the operations. In

anticipation of this step, General Malony, head of the planning section of the

War Plans Division, had been transferred to GHQ on 15 June as deputy

chief of staff in charge of plans and operations. His previous assignment had

thrown him into the midst of the Iceland preparations, and although the

formal directive authorizing the enlargement of GHQ's functions was not

issued until 3 July, General Malony almost at once took up where he had left

off in the War Department. He was presiding over a conference held in the

War Plans Division on 24 June when Colonel Griner arrived from London

with General Chaney's recommendations. Next day the two planning staffs,

WPD and GHQ, met in an effort to fit General Chaney's plan into the mosaic

being pieced together in the War Department, but the result, as the GHQ

Diary records, was "pretty confused and obscure."

 51

On the following Tuesday, 1 July, the Army-Navy Joint Planning Committee finally completed and submitted to the Joint Board the basic directive

for the Iceland operation. Given the short title INDIGO, it was intended to be

the definitive joint plan to which all subsequent planning should conform.52

Unfortunately it emerged stillborn. The plan failed to survive a policy decision taken the very same day, a decision that was partly the culmination of

the War Department's approach to the problem and partly the result of the

President's fears that the proposed garrison was inadequate.

Heretofore the confusion and the vacillation and the irreconcilable plans

had generally arisen over a question of method, of how to transport to Iceland

by a definite date a specified number of men with a given amount of supplies

and equipment. But the tendency to approach a solution by changing the

terms of the proposition gradually developed, and the more pronounced this

tendency became, the larger grew the area susceptible to dispute and revision.

51

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 19 Jun 41, sub: Enlargement of the Functions of GHQ, WPD

3209-10; GHQ Diary, AGF file 314.81, 6-23-41 to 3-4-42; Greenfield et al., Organization of

Ground Combat Troops, pp. 15-20. See also, in the same series, Cline, The Operations Division,

pp. 61-67. 52

 Joint Army and Navy Basic Plan for the Occupation of Iceland by a Permanent Garrison of

the U.S. Army (short title: INDIGO), submitted 1 Jul 41, OPD-GHQ INDIGO "B"
PLANNING THE ICELAND OPERATION 479

Shuffling the supply requirements had necessitated several changes in plan

before the INDIGO directive finally established a convoy schedule by cutting

back the bulk of reserves to a 90-day level, and by setting a 200,000-ton limit

on cargo, and making a corresponding reduction in the number of cargo

transports.53 General Gerow, head of the War Plans Division, had privately

urged that the operation be abandoned. G-4 had suggested the possibility of

reducing the size of the force and had formally recommended extending the

date of the movement. Now, on 1 July, the size of the American force was

brought seriously into question and the whole INDIGO plan was thrown into

discard.

A New Decision: Reinforcement, Not Relief

It was primarily President Roosevelt's doubt whether there were enough

British troops in Iceland which led, paradoxically, to the reduction in size of

the American force. Informed of his views, the British Foreign Office in late

June gave a definite pledge that no troops would be withdrawn until both the

United States and Britain were satisfied that the defenses of Iceland were

secure. The Foreign Office agreed that it would not be an "over-insurance"

for the American force to be increased by an additional "brigade group"

(about 7,100 men) and by greater air strength. That the British garrison

would be completely relieved was still the understanding of the Foreign

Office, which at this moment was in fact using the withdrawal of British

troops as an argument to persuade the Icelandic Government to request American protection.54

 When it finally reached President Roosevelt, the rather

lukewarm invitation voiced a concern similar to his own. The Icelanders

wanted "picked troops" to be sent and, as one of several conditions on which

American protection would be accepted, the Icelandic Government stated:

. . . it is considered obvious that if the United States undertake defense of the country

it must be strong enough to meet every eventuality, and particularly in the beginning it

is expected that, as far as possible, efforts will be made to prevent any special danger in

connection with change-over. Iceland Government lays special stress on there being

sufficient airplanes for defensive purposes, wherever they are required and [wherever]

they can be used, as soon as decision is made for the United States to undertake the

defense of the country.55

53

 An. C to INDIGO Directive, cited n. 52. 54

 Ltr, British Ambassador Lord Halifax to Under Secy of State Welles, 28 Jun 41; Telg,

Foreign Office to Halifax, 28 Jun 41; Ltr, Welles to Marshall, 29 Jun 41. All in OPD-GHQ

INDIGO "A." Rpt of Conf between the British and American Ministers to Iceland and the Prime

Minister (Iceland) from American Minister to Secy of State, 28 Oct 41, GHQ 320.2 Iceland—

Strength. 55

 Defense of Iceland by U.S. Forces: Agreement Between the United States of America and

Iceland, Department of State Executive Agreement Series 232, No. 1703 (Washington, 1942).

(In the interest of clarity, a few changes of punctuation have been made in the quoted extract.)
480 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

The War Plans Division, on the other hand, had deprecated any suggestion

that the force provided in the INDIGO plan be increased.56 Reinforcing the

British, instead of relieving them, was the alternative; and this was the solution adopted by the President. From Hyde Park he telephoned Admiral Stark

that the marines were to go to Iceland at once and that the Army was to send

whatever force would be necessary for relieving the marines and for providing an adequate garrison, joined with the British.57

 The invitation from

Iceland to take over the task of defense, its acceptance by the President, the

orders for the marines to resume their voyage (they had been held at Argentia for three days in expectation of the Icelandic request), and the decision

that the Army would reinforce the British, not relieve them, all came on the

same day, 1 July 1941.

Neither General Chaney nor the British had been forewarned; both were

understandably puzzled at the new development, and the immediate response

was a surprised protest from the British Admiralty. "Planning here [London]

has been based on the assumption that it was the United States intention to

replace British troops in Iceland," the Admiralty expostulated. The only

questions previously raised, continued the Admiralty, had concerned, first,

the overlap between the arrival of American troops and the departure of the

British, and second, the matter of air strength. Now came the news that the

British were to remain. "Can you help to elucidate?" the Admiralty asked the

Joint Staff Mission in Washington; while General Chaney sent a similar

query to the War Department.58 No clarification was forthcoming until 5

July when the War Plans Division informed Chaney:

The following resulted from conference today. Administration plans to ask Congress

at early date to remove legal restrictions on employment of Reserve Officers and Selectees. This request will provoke bitter Congressional controversy. Consequent delay will

prevent total relief as originally planned. Revised plan tentatively approved at conference

contemplates token relief only of relatively small number British troops and relief of

Marines. This limited relief will be possible only if legislative restrictions are removed. . . .

59

The claim was not made, as it was soon afterwards, that the legal restrictions themselves caused the original INDIGO plan to be abandoned; and as

for the effect of Congressional controversy over lifting them, if the President

56

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 1 Jul 41, sub: Relief of British, INDIGO, WPD 4493-31, sec. 1. 57

 Memo, CNO for Dir of War Plans (USN), 1 Jul 41, OPD-GHQ INDIGO "A." 58

 Admiralty to Jt Staff Mission, 3 Jul 41, OPD-GHQ INDIGO "A." 59

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 5 Jul 41 (with Cable 22 to SPOBS), WPD 4493-37, sec. 1.
PLANNING THE ICELAND OPERATION 481

had already made up his mind to ask their removal when he made the Iceland

decision on 1 July, the War Plans Division had apparently been kept uninformed of his intentions. But the release of the Chief of Staff's biennial

report on the morning of Thursday, 3 July, opened the question to public

discussion. Immediately the leaders of isolationist opinion let loose a barrage

of criticism against General Marshall's recommendation that the twelvemonth limitation on the length of service be removed. Recklessly outspoken

in his opposition, Senator Burton K. Wheeler was quoted by The New York

Times as being "reliably informed" that "American troops will embark for

Iceland. . . ," and was further reported as having announced the specific date

of sailing.60 President Roosevelt, who had been at Hyde Park for the past

week, suddenly changed his plans to remain there over the weekend, and took

the train for Washington Friday night. His first move the next morning was

to call together Secretary Stimson, Under Secretary of the Navy James V.

Forrestal, and Acting Secretary of State Welles, along with Admiral Royal

E. Ingersoll, Assistant Chief of Naval Operations, and General Marshall,

for a discussion of the Iceland problem. The result of the conference was

embodied in the message sent to General Chaney later in the day, but neither

the President nor Secretary Stimson as yet saw fit to comment publicly on

the recommendations in General Marshall's report. Then, on the following

Monday, 7 July, Presidential Secretary Stephen T. Early dropped a guarded

hint to the press that a message to Congress asking an extension of the

twelve-month limit of service was to be expected. It was almost completely

overshadowed, however, by the announcement, simultaneously made, that

American marines had landed in Iceland.61

The First American Forces Land in Iceland

With the marines were the Army officers designated for the Iceland survey in early June. Two others, Lt. Col. Clarence N. Iry, and Maj. Richard

S. Whitcomb, joined the convoy at Argentia, and by taking a Navy patrol

plane reached Iceland three days before the convoy arrived. This would,

Whitcomb thought, give them a better opportunity to see how the convoy was

unloaded.62

Thanks to unusually good weather, to the co-operation of the British,

and doubtless to the fact that three of the four troop transports were com60

 The New York Times, Friday, July 4, 1941. 61

 Ibid., Saturday, July 5, Sunday, July 6, and Tuesday, July 8, 1941. 62

 Memo, Maj Whitcomb for Col Dillon, 27 Jun 41, OPD-GHQ INDIGO "A."
482 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

TEMPORARY SUPPLY DUMP IN REYKJAVIK

pletely combat loaded, the vessels finished discharge sooner than Colonel Iry

and Major Whitcomb expected. In four days the ships were ready to return.

Perhaps most noteworthy was the fact that the two cargo ships Hamul and

Arcturus, though drawing twenty-two and twenty-three feet, were able to

berth at the inner harbor docks at high tide, where, by speeding up the

operations as much as possible and by keeping the ships evenly trimmed so

that they could rest on the bottom in safety, they were able to unload without particular difficulty in spite of the shallow depth at low water. The other

vessels discharged over the beach. The most serious problem was a lack

of shore transportation, as a result of which cargo piled up on the beach and

docks faster than it could be removed. In the interest of speedily emptying

the vessels, orderliness was sacrificed.63 The Icelanders were tremendously

63

 The convoy operations are described in the following reports: U.S. Naval Observer (First

Provisional Marine Brigade) to CNO, 15 Jul 41, and Ltr, Commandant, USMC, to CNO, 28

Jul 41. Both in WPD 4493-74, sec. 3; Col Iry to CofEngrs, no date, WPD 4493-57, sec. 3;

Msg, COMTRANSDIV TWO to COMBATDIV FIVE, 19 Jul 41, OPD-GHQ INDIGO "A."
PLANNING THE ICELAND OPERATION 483

impressed, not, however, by the confusion and disorder, but by the vast store

of supplies and equipment that the marines brought north with them.64

The next actual step toward implementing the President's decision of

1 July was the departure of the 33d Pursuit Squadron and attached units

on 27 July. Although he had made it abundantly clear that the size and

composition of the force was a matter for the Army to determine, the President had just as clearly expressed his opinion, as he had in the case of Bermuda and Newfoundland, that the thing to do was to get some planes on

the spot at once. The War Plans Division, when the decision to reinforce the

British was made, had requested General Chaney to confirm the War Department view that a force of one pursuit squadron, one infantry regiment, and

a tank company, plus engineers and services—or about 6,300 men—would

be adequate. But in the conference of 5 July the President, impatient perhaps at the slow-moving wheels of War Department machinery, specifically

directed the Army to send the pursuit squadron without further delay.65 The

Joint Planning Committee accordingly began work on a new directive, INDIGO-I . Completed five days later, it provided for the movement of the following units, organized as a task force: the 33d Pursuit Squadron (reduced);

1st Battalion (less two companies), 21st Engineers (Aviation); one composite aircraft warning company; Company A, 392d Quartermaster Battalion

(Port); and a number of smaller detachments of medical, ordnance, signal,

chemical, weather, and other service units.66 The entire force totaled about

1,100 men and 30 planes. Nothing was said in the directive about the eventual

Army garrison, and beyond designating the force the First Echelon, Task

Force 4, no provision was made for any future installment. Had all the

INDIGO directives taken this approach, the Iceland planning might have been

less time-consuming.

Under the command of Lt. Col. Edward M. Morris, the First Echelon,

Task Force 4, sailed on 27 July in two elements; the ground component, from

New York Port of Embarkation; and the planes and pilots from Norfolk on

the newly commissioned carrier Wasp. After meeting at sea in the evening

of 28 July, they were formed into one convoy and arrived without incident

64

 Ltr, B. Eric Kuniholm (then U.S. consul, Reykjavík) to Acting Chief of Military History,

21 Apr 59, in OCMH files. 65

 Rad, 19, TAG to SPOBS, 2 Jul 41, WPD 4493-34, sec. 1; Gerow Diary, entry of 5 Jul 41. 66

 Jt Army and Navy Directive . . . INDIGO-I, submitted to JB, 10 Jul 41, WPD 4493-41, sec.

2; Ltr, TAG to CG's NYPE, Langley Field, and Mitchel Field, and Chiefs, Supply Arms and

Services, 15 Jul 41, sub: Task Force 4; and Rad, TAG to CG NYPE, 16 Jul 41. Both in GHQ

2860 Corresp, binder 47.
484 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

off Reykjavík on the morning of 6 August.67 As the convoy approached the

coast of Iceland, the pilots of the 33d Pursuit Squadron flew their planes off

the deck of the Wasp in what was, for Army Air Corps pilots, a most unusual

performance and, for the carrier, a first rehearsal for its two missions to

Malta the following spring.

INDIGO Planning, Second Phase

GHQ and the War Plans Division were, in the meantime, facing new

issues. Procedural questions were no longer the primary concern. The problem, during July and early August, was the substantive issue of what to do

and how many troops to do it with. Inextricably involved in this larger issue

were a number of special questions brought into prominence by the new

situation. The restrictions affecting the service of selectees and members of

the Reserve were magnified by the conflict in Congress over the attempt to

repeal them. The question of command was made more delicate by the decision to garrison Iceland jointly with the British. And there were as yet

undisclosed elements of uncertainty for the marines in the new situation;

for if the problem of how to relieve the British could lead to a decision not

to relieve them, so might the question of how to relieve the marines.

Under its newly enlarged functions, GHQ had assembled the INDIGO-I

troops and directed the whole movement. At the same time, a Theater of

Operations Plan was well on the way to completion by 10 July. Although

the basic issues concerning the total Iceland force were still in doubt, GHQ

continued work on the plan and attempted to make it sufficiently elastic to

meet any changes in the situation.68 The plan assumed that the defense of

Iceland would require the force provided in the original INDIGO plan, which

had never gone into effect; namely, a reinforced division of approximately

27,000 or 30,000 men, including aviation and service units, distributed

among four sectors somewhat in accordance with the existing British scheme

of defense. Details of supply, and plans covering the complete activities of

the technical services, were provided in sixteen annexes. Flexibility was to

be achieved by letting the commander of the force relocate the sector boundaries whenever necessary and by leaving undetermined the question of how

and when the British and the marines were to be relieved. The only specific

67

 INDIGO-I Directive, 10 Jul 41, cited n. 66; Hq IBC, Rcd of Events, IBC, 14 June 1941-

30 June 1942, IBC 314.7. 68

 Memo, Col Hays, G-3 Sec GHQ, for Planning Sec, GHQ, 10 Jul 41, OPD Misc, Jt Plans—

INDIGO; Memo, Gen Malony DCofS GHQ for ACofS WPD, 6 Aug 41, WPD 4493-86, sec. 3.
PLANNING THE ICELAND OPERATION 485

schedule set up in the operations plan was for the movement of a combat

team of some 10,000 men, which was to be the initial element of the force

and was to arrive in three convoys before 1 October. The First Echelon of

the combat team was the 33d Pursuit Squadron and supporting troops which

had already sailed; the Second Echelon was to follow in two convoys sailing

22 August and 5 September.69

This force—a balanced combat team of 10,000 men—represented the

currently accepted basis of War Department planning at the time the GHQ

Operations Plan was submitted to the War Plans Division for review on

6 August. It had, however, been accepted by the War Department only at

the specific direction of the President. The War Plans Division, raising its

first estimate of 6,200 men at the instance of General Chaney, had set the

maximum number at about 7,500 men. Any larger force, the War Department argued, would increase the shipping and supply burden and would

require stationing parts of the force in remote outposts, thus complicating

an "already difficult" command situation.70 The President, informed of War

Department views by General Marshall, was apparently not convinced, and

on 16 July he instructed the Army to send a force of 10,000 men to Iceland

during 1941. To put the President's order into effect a new joint plan,

INDIGO-2, was drawn up, approved by the Joint Board on 23 July, and

turned over to GHQ for execution as soon as the President should direct.

In forwarding INDIGO-2 to the Secretary of War the Joint Board seems to

have recommended that for the attention of the President it be noted that,

unless the restrictions on the length of service of selectees were removed in

sufficient time to permit sending the troops before 1 September, the marines

would have to stay in Iceland until the next year.71

The selectee question was one of those problems that take on a different

aspect according to the point from which they are viewed. To General Gerow,

who at the time considered the Iceland operation a political move, and not

a military necessity, and to the War Plans Division generally, which was concerned by the possible effect of the expedition on the Army's readiness for

its long-range strategic tasks, the problem was one of organization or administration and could only be solved by legislative action. The War Plans

69

 Theater of Operations Plan, IBC, AG 136 file (1 Aug 41). 70

 Memo, SW for the President, sub: Relief of British Troops in Iceland, no date (given to

the President by Gen Marshall, 14 Jul 41), WPD 4493-44, sec. 2. 71

 Memo, WPD for CofS, sub: Force for INDIGO, 18 Jul 41, AG 320.2 (6-9-41) Troop

Movements, Iceland; Memo, WPD to TAG, 25 Jul 41, OPD-GHQ INDIGO "A."; Handwritten

Memo, probably by Lt Col James R. Townsend, WPD, 4 Aug 41, paraphrasing Ltr from JB

to SW; JB 325, ser 697-2, 23 Jul, OPD-GHQ INDIGO "A."
486 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Division would have preferred not to send another additional man to Iceland and to leave the marines and the First Echelon there as the entire

American garrison; but this solution, it was recognized, would undoubtedly

not have met with the approval of the President.72 If the 5th Division had

to be combed of Regular Army personnel for an expeditionary force, the

War Plans Division still believed that the best that could be done was a force

similar to the one indicated in the cable to General Chaney of 2 July but

modified to make it a balanced combat team of some 5,000.73 When the First

Echelon was being readied for departure it had been anticipated that the

engineer detachment would be the greatest problem. As it turned out, the

number of selectees in the 21st Engineers, from which the detachment was

drawn, was 20 percent less than had been estimated beforehand. Likewise,

the transfer of selectees out of the unit designated for the Iceland force

proved to be less disruptive than had been originally feared. Before the

transfer was made, the entire regiment had a ratio of thirteen Regular Army

men to every twenty selectees; after the transfer, the ratio, in the units that

were left behind, stood at nine to twenty. Although the reduction seriously

hindered the assimilation of new selectees, it did not vitally interfere with

the training or functioning of the regiment. There is no evidence that from

this experience the War Plans Division derived any measure of optimism.

From the point of view of the Chief of Staff the problem affected the Iceland

force less directly, but even more adversely, for, to General Marshall, the

major consideration was that nothing be done that might militate against the

passage of the bill for removal of the selectee restrictions. Any intimation

that the War Department was preparing a task force would certainly have

scuttled the bill. Regardless of the practicability of shifting selectees, all

such preparations as this were consequently ordered suspended by the Chief

of Staff on the eve of his departure for the Argentia conference.74

By this time the British had less need to transfer their Iceland troops

to the Middle East. There had been a lull in the North African fighting since

late June. In preparation for the renewal of the campaign, the British army

in Egypt had been increased in strength from forces no longer needed in

England, for, with Hitler becoming more and more involved in his Russian

adventure, the likelihood of a full-scale invasion of Britain became, in pro72

 Gerow Diary, entry of 2 Aug 41. 73

 Memo (unused), WPD for CofS, 2 Aug 41, sub: INDIGO Relief Forces, WPD 4493-80,

sec. 3. 74

 Conf Min, 15 Jul 41, OCS file, Emergency Measures, 1939-40, binder 1; Gerow Diary,

entry of 1 Aug 41; GHQ Diary, 2 Aug 41, AGF file 314.81, 6-23-41 to 3-4-42, drawer 602
PLANNING THE ICELAND OPERATION 487

portion and at an equal rate, more remote. During July, the British Government even sent reinforcements to the extent of a battalion or so to its Iceland

garrison. Then the idea of using that island as a training ground for British

mountain troops was born, and this was more important than reducing the

British garrison, Prime Minister Churchill declared soon after his return

from the Argentia conference.75 But by then the chances that American

troops would in the near future relieve any more than a small token force

of British had become exceedingly slim.

At Argentia, the Iceland question was thrashed out in the staff conferences held in conjunction with the meetings of President Roosevelt and the

Prime Minister. General Marshall agreed that the marines ought not to

remain in Iceland, but he feared the effect on the 5th Division of increasing

the Army force to the 10,000 men necessary to relieve them. Furthermore,

he was confronted with demands for troops to be sent to Brazil and the

Azores. Even if the bill extending the length of service of selectees was

passed, General Marshall declared, the marines could not be relieved if the

Army were to meet its responsibilities in the Western Hemisphere.76 Then,

on 12 August, the last day of the conference, news came from Washington

that the bill had passed the House of Representatives by the narrowest possible margin. The Iceland preparations could now be resumed, and General

Marshall immediately issued instructions to this effect. Nevertheless, the bill

in no way changed the personnel situation with respect to Iceland, since the

territorial restrictions on the employment of selectees and Reserve officers,

which had been the major limitation, still remained. More important than

the passage of the bill was the agreement that the marines would stay in

Iceland for the time being. The total American force would consist of 10,000

men, General Marshall informed the War Department, but it was to include

the First Echelon and also the marines.77 The force the Army would have to

provide for the Second Echelon would need be only half as large, therefore,

as that called for in the INDIGO-2 plan. It conformed very closely to what

War Plans Division considered was the best that could be done whether or

not the marines stayed on.

75

 Prime Minister to Chief of the Imperial General Staff and Gen Ismay, 19 Aug 41, quoted

in Churchill, The Grand Alliance, p. 810. 76

 Memo, Comdr Forrest P. Sherman, USN, for CNO, 18 Aug 41, sub: Notes on Staff Confs,

11-12 Aug 41, in Capt T. B. Kittredge, USNR, MS, U.S.-British Naval Cooperation, 1939-1945,

ch. 19, app. B, p. 400. See also, Memo, Lt Col Charles W. Bundy for CofS, 20 Aug 41, sub:

Notes on Staff Confs, 11-12 Aug 41, WPD 4402-62. 77

 Msg, Gen Marshall to Col Ward, 12 Aug 41, given in unsigned note, 13 Aug 41, OPDGHQ INDIGO "B"; Gerow Diary, entry of 12 Aug 41.
488 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

On the day after General Marshall's message was received, there was a

brief cessation of activity when it appeared uncertain that the Senate would

accept the House version of the selectee bill; but with this hurdle cleared,

preparations for sending the Second Echelon went on without pause until

the force at last departed three weeks later, on 5 September 1941. The War

Plans Division worked out a new joint directive to replace INDIGO-2. The

new directive, INDIGO-3, reduced the force to some 5,000 men, provided for

the retention in Iceland of the marine brigade, and made minor changes in

the administration of supply; otherwise it differed little from the preceding

plan. At the same time, members of the headquarters staff of the force were

being assigned to duty in Washington, units were ordered to move to New

York Port of Embarkation, and the operation was set in motion by GHQ,

to whom control of the troops and general responsibility for carrying out

the directive had been given.78

The preparations also highlighted the creaks and stresses in the machinery

for high command.79 No precise definition of the relation between GHQ's

planning activities and those of the War Plans Division had as yet been

formulated, and, more to the point, GHQ's operational functions were inadequate for the performance of its assigned tasks. Tactical command and

"operational control" over various outlying bases, it will be remembered,

had been turned over to GHQ, but the control of administration and supply

had been retained by the respective General Staff divisions and the technical

branches. Thus GHQ made its recommendation that existing and proposed

bases in Newfoundland, Greenland, Iceland, and Labrador be combined into

a North Atlantic defense command, and that a base depot, transportation

facilities, and a replacement pool adequate to the needs of the entire defense

command be placed under the control of the commander.80 The idea was

batted back and forth for several weeks, getting a little farther from the original recommendation at each exchange, until, as indicated above, it eventually

reappeared as a far-reaching scheme for reorganizing the War Department.81

78

 Gerow Diary, entry of 13 Aug 41; Jt Army and Navy Directive . . . INDIGO-3, 16 Aug 41,

OPD-GHQ INDIGO "B"; Memo, WPD for TAG, 18 Aug 41, WPD 4493-99, sec. 3; GHQ

Diary, AGF file 314.81, 6-23-41 to 3-4-42. 79

 See above, pp. 395-96. 80

 Memo, Lt Col Ernest N. Harmon, G-4 GHQ, for Gen Malony, 22 Jul 41; Memo, Lt Gen

Lesley J. McNair, CofS GHQ, for CofS, 25 Jul 41. Both in AGF 320.2, Strength of the Army,

binder 1. 81

 See above, pp. 395-96; Memo (probably written in WPD) for CofS, GHQ, n.d., sub: Functions and Authority of GHQ; Memo, CofS GHQ for DCofS GHQ, 11 Aug 41, commenting on

preceding Memo, AG 320.2 GHQ; WPD Memos for CofS, 11 Aug and 30 Aug 41, WPD 4558.
PLANNING THE ICELAND OPERATION 489

To some extent, the disagreement on the subject of a North Atlantic

defense command was no more than the common, everyday divergence of

opinion among professional experts. General Chaney, for example, accepted

the premises on which GHQ based its proposal, but he contended that Iceland was properly a part of the United Kingdom theater and that the Army

forces in Iceland should be grouped with the forces in Great Britain, not

with those in Newfoundland and Greenland.82

But in a larger measure the disagreement reflected the fundamental question whether GHQ was to be subordinate or coequal to the divisions of the

General Staff. The plan to create a North Atlantic defense command was

not the only proposal of GHQ to meet with rebuff on this score. A suggestion

of General Malony that GHQ approve in advance all instructions for the

movement of supplies and personnel to Iceland was given short shrift by

the War Plans Division on the ground that "a subordinate echelon should

never be given power of approval or disapproval of the action of a higher

echelon," and the same issue was, perhaps, implicit in the condescending

reception accorded by the War Plans Division to the Operations Plan drawn

up by GHQ.83 Unfortunately, nothing in Army Regulations or the War Department Mobilization Plan specified whether the staff of the Commanding

General of the Field Forces or that of the Chief of Staff was the higher

echelon. But in spite of the stress and strain of which all this creaking and

grating was evidence, the Iceland preparations were carried on to completion.

There were elements of interservice conflict in the matter of command of

the combined United States forces in Iceland. Under the INDIGO plans, the

combined force was to be under the command of the senior officer present,

whether of the Army, Navy, or Marine Corps, but the presence of a combined

force beyond a brief overlapping period while the relief of the marines was

in progress had not been contemplated. The possibility that Army forces

would be placed under the naval or Marine Corps commander, except the

First Echelon and that only briefly, was exceedingly remote. Now, with the

marines scheduled for an indefinite stay in Iceland, the prospect was changed,

because Brig. Gen. John L. Homer, who had been designated commander

of the Army forces, was junior by some eighteen months to General Marston,

82

 Ltr, Gen Chaney to Gen Malony, DCofS GHQ, 28 Aug 41, WPD 4493-126, sec. 4. 83

 Memo, Gen Malony for ACofS WPD, 31 Jul 41; Memo (unused) WPD for CofS, Aug

41, sub: War Department Orders Concerning War Plans Turned Over to GHQ for Operations,

WPD 4493-77, sec. 3; WPD D/F to GHQ, 3 Sep 41, sub: Operations Plan, IBC, WPD 4493-86,

sec. 3.
490 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

commander of the marine brigade. The Navy Department, agreeing that the

mission of the combined force was essentially an Army mission and that the

Army should therefore command, suggested the appointment of a major

general with General Homer and General Marston each retaining command

of the Army and Marine Corps forces under them. There was much in favor

of the suggestion. Since the 5th Division was to furnish most of the troops

for the garrison, it would be logical for the commanding general of that

division to command the force. Furthermore, the British forces in Iceland

were under the command of a major general. On the other hand, GHQ

and the War Plans Division pointed out, it would involve the addition of

another headquarters and the insertion of "an unnecessary echelon" in the

chain of command.84 These objections were overruled when the Chief of

Staff returned from the Argentia conference, and on 18 August, Maj. Gen.

Charles H. Bonesteel, who had succeeded General Cummins as commanding

general of the 5th Division, was informed of his appointment to command

the Iceland force.85

There was still the question of how General Bonesteel was to exercise

command. The currently prescribed method was that of "unity of command,"

which imposed definite restrictions, however, upon the authority of the commanding officer. Under "unity of command" General Bonesteel would have

had no administrative or disciplinary control over the Navy and Marine

Corps forces that were, for tactical purposes, placed under his command.86

General Marshall, who had long been concerned over the problem, and

General Bonesteel both considered this limited authority inadequate to the

needs of the Iceland situation. A possible solution was finally found in an

act of 1916 by which the President could order Marine Corps personnel detached for duty with the Army, and which would thus give the commanding

officer full command over the combined force. The Major General Commandant of the Marine Corps vigorously proffered a number of reasons why

this should not be done, but with the wholehearted support of Admiral Stark

the arguments of General Marshall prevailed.87 On 22 September, a week

84

 Ltr, AG GHQ, to Gen Homer, 15 Aug 41, sub: Assumption of Command, Second Echelon,

Task Force 4, GHQ 320.2 INDIGO, binder 3; Memo, WPD for CofS, 14 Aug 41, sub: Comd of

INDIGO Force, WPD 4493-95, sec. 3. 85

 GHQ Diary, AGF file 314.81, 6-23-41 to 3-4-42. The official letter orders designating

General Bonesteel commander of the force were sent on 20 August, effective that date (GHQ

312.1 INDIGO). 86

 Jt Action of the Army and the Navy, 1935 (Rev), ch. II; Memo, CofS for CNO, 5 Sep 41,

WPD 4493-107, sec. 4. 87

 JAG Memo for WPD, 29 Aug 41, sub: Exercise of Commd and Disciplinary Powers . . . ,

WPD 4493-95, sec 3; Informal Ltr, CofS to CNO, 9 Sep 41, GHQ-OPD INDIGO "B."
PLANNING THE ICELAND OPERATION 491

GENERAL BONESTEEL

after General Bonesteel and the Second Echelon landed at Reykjavík,

the President, in his capacity of Commander in Chief of the armed forces,

ordered the marine brigade attached

to the Army for the duration of its

stay in Iceland.88 The objections of

the Marine Corps, minor differences

of opinion concerning phraseology,

and the question whether an Executive order would be more appropriate, had delayed the President's directive well beyond the departure of

the force. As a result, General Bonesteel had carried with him two sets

of instructions that were identical

except that one provided for the marines to be attached to the Army.89

A Backward Glance at the INDIGO Planning

The Second Echelon was ready to depart by 4 September, almost exactly

three months after the decision to launch the operation had been made.

During the first of the intervening months War Department planners had

been occupied with the practical aspects of the problem. What the operation

was to be had been agreed upon; how to carry it out was the objective of

the planners during June. The decision to send the marines to Iceland, the

failure of the War Department and SPOBS to agree on several particulars,

the variety of data, the number of agencies involved in planning and the

entrance of GHQ into the planning picture just at this time, the misgivings

88

 For the marines' own account of their duty in Iceland, including the command issue, see

Frank O. Hough, Verle E. Ludwig, and Henry I. Shaw, Jr., "History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II," Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, (Washington, 1958), vol. I, ch. 4. It

should be noted that in subsequent operations during World War II the marines were not

attached to the Army for duty. After Iceland, unity of command was employed with highly

successful results using the principle of operational, but not administrative control. 89

 Directive, President to SW and SN, 22 Sep 41; JAG Memo for WPD, 29 Aug 41, sub:

Attachment of Troops of USMC . . . to Army; Ltr, CNO to CofS, 13 Sep 41; Ltr, CofS to CNO

15 Sep 41. All in WPD 4493-95, sec. 3.
492 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

of G-4 and of the War Plans Division concerning the feasibility of the

operation, all hampered the early efforts of the planners.

Then came a time of indecision, from early July to mid-August. The

nature of the operation having once been changed, to change it still further

whenever obstacles appeared in the way was the path of least resistance.

Total relief of the British was discarded, first, in favor of reinforcing the

British and relieving the marines, and then in favor of reinforcing the

marines and relieving a small token force of the British. Between these two

proposals, in point of effect as well as time, a number of choices had been

considered and rejected, and a stopgap measure (the sending of the First

Echelon) had been adopted. There were two elements in the situation that

most contributed to the indecision of midsummer. The President continued

to fear that the garrison provided would prove to be inadequate for the

defense of Iceland. At the same time the War Department was obliged to

move slowly and softly, even to the point of making no progress, in order

not to jeopardize the enactment of the new selective service legislation.

With the passage of the bill in August, plans could be pushed forward. The

final three weeks prior to the departure of the force were spent in getting

the movement actually under way and in clearing up details that could not

be attacked until the size and nature of the force had been determined.

One of the more noticeable developments during the summer was the

change in the role played by General Chaney and the Special Observer

Group. SPOBS at first seemed slated for a large share of the planning.

It was not long, however, before the War Department came to consider the

London Observer Group as nothing more than its name implied. Although

Chaney's advice on matters of policy continued to be sought from time to

time, SPOBS was more often regarded as a fact-finding and liaison agency.

There was an equally noticeable duplication of effort, particularly in

the collection of data. It seemed to the American consul, Mr. B. Eric Kuniholm, that no sooner had he presented one survey party to Icelandic officials

than another group was arriving and seeking identical information.90 Although specialization might justify the number and variety of surveys that

were undertaken, the technicians tended to overstep the bounds of their

specialties. Furthermore, not many had time for extended firsthand surveys;

all of them relied heavily upon a common source for their data. The situation

was summed up with a trace of understatement by Colonel Iry, one of the

first official visitors, who asserted that British officers were "somewhat sur90

 Ltr, Kuniholm to Acting Chief of Military History, 21 Apr 59, OCMH files.
PLANNING THE ICELAND OPERATION 493

prised at the number of Americans who have asked them for the same information."

 91

 The various reports were, as a consequence, individually prolix

and collectively repetitious. As a further result, identical data were occasionally transmitted to the War Department through several different channels.

One one occasion, what seemed to be corroborative opinion, independently reached and based on British sources, proved instead to be a rehash of

the War Department's own views. The War Plans Division, in its messages

of 2 July and 5 July, had requested General Chaney to consult with British

authorities and to forward his recommendations concerning the newly proposed American force. The War Office, with whom Chaney conferred, in

turn cabled General Curtis for his opinion. As it turned out, the American

survey party to which Colonel Iry and Colonel Green belonged was then in

Iceland and General Curtis asked the American officers what they would

recommend as to the size and composition of the force. Thus, the views of

the American survey party were in actual fact the basis for General Chaney's

recommendations to Washington.

As for the plans themselves, there was a certain lack of agreement between the INDIGO plans and the Theater of Operations Plan in the matter of

command relations, both between the Army and Navy and between the

United States and British forces. There was also an assumption of permanency characterizing the INDIGO plans, as President Roosevelt pointed out,

and at the same time there was a minute attention to details.92 Detail was

unavoidable, because few if any of the supplies and services necessary to

maintain the garrison could be procured in Iceland. Coal, clothing, food,

engineer supplies, signal equipment, housing, laundry equipment, facilities

for hospitalization, recreation, and shoe repair, all had to be shipped in

from the United States. Everything, down to the utmost particular, had to be

provided for. As an ad hoc operational plan the original INDIGO plan was

therefore not sufficiently general to accommodate itself to changes in basic

conditions; and in its character of a directive it was so detailed as to lack

precision. But what effect these failings had, and what the effect would have

been had the planning been faultless, is a matter of conjecture; for the INDIGO

directives were drawn up in accordance with, and changed to conform to,

the projected operations. Thus GHQ was not given, for its Theater of Operations Plan, a clear-cut definition of the limits within which the operations

were to be conducted.

91

 Ltr, Col Iry, Rpt on Trip to Iceland, to CofEngrs (draft copy dated 23 Jul 41),

GHQ 2860—Corresp, binder 47. 92

 Memo, President for SW and SN, 28 Aug 41, OPD-GHQ INDIGO "B."
CHAPTER XIX

Establishing the Iceland

Base Command

The hot and hectic summer of 1941 was drawing to a close when, toward

the end of August, men and cargo for the Second Echelon of the Army's

Iceland task force began arriving at the staging area of the New York Port

of Embarkation. The sailing date had been set between the first and the fifth

days of September. By 4 September some 5,000 troops of the 10th Infantry

Regiment, the 5th Engineers, the 46th Field Artillery Battalion, and various

service units had arrived and were ready to embark. Throughout that day

the men moved to the port, boarded the four troopships—Heywood, William

P. Biddle, Harry L. Lee, and Republic—and at 8 o'clock the next morning,

5 September 1941, the convoy got under way. Guarded through coastal waters

by vessels of the First and Third Naval Districts, the transports and accompanying freighters on the following day picked up their ocean escort and

destroyer screen at a meeting point off the coast of Maine.1 On the evening

of 11 September they were ploughing through the North Atlantic somewhere south of Greenland when the voice of President Roosevelt came over

the radio announcing an attack on the USS Greer—he called it piracy—and

declaring that German or Italian vessels of war would henceforth "at their

own peril" enter waters essential to the defense of the United States. The

convoy at this moment was skirting the strongest concentration of submarines

the Germans had as yet assembled in the North Atlantic, which for two days

past had been raising hob with a large Anglo-Canadian convoy to the northward. Although the American convoy had its route changed several times in

an effort to avoid the scene of action, seven U-boats were picked up by the

1

 Hq IBC, Rcd of Events, Jun 41-Jun 45, IBC 314.7. The units comprising the Second Echelon

are given in Iceland Base Command, Narrative History; Iceland Base Command, "Always Alert,"

16 Sep 1941-31 Dec 1945, "Units in Iceland," p. 19, copy in OCMH; and in Incl 1 to Memo,

WPD for CofS GHQ, 13 Aug 41, sub: INDIGO-2, GHQ 2860 Corresp, binder 47. The composition

of the convoy, designated as Task Force 15, is given in Operations Plan 1-41 (USN), 29 Aug

1941, WPD 4414-11.
ESTABLISHING THE ICELAND BASE COMMAND 495

destroyers' sound gear and one submarine was attacked "under favorable

circumstances." Four days later, during the night of 15-16 September, the

convoy reached Iceland safely.2

In Reykjavík, awaiting the convoy's arrival, were two officers of General

Bonesteel's command: Lt. Col. Kirby Green, the force G-1, and Lt. Col.

Matthew H. Jones, the quartermaster, who had gone on ahead to work out

the landing arrangements. By coincidence, the vessel they had traveled on

was the Greer. They had been on board at the time of the attack and had

arrived in Iceland on the same day the Second Echelon sailed from New

York.

The Movement of the Second Echelon, Task Force 4

The movement of the Second Echelon had been carefully studied and

observed by officers from GHQ so that the experience gained might be preserved for the benefit of future operations. A comparison with the movement of the First Echelon revealed improvement in operational planning.

During the loading of the First Echelon in July, cargo had arrived at the

port in helter-skelter fashion and was stowed just as it came in. It had been,

in the words of Colonel Morris, commanding officer of the First Echelon,

"a remarkable piece of delirium."

 3 Cargo for the Second Echelon was, for

the most part, assembled before the vessels were ready to load. More complete data concerning shipments were made available to the port authorities

and to force headquarters before the actual loading commenced, and it was

generally agreed that operations proceeded more smoothly than those of the

First Echelon. Nevertheless, according to Brig. Gen. Homer M. Groninger,

commander of the New York Port of Embarkation, there were still too many

last-minute changes and orders from too many sources. Members of the

headquarters staff arrived before loading started and stayed throughout the

operations, but had they come a week earlier the ships could have been

worked that much sooner. Although the delay did not postpone the scheduled

sailing, it did tie up transportation facilities at the port longer than necessary.4

Unloading operations at Reykjavík were better planned and more closely

2

 Ltr, Adm Stark (signed "Betty") to Adm T. C. Hart, 22 Sep 41, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 16,

pp. 2209-11; Memo, Maj Charles K. Gailey, Jr., for SGS, 16 Sep 41, WPD 4493-134, sec. 4. 3

 Ltr, Col Morris to Col Harmon, G-4 (GHQ), 14 Aug 41, OPD-GHQ Misc files, 093 Iceland.

4

 Memo, Lt Col Gordon de L. Carrington, G-1 (GHQ), for CofS GHQ, 1 Sep 41, sub: Rpt

on Visit to NYPE, OPD-GHQ Iceland (INDIGO, vol. 2); Memo, Lt Col Josef R. Sheetz, Acting

G-4 (GHQ) for DCofS GHQ, 27 Sep 41, OPD-GHQ 093 Insular Possessions (INDIGO).
496 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

supervised than those of the First Echelon. So that the problem could be

studied during the voyage, General Bonesteel's headquarters had been provided with cargo manifests as soon as the convoy sailed; while, in Iceland,

a preliminary plan of discharge was sketched out by Major Whitcomb, who

had been the quartermaster representative in Iceland since early July. Major

Whitcomb, a Reserve officer, whose attitude toward superior rank was at

first a source of astonishment to a polished, well-schooled professional like

General Bonesteel, was a man of considerable ability in his own particular

field of port operations and of abundant energy in many directions. His plan

was the basis for the arrangements made by Colonels Green and Jones. In

summary, it provided for the following: the two vessels loaded with the most

vehicles were to be berthed alongside the piers first; after them the vessels

with the most nonperishable stores were to be docked; and last of all the

vessels with perishable supplies. Cargo vessels that were waiting their turn to

dock and the troopships, which were too large to enter the harbor, were to

lighter their cargo to the piers by covered tenders and land their vehicles on

nearby beaches by tank lighters. Personnel were to disembark by boats and

tenders, preferably to one of the beaches, and if not there, to the Reykjavík

piers. Whitcomb was insistent that the open tank lighters not be used to land

general cargo, for this was before the days of waterproofed cartons.5

As soon as the Second Echelon arrived, General Bonesteel called a conference at his headquarters on board the transport Republic to decide upon the

details; but, when it came to carrying out the actual operations, much of the

planning gave way to improvisation. Two of the cargo vessels, carrying about

60 percent of the vehicles, the lighter vehicles, were docked pretty much

according to plan and discharged their cargo directly to the pier. But with

the Navy insisting importunately upon a speedy turnaround, every type of

craft that could be found was pressed into service to discharge the four troop

transports and the other two cargo vessels that lay outside the harbor. Tank

lighters and landing craft, and motor launches belonging to the naval escorts,

and one of the Icelandic fishing vessels, were all employed to transfer cargo

of every sort to the docks. Even the Norwalk, a former American coastwise

vessel, small and rather shallow draft, that had arrived in Iceland with supplies about a week before the convoy, was put to use transferring cargo from

the Republic. Motor vehicles were lightered ashore to the beaches, but all the

other cargo and all personnel were landed at the docks. The port company

5

 G-4 Admin Order 1-41, Reykjavík, 5 Sep 41, Debarkation and Unloading Order; IBC,

Transportation Corps Historical Record, Jul 1941-Oct 1943, exhibit M.
ESTABLISHING THE ICELAND BASE COMMAND 497

GALE IN ICELAND

that had arrived as part of the First Echelon was too small to do the job and

the troops of the Second Echelon were inexperienced. High winds, heavy

seas, and pouring rain almost constantly hindered operations and at times

forced a complete halt. As Whitcomb had feared, cartons that through lack

of tarpaulins had been soaked by rain and spray spilled their contents on the

docks, and the result was considerable loss and some pilfering. By 25 September the troop transports and the two vessels at the docks had been completely unloaded and half the vehicles on board the other two cargo vessels

had been landed.6 During the nine days, 9,746 tons, by weight, of general

cargo and 511 vehicles, weighing about 1,953 tons, were discharged. All

troops disembarked on 24-25 September, and work was commenced on the

6

 Ltr, Lt Col George Forster to Col Harmon, 25 Sep 41, OPD-GHQ Iceland 093; Ltr, Gen

Bonesteel to Gen Marshall, 10 Oct 41, OPD-GHQ INDIGO "B."
498 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

two remaining cargo vessels with a much reduced labor force. On 3 October

the last box came ashore. Some 5,000 men, with 15,390 dead-weight tons of

general cargo and 641 vehicles weighing 2,717 tons, had landed on the

island.7

General Bonesteel established his headquarters at Camp Tadcaster, soon

renamed Camp Pershing, some two miles east of Reykjavík and about a mile

from British headquarters at Camp Alabaster. The troops were concentrated

principally in five or six camps in the neighborhood of Alafoss, eight or ten

miles northeast of the force headquarters, in locations fixed primarily by the

availability of land and existing facilities and featured by the lack of firstclass roads. (Map IV)

Problems of Defense: Ground and Air

The whole matter of defense was complicated by Iceland's varied, never

gentle topography. The island is large, roughly oval in shape, with a bare

and desolate clawlike peninsula jutting out to the northwest. Its area of

about 39,700 square miles is nearly that of Kentucky or Virginia and somewhat larger than that of Indiana. A rugged interior plateau, partly covered

with great snow fields and glaciers and capped by a chain of volcanic mountains that rise to a height of almost 7,000 feet, dominated the tactical problem as it does the island itself. In the southwest there are two low-lying coastal

plains, one at the head of Faxaflói and the other between the river Ölfusá

and Mýrdalsjökull. From them, narrow river valleys lead up into the central

tableland, and elsewhere around the coast deep fjords, separated by rocky

promontories, penetrate some twenty miles or more into the interior. In the

coastal lowlands and river valleys, comprising scarcely 7 percent of the entire

area, most of the island's 120,000 inhabitants lived in scattered hamlets or

on isolated farms. Reykjavík, with a population in 1941 of 39,000, was the

only fair-sized city as well as the capital. Akureyri, on the northern coast, was

second in size with a population of only 5,300. Communications across the

barren central plateau were, in 1941, limited to one dubious road, frequently

snowblocked in winter, that ran across the base of the western peninsula.

Around the island there were stretches where roads were entirely lacking.8

7

 Hq IBC, Rcd of Events, Jun 41-Jun 45, IBC 314.7. Recapitulation of all Supplies Shipped

to Iceland by Vessel, OPD-GHQ files. In measurement, or ship tons, the total cargo discharged

amounted to 46,974 tons. 8

 Clark, Iceland and Greenland, is an excellent survey of the geography of Iceland.

ESTABLISHING THE ICELAND BASE COMMAND 499

The British had provided for the defense of Iceland by sectors. Under the

plan then current, the island was divided into five sectors, four of which contained areas of strategic importance requiring ground, antiaircraft, and coastal

defenses. The Southwestern Sector, comprising the Reykjavík-Keflavík Peninsula area, was the smallest but most important. To its defense, the British

had assigned some 10,500 troops. In the Western Sector, immediately adjoining, about 7,300 troops covered the land and air approaches to Reykjavík and

manned the defenses of the naval anchorage in Hvalfjördhur and the airfield

at Kaldadharnes. Thus, about 70 percent of the entire British garrison was

stationed within a thirty-mile radius of the Reykjavík docks. The Northwestern Sector was so organized as to protect the only road connection with

the north coast, on a line running from Borgarnes in the south to Blönduós

in the north, and for this purpose some 1,350 troops were assigned to the

sector. Eastward from Blönduós a road led to the port of Akureyri. Beyond

Akureyri a road of sorts extended about 60 miles to Lake Mývatn, but after

that land communications became virtually nonexistent. Except for short

stretches in the extreme eastern end of the island near Seydhisfjördhur and

Búdhareyri and equally short stretches on the southern coast, roads became

mere bridle paths and even these disappeared in places. The Northeastern

Sector therefore comprised two widely separated centers of defense relatively

inaccessible to each other and epitomized this aspect of the defense problem

of the whole island. Some 3,500 men were stationed in the neighborhood of

Akureyri for the protection of the port and seaplane anchorage and for the

defense of the landing field at nearby Melgerdhi. Another 1,800 troops were

assigned to the Northeastern Sector and stationed in the SeydhisfjördhurBúdhareyri area, which included a potential landing place for seaplanes on

Lagarfljót (Lake Logurinn). These four sectors accounted for the whole of

the British garrison, approximately 24,400 men; for no troops were assigned

to the Central Sector, where a descent by hostile forces upon the mountainous

wastelands or on the barren coast would have been difficult and led nowhere.9

The British scheme of defense assumed that the threat to be guarded

against was an invasion of the island, an operation which Hitler had considered in June 1940 as a preliminary to the invasion of Britain, but which

the German naval staff had flatly and successfully opposed. Iceland was,

9

 Defense of Iceland and Other Papers (17th Airborne Division), IBC 381; Jt Army-Navy

Operations Plan, 28 Oct 41, and FO 1, CG Iceland, 15 Nov 41. Both in GHQ 381 INDIGO,

binder 1.
500 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

however, just within range of German bombers in Norway, and the Bismarck's foray into the Atlantic had shown what might happen if Hitler transferred other units to Norwegian bases, as he constantly suggested doing.10

If a large-scale invasion seemed hardly possible, particularly after the start

of the Russian campaign, a "hit and run" assault by air or naval raiders appeared to be distinctly probable. Because of the topography, defense against

this contingency required a sizable garrison; and in any event the more remote but possible contingency could not be entirely ignored. To those responsible for carrying out the mission of defense, the garrison, for this reason, seldom seemed adequate. In June, during the early planning, the question of additional air strength had been raised, and partially to fill this need

the 33d Pursuit Squadron had been sent to Iceland. In the course of the summer, while plans for the relief of the British garrison were in progress in

Washington, that same garrison was being reinforced with additional troops

from England. In August, a Marine Corps study concluded that under existing circumstances a major landing attack on Iceland appeared to be improbable and that the combined naval forces of the United States and Great

Britain available in the area, coupled with a strong air force in the same area,

should be able to block any German attempt without the intervention of

shore defenses; but that, should the existing military and naval situation

change radically to the disadvantage of the United States and Great Britain,

an adequate defense of the island would require five reinforced infantry divisions, four pursuit squadrons, two bomber squadrons, two attack squadrons

(seaplanes), one patrol squadron (PBY's), and appropriate naval defense

forces.11 The alternative to a perimeter defense with strong ground concentrations at a few obvious invasion targets was, perhaps, an overwhelming

air force capable of sweeping wide off the coast to intercept an invader; but

in 1941 the planes were not to be had, air base facilities in Iceland were inadequate, and the lessons of the war in the Pacific were still in the future.

Considering the terrain, the poor communications, the assumption concerning the nature of the threat against the island, and the resources available for

defending it, the British plan doubtless provided the most feasible defense.

GHQ took a similar approach. The most striking difference between the

British plan and the Operations Plan drawn up by GHQ as a guide for the

American forces lay in the disposition of the ground troops. The GHQ plan

10

 F. H. Hinsley, Hitler's Strategy (Cambridge: University Press, 1951) pp. 65, 67, 195-96. 11

 Estimate of the Situation (Defense of Iceland), First Marine Brigade (Provisional), 5 Aug

41, WPD 4493-105, sec. 4.
ESTABLISHING THE ICELAND BASE COMMAND 501

assigned 21,131 troops, about 82 percent of the total planned garrison, to

the Reykjavík sector; 1,372 to the Borgarnes-Bordheyri-Blönduós area; 1,555

to Akureyri; and 1,638 to the Seydhisfjördhur-Reydharfjördhur area. This

was a much greater concentration in the Reykjavík area, compared to the

British arrangements, and a much thinner spread of strength in the northern

and eastern parts of the island. The explanation was doubtless to be found

in the provisions concerning the air garrison. The air units provided in the

GHQ Operations Plan—the 33d Pursuit Squadron, 9th Bomber Squadron

(H), and 1st Observation Squadron—were not much greater in strength

than those of the British; but the difference was that the American air units

were to be assigned their mission by the Commanding General, Iceland Base

Command, were to operate under his direction, and were specifically charged

with the support of the ground troops. The primary mission of the RAF in

Iceland was, on the other hand, the protection and covering of transatlantic

convoys.12

Shortly after General Bonesteel's arrival, General Curtis, commander of

the British garrison, outlined his strategic and tactical views to General

Bonesteel. The key to the defense of Reykjavík, as General Curtis saw it, was

the Vatnsendi Ridge, five or six miles back of the city, which commanded

the roads north to Alafoss and Hvalfjördhur, south to the small port of

Hafnarfjördhur and the Keflavík Peninsula, and eastward along the road to

Kaldadharnes and Selfoss. Control of the ridge, according to the British

commander, would permit rapid counterattack in any of the three directions.

From its position around Alafoss, the American mobile reserve was most

suitably located for action in the direction of Hvalfjördhur; but should the

British reserve behind Vatnsendi Ridge be forced to move out to counter a

threat from the eastward, the American troops, General Curtis continued,

should then be prepared to take the place of the British in support of the

ridge.13 The major responsibility of the American force would clearly lie,

however, in the area to the north and northwest, toward Hvalfjördhur.

How this responsibility was to be exercised was for General Bonesteel

to decide. Neither the GHQ Operations Plan, being a guide and not a rule,

nor the general's instructions specified his relationship to the British garrison

and its defense arrangements, except to provide that he should act in "mutual

cooperation" with them. No limits had been established within which the

12

 The Theater of Operations Plan, Iceland Base Command, with annexes, is in AG 136 (1

Aug 41). 13

 Rough Tactical Notes by Gen Curtis, 25 Sep 41, IBC 091.1 British Data, 1942.
502 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

two forces were to co-operate; and except for a general understanding that

the American force would be initially assigned to the Reykjavík area, no definite bounds within which the American force was to operate had been laid

down. These were matters to be worked out by the two generals and their

staffs.

After discussions with the British, General Bonesteel defined the specific

mission of the American forces as the defense of an area lying within a

line that began at the small hamlet of Hvítárvellir, at the head of

Borgarfjördhur, and ran along the coast of Gufunes, just outside Reykjavík,

thence south to a point on Vatnsendi Ridge, then generally northeast along

the shore of Thingvallavatn Lake through the village of Thingvellir, north

to Ok Mountain, and finally back again to the coast at Hvítárvellir. The

area straddled the boundary between the Western and Northwestern Sectors

of the British. Outside the American defense area, antiaircraft units of the

marine brigade were stationed alongside British units for the defense of the

airport and harbor at Reykjavík; within the area, British units participated

in the antiaircraft defense of Hvalfjördhur. The task of guarding the coast

line was assigned to the marines, with the 10th Infantry held in reserve.

Hvalfjördhur, important as a naval base, was in the middle of the area to

be defended; but there was no convenient way of stationing the mobile

reserve there. The road along the coast from Reykjavík was very poor and

the shores of the fjord extremely rugged. As it was, the reserve had to be

stationed in the southern part of the sector twenty or thirty miles from

Hvalfjördhur and almost as far as that again from Hvítárvellir.14

Some 26,800 British and American ground troops, or about 80 percent

of the total of the two forces, were available for the defense of the

Reykjavík-Hvalfjördhur area. Although this was a larger number than the

ground defenses fixed by the GHQ Operations Plan for the entire island,

General Bonesteel considered it inadequate. He estimated, in reply to a

radio from GHQ on 21 October 1941, that in view of the war situation the

defense of the Reykjavík area would require some 39,800 troops, including

the general reserve to be based there, and that the total garrison necessary

for defending the entire island should be about 67,000 troops.15 Whatever

were the theoretical needs, the fact was, as General Bonesteel nevertheless

14

 Hq IBC, Co-ordination of Joint Operations, United States and British, 28 Nov 41, IBC

091.1 British Data, 1942; Jt Army-Navy Operations Plan, 28 Oct 41, GHQ 381 INDIGO, binder 1. 15

 Memo, Gen Malony for CG FF, 6 Nov 41, GHQ 320.2 (INDIGO), binder 3; Ltr, Gen Bonesteel to CofS GHQ, 14 Nov 41, GHQ 381 Defense Plans (IBC), binder 1.
ESTABLISHING THE ICELAND BASE COMMAND 503

recognized, that the countryside about Reykjavík was approaching the saturation point in the matter of accommodating troops; for within a dozen miles

of the city there were crowded nearly a hundred camps and installations

ranging upwards in size from platoon strength.16

Much the same situation prevailed with respect to the air garrison. The

British had, based on Reykjavík, one squadron of 15 Wellington bombers,

a flight of 8 or 9 Hurricane fighters, a Norwegian squadron of 6 Northrop

reconnaissance float planes, and 30 utility planes. These had been augmented by the 33d Pursuit Squadron (U.S.) with an original combat

strength of 30 planes. At Kaldadharnes, about thirty-five miles southeast

of Reykjavík, there was a British squadron of 26 Hudson bombers and 2

utility planes. A detachment of the Norwegian reconnaissance squadron,

consisting of 4 planes, was at Akureyri, and another of 3 planes at Búdhareyri. In addition there was a United States naval air unit operating patrol

planes out of Reykjavík. The total air strength, like the ground forces, was

greater than that called for in the GHQ Operations Plan, but it too seemed

inadequate. Only the 33d Pursuit Squadron was under the control of the

Commanding General, Iceland Base Command; and the only planes available for medium-range reconnaissance in support of ground troops were

those of the Norwegian squadron, whose primary mission, like that of the

other bombers and reconnaissance planes, was offshore patrol.17 In September Brig. Gen. Clarence L. Tinker made an inspection of air facilities in

Iceland, before assuming his duties as Commanding General, III Interceptor

Command, and upon his return to the United States he recommended to

GHQ that additional bomber and reconnaissance strength be allotted to

General Bonesteel. The latter placed his requirements at one squadron of

heavy bombers, one of light bombers (A-20 type), one long-range reconnaissance squadron, one medium-range, and the entire 8th Pursuit Group,

to which the 33d Pursuit Squadron, already in Iceland, belonged.18 But

again, as in the case of the ground defenses, tactical requirements had to

give way to physical limitations as the basis for determining the strength of

the garrison.

The existing airfields at Reykjavík and Kaldadharnes, jointly used by

16

 Maps, showing camp locations, to accompany G-1 Rpt 11, OPD-GHQ files; Transportation,

Supplies and Public Property, OPD-GHQ 523. 17

 Data on United States and British forces previously cited. 18

 An. 1-A, Synopsis of Requests for Tactical Aviation Units for Iceland (received GHQ 25 Jan

42), GHQ 381 Def Plans (IBC) binder 1; Ltr, Gen Bonesteel to CofS, GHQ, 11 Nov 41, OPDGHQ 320.2 Organization (IBC), binder 1.
504 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

the RAF and Americans, were overcrowded and unsuitable for heavy bomber

(B-24) operations. Dispersal areas for the planes and housing for the men

were limited. Runways, hastily built in the first place, had rapidly deteriorated under constant use and heavy frosts; and on one occasion a B-24

of the Ferry Command that had parked overnight on the runway at

Reykjavík was found, next morning, to have broken through the paving.19

Overcrowding was the chief problem. It was possible to develop Reykjavík

airfield only to the extent of taking care of an additional light bomber squadron; by building more parking and disposal areas at Kaldadharnes, and by

providing housing, another squadron could be accommodated there.20

The solution recommended by both General Bonesteel and General

Tinker, and eventually adopted, was to construct an entirely new airfield,

suitable for heavy bombers, in the neighborhood of Keflavík. Tests and

surveys conducted under the direction of Colonel Morris, commander of

the First Echelon and of the Iceland Base Command's air force, had already

established the feasibility of constructing an additional fighter field there.

The two projects would obviously complement each other. As soon as GHQ

approved the idea of a bomber field early in November, the Iceland Base

Command engineers began surveying the proposed site; but not until 29

December, three weeks after the Pearl Harbor attack, was the Iceland Base

Command authorized to go ahead with the preliminary clearing and grading.

Even then the arrangements for acquiring the land had not yet been completed.21

 The two fields ultimately built at Keflavík, the bomber field

(Meeks Field) and its satellite (Patterson Field), became the principal

American air base in the North Atlantic and an important link in the ferry

route to England; but this was in the future. Meanwhile, the problem of air

defense in the fall of 1941 remained.

Since accommodations could not be provided for what he considered

the full requirements, General Bonesteel fixed the immediate needs at one

light bomber squadron, to be based at Kaldadharnes as soon as housing

19

 Strict accuracy requires it to be noted that this was the only occurrence of this sort. After

the runways were reinforced and lengthened, sometime later, heavy bombers landed and took off

without incident. 20

 Memo, Gen Spaatz, CofAS, for ACofS WPD, 10 Sep 41, OPD-GHQ Misc files, 093 Insular

Possessions; Ltr, Gen Bonesteel to CofS GHQ, 11 Nov 41, OPD-GHQ 320.2 Organization

(IBC), binder 1. 21

 Notes made by Lt Col W. G. Walker at a lecture by Gen Tinker, 8 Oct 41, OPD-GHQ Iceland

3 (INDIGO); Memo, Hq IBC, sub: Proposed Keflavík Airport, Exhibit C (received by GHQ, 27

Nov 41), GHQ 381 INDIGO, binder 1; Ltr, Gen Malony to CG Iceland, 29 Dec 41, OPD-GHQ

INDIGO, Late Nov-Dec Reference Notes; Monthly Rpt (Nov), Base Engr to Engr GHQ, 6 Dec

41, OPD-GHQ 319.1 Iceland-Rpts.
ESTABLISHING THE ICELAND BASE COMMAND 505

became available, and pursuit plane replacements sufficient to bring the 33d

Pursuit Squadron up to its original strength. Washington approved the

delivery of spare parts to Iceland so that planes not completely wrecked

could be put into commission, but made no move to send the planes. Then,

in late October the War Department learned that the British were proposing

to withdraw their flight of Hurricane fighters from Iceland and that the

United States Navy was contemplating sending a squadron of bombers for

winter operations out of Reykjavík. The one brought into question the

adequacy of Iceland's fighter strength; the other posed the problem of

paramount interest between Army and Navy.22

Against the possibility of determined "hit and run" bombing attacks,

which was accepted as the basic assumption, Iceland's fighter defenses

seemed woefully weak. Germany had from 60 to 90 long-range bombers

capable of reaching Reykjavík and returning to their bases in Europe.

Against this potential striking force, the 33d Pursuit Squadron, by the end

of October, could send aloft only about 20 planes, and by 6 December 1941

the number had been further reduced to 12 or 15 planes. Spare parts sufficient to bring the squadron almost up to full strength were on order, but

the channels of aviation supply seemed to be full of obstructions. The immediate need, enhanced by the prospective withdrawal of the RAF Hurricanes, induced GHQ to provide reinforcements.23

 On 14 November General Arnold gave instructions for 10 pursuit planes to be made ready for

shipment to Iceland; and the same day GHQ informed General Bonesteel

that a squadron of either medium or heavy bombers would be sent at once.

The bomber question was almost immediately reconsidered, however, and

at the end of the year the pursuit planes were still in their crates on the New

York docks.24

In view of the delay it was indeed fortunate that the dissenting opinion

of Maj. Lyman L. Lemnitzer, rather than the majority view of his colleagues

22

 Cable 102, SPOBS to TAG, 21 Oct 41 (paraphrased on WPD DF to TAG, 7 Nov 41),

WPD 4493-153, sec. 5; Memo, GHQ for CofAAF, 27 Oct 41, sub: P-39E Airplanes, with 1st

Ind from Air AG (CofAAF) to CofS GHQ, 14 Nov 41, OPD-GHQ Iceland (Aircraft) Aviation

Sec.

23

 Memo, Col Ralph H. Wooten, Air Officer GHQ, for CofS, 23 Oct 41, GHQ 320.2 (INDIGO),

binder 3; Ltr, (Air Commodore) W. H. Primrose (RAF) to Gen Bonesteel, 15 Dec 41, GHQ

381 Def Plans, (IBC) binder 1; Memo, Gen Malony for CofAAF, 5 Jan 42, OPD-GHQ Iceland

(Aircraft) Aviation Sec. 24

 Rad, GHQ to CG Iceland, 14 Nov 41, WPD 4493-172, sec. 6; An. 1-A, Synopsis of Requests for Tactical Aviation Units . . . (received in GHQ 25 Jan 42), GHQ 381 Def Plans (IBC),

binder 1.
506 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

in GHQ, was borne out by subsequent events. When the question of Iceland's air defenses was under study, Major Lemnitzer had observed that,

regardless of the possibilities, Germany was unlikely to launch a determined

air attack against Iceland during the coming winter, the winter of 1941-42.

Unfavorable weather, targets incommensurate to the risks involved, and the

demands of the Russian front would, he pointed out, vitiate an argument

based entirely on German potentialities.25 And so it happened; although

there were numerous alerts, not a single German plane was sighted over

Iceland from 16 December 1941 until early March 1942, when the previous

pattern of air activity was resumed. For a while, no bombs were dropped.

As before, enemy flights were limited to single planes on reconnaissance or

weather observation missions.

There was as great a need for additional radar and aircraft spotting stations and for improved communications between the stations and the control

center and between ground and plane. In September 1941 two British radar

stations were in operation, one about three miles southeast of Reykjavík and

the other at Grindavík. Spotting posts were set up along the coast, and by

the end of 1941 three more radar stations were put into operation by the

British. But it could take as long as an hour and a quarter for a report from

one of the distant posts to reach American fighter headquarters. On seven

occasions during July and August, and three other times during the rest of

1941, German or unidentified planes were reported over Iceland. Although

patrol flights were kept in the air intermittently throughout every day and

additional flights sent up when the need appeared, not one of the intruding

planes was intercepted.26 Lack of planes and radar equipment and slow communications held the defending planes to arbitrarily established patrol lines

and prevented the aggressive search that might have resulted in successful

contact.

An Aircraft Warning Service detachment to set up and operate an additional RDF (Radio Detection Finder) station on Vestmannaeyjar, a small

island off the southern coast, was requested by General Bonesteel for movement in November; but the matter of troop movements, of reinforcement

as opposed to relief of the British, became intertwined with a web of administrative problems inherent in the occupation itself. As a result, the AWS

25

 GHQ interoffice Memo, 24 Oct 41 (commenting on Col Wooten's Memo to CofS GHQ,

23 Oct 41) GHQ 320.2 INDIGO, binder 3. 26

 Memo, Maj William D. Old for DCofS GHQ, 8 Sep 41, WPD 4493-129, sec 4; Radio 33

Gen Bonesteel to TAG, 29 Sep 41, GHQ-WPD INDIGO "B"; Hq IBC, Rcd of Events, Jun 41-Jun

45, IBC 314.7; IBC Narrative History, ch. II, sec. D, and ch. IV, secs. D-F.
ESTABLISHING THE ICELAND BASE COMMAND 507

detachment did not arrive until 23 December, when the first large-scale

reinforcement was made.

Problems of Administration and Human Relations

To bring the garrison up to peak efficiency and keep it there, as well as

for morale purposes, General Bonesteel instituted a thoroughgoing program

of training, including basic, weapons, and winter warfare. A distinctive feature of the program was the acting officer schools. These were designed to

provide continuity of leadership at the platoon and company level should an

enemy assault result in heavy attrition among the company grade officers. To

this end, specially chosen noncommissioned officers were designated to act

as lieutenants, captains, and even field grade officers while on field exercises

with the troops.

Quite apart from the problems that related directly to the matter of

defense were those that were inherent in the mere presence of American

troops on foreign soil. The welfare of the troops, and their relations with

the Navy, Marine Corps, State Department representatives, the British, and

the local populace involved fundamental questions of human intercourse.

Whether in Iceland, Newfoundland, Bermuda, or Trinidad, these problems

were much the same.

That the welfare of the men would present a serious problem had been

recognized early. Concern over it had been responsible to a very large extent for the insistence upon the American troops being stationed in the

vicinity of Reykjavík and it was an important factor in the desire of the

Navy Department to bring home the marines as quickly as possible. As in

the case of other bases, the principal element of the problem was considered

to be the question of recreational facilities. At home the American soldier

took his recreation in nearby towns and cities either at his own expense

among the general public or in recreation centers operated by private organizations. Governmental responsibility had extended only to sponsoring a

consolidation of the various private welfare agencies into the USO. Iceland,

however, was, according to American standards, woefully lacking in places

devoted to public entertainment; and since the island was held to be within

a theater of operations, the USO was by policy excluded. Thus the Army

found itself with the responsibility of providing recreation facilities for the

troops beyond that normally provided, with what assistance the Red Cross

could give. Sixty huts for post exchanges and recreational purposes were

ordered within a few weeks after the arrival of the Second Echelon, and the

sum of $940,000 was allotted for the construction of six service club build-
508 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

ings.27 But other construction materials were given higher priority by General Bonesteel and the problem of shipping showed no sign of diminishing,

so that recreation huts were still lacking in April 1942. Efforts to obtain

space in Reykjavík were likewise fruitless. The Red Cross workers who had

come to Iceland expecting to set up a canteen and recreational center in the

city were thus forced back upon the makeshift arrangements that had been

improvised within the various camps. Furthermore, the Red Cross, as an

organization, was inexperienced in operating recreational facilities; for

relief, not diversion, had been its traditional role. The inevitable aftermath

of the situation was, initially, a certain amount of floundering, despite which

the Red Cross workers proved their worth many times over.28 Improvement

appeared with the summer of 1942; but until then the rigorous training program and hard labor had to serve as a substitute for recreational facilities.

Equally important to the well-being of the troops was the question of the

length of the tour of duty in Iceland, and equally long delayed was the solution. While GHQ was considering an inclusive policy applicable to all the

other Atlantic bases, Iceland, because combat operations were more in prospect there and because of a more acute "morale problem," was made the object of independent study. Transmitting its findings to G-1 of the War Department General Staff, GHQ on 4 October recommended that a complete

turnover of the First and Second Echelons be carried out within fourteen

months, and that individuals be relieved thereafter at the end of twelve

months' service in Iceland. The War Department was in general agreement

that a one-year limit would be desirable and that a decision should be announced promptly. But the deterrent was whether or not transportation

would be available. The relief of the first two echelons would require transporting about 800 replacements monthly beginning 1 April 1942; and if the

garrison were increased during the spring and early summer to 30,000 men,

as contemplated, the average monthly turnover would rise to approximately

2,500 by the following November.29 The Navy Department, whose responsibility it was to provide transportation, was loath to commit itself so far in

27

 G-1 Memo to CofS, 6 Oct 41, sub: Recreational Facilities for Forces in Iceland, OCS

21224-71. The question of "morale" is dealt with in the reports of the various survey parties of

early summer. On the question of facilities, see also: Ltr, Gen Marshall to Gen Bonesteel, 13

Nov 41, WPD 4493-165, sec. 5; Ltr, Lincoln MacVeagh, American Minister to Iceland, to the

President, 22 Nov 41, OCS 21224-150, bk. 22. 28

 Report of Field Supervisor, American Red Cross, Iceland, 17 Apr 42, IBC 080 Red Gross,

Gen, 1942-46. 29

 GHQ Memo for ACofS, G-1 (WD), 4 Oct 41, GHQ 320.2 INDIGO, binder 1; G-4 Memo

to CofS, 24 Oct 41, OCS 21224-89, bk. 22; Memo, CofS for CNO, 28 Oct 41, WPD 4493-153,

sec. 5.
ESTABLISHING THE ICELAND BASE COMMAND 509

the future. The Chief of Naval Operations willingly concurred in a general

limit of one year's service, but only "until such time as the United States is

at war"; and he pointed out that no naval transports were available for

transporting personnel to and from Iceland.30 The Army had recently

acquired for use as a troop transport to Iceland a small passenger vessel that

had been operating in an interisland service in the Caribbean, but the Stratford's limited capacity (350 men) was far below the requirements of the

proposed relief policy. More than a month had passed since GHQ called attention to the advisability of announcing a definite policy. General Bonesteel

added his urgings to those of GHQ. On 17 November he recommended a

flexible tour of duty—one that varied from ten to fourteen months—to ensure against anyone having to spend more than one winter in Iceland.31

 But

before a final decision could be made, this, like many another matter, was

temporarily lost in the smoke of Pearl Harbor.

There were also certain routine services which, if efficiently administered,

would conduce to the well-being of the troops. The prompt delivery of mail

from home was most important. An adequate supply of palatable rations and

well-handled arrangements for paying the men would likewise do as much

as anything to keep spirits high and complaints down. Delays in paying

dependency allotments to the families of the men were extremely destructive to morale, but this, like certain of the supply arrangements, was something over which the Iceland Base Command had very little control. Mail

deliveries and the shipment of perishable foodstuffs to Iceland were, for a

while, too haphazard for complete satisfaction. There was some improvement by midwinter: more experience in administering the overseas APO

system had been gained; a regular destroyer run between Boston and Argentia, the transshipment point for Iceland mail, had been scheduled; and the

local naval commander had become better acquainted with his supply responsibilities under the current INDIGO plan.32

 Although it was many months

before the troops in Iceland were assured of a reasonably prompt mail service and a supply of special foodstuffs for special occasions, their lot, in this

respect, was far better than that of the men stationed in Greenland or at the

CRYSTAL outposts. What made the delays less understandable and harder to

30

 Memo, CNO for CofS, 17 Nov 41, WPD 4493-153, sec. 5. 31

 Rad, Gen Bonesteel to CofS GHQ, 17 Nov 41, GHQ 320.2 Iceland, Strength. 32

 Memo, Gen Malony, DCofS GHQ, for CG FF, 1 Dec 41; Memo, CofS for CNO, 2 Dec

41. Both in OCS 21224-132, bk. 22. Ltr, Lincoln MacVeagh, American Minister to Iceland, to

President, 22 Nov 41; Ltr, SW to President, 19 Dec 41. Last two in OCS 21224-150, bk. 22. Lt

Col Aln D. Warnock to CG, Iceland Base Command, Report of Conference on Navy Co-operation

With Army in Matters Relating to Rations, 23 Nov 41, IBC 381 Joint Army-Navy, 1942.
510 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

bear for the Iceland garrison was the relative frequency with which ships

were arriving.

Considered as an aspect of the morale problem, the pay arrangements

that prevailed in the early months of the occupation were thought to be

most nearly what the men desired. Local pressure had successfully persuaded

the War Department to make use of local currency at all the newly acquired

bases in British possessions, but in Iceland, because of morale and administrative problems, the troops continued to receive their pay in American dollars. By February 1942 the "black market" in dollars had become the overruling consideration and the change to krónur payments was made. Although

the administrative difficulties that followed were fully as great as those the

finance officer had anticipated, the change to local currency had no appreciable effect on the temper of the men. The adverse effect on morale that General Bonesteel and the War Department had expected, and on which their

opposition to the use of krónur had rested, failed to materialize.33

As the Newfoundland experience had clearly shown, the matter of pay

arrangements was, in its broader compass, one of the ticklish, complicated

problems of intragovernmental relationships and international relations. In

Iceland, even more than in Newfoundland and the other bases, the attitude

of the local government depended upon the commanding officer's conduct

of affairs. General Bonesteel's tact and diplomacy, his willingness and ability

to understand local problems, were factors in his success.

Early in June 1941, when it was still uncertain whether the Icelandic

Government would give its approval to an American defense force, an old

plan for liaison with civil governments that had been drawn up as part of

the RAINBOW 4 planning in connection with Newfoundland and Greenland

was dusted off and suggested by the Judge Advocate General's Department

as a directive for the proposed Iceland force. Although it was never issued

as a directive, its provisions were incorporated into the G-1 Annex to the

Theater of Operations Plan drawn up by GHQ. On the assumption that at

least the tacit approval of the government and people would be forthcoming, the local civil government was to be "permitted to function normally";

in that case the situation confronting the American force in Iceland would,

it was stated, be "similar to that of the American Expeditionary Force in

33

 Memo 14, 9 Oct 41; Memo 23, 18 Oct 41. In Hq, IBC, Numbered Memos 1-86, 25 Sep-31

Dec 41. Ltr, Lincoln MacVeagh to Gen Bonesteel, 9 Oct 41; MacVeagh to Bonesteel, 15 Oct 41;

Bonesteel to MacVeagh, 19 Jan 42. Last three in IBC 040 Legation, IBC, binder 1 (Sep-Dec 41),

binder 2 (Jan-Apr 42). Lt Col William L. Thorkelson, The Occupation of Iceland During World

War II Including the Postwar Economic and Social Effects, Thesis submitted to Graduate School

of Syracuse University, Sep 49, p. 62, copy in OCMH.
ESTABLISHING THE ICELAND BASE COMMAND 511

France" during the First World War. For the purpose of maintaining cooperation with the Icelandic Government a liaison section of the Force

Headquarters was to be established and officers were to be assigned to duty

with various agencies of the government. However, failure to co-operate

would be taken as a desire to impede the defense and, under the proposal,

would have necessitated establishing a military government.34

Fortunately, the unwisdom of the proposed course of action was speedily

recognized. Supplementary instructions proposed by the State Department

seem to have reflected a justifiable concern that the situation was not properly understood, for, after summarizing Iceland's constitutional relationship to Denmark, the State Department pointedly enjoined all American

military personnel to pay due respect to the local institutions, to refrain

scrupulously from interfering with the prerogatives of the civil authorities,

and to handle through the American consul, Mr. Kuniholm, all matters involving political questions.35

 The timeliness of the State Department's advice was confirmed by the stipulations set forth in the agreement of 1 July

1941 between President Roosevelt and the Prime Minister of Iceland. By

this agreement the United States promised that its military activities in Iceland would be carried out "in consultation with Iceland authorities as far as

possible" and "with the clear understanding that American military or naval

forces sent to Iceland will in no wise interfere in the slightest degree with

the internal and domestic affairs of the Icelandic people."

 36

 Although the

State Department proposals were not issued as instructions to the Iceland

force, the executive agreement of 1 July became a part of the subsequent

INDIGO directives. The position of the United States forces vis-à-vis the local

government was thus explicitly laid down, but not specifically defined.

The Icelandic Government almost immediately expressed a desire to

negotiate a more complete agreement. In the matter of intercourse between

troops and townspeople there was, as the local government surveyed its

experience with the British garrison, an unlimited area of difficulty that had

both an economic and social side. With the measures taken by the British

for the defense of Reykjavík there was also considerable dissatisfaction. Garrison camps had been placed within the town limits. Storage and broadcast34

 Memo, Col Edwin C. McNeil, Acting JAG, to ACofS WPD, 9 Jun 41, sub: War Plan for

Expedition to Iceland-Liaison With Civil Government, WPD 4493-4, sec. 1. The GHQ Operations Plan later incorporated the provisions of the memorandum in the G-1 annex (Annex 3). 35

 Ltr, Under Secy State Sumner Welles to SN Frank Knox, 20 Jun 41, OPD-GHQ, INDIGO

"A."

36

 Defense of Iceland by U.S. Forces: Agreement between the United States of America and

Iceland, Dept of State, Exec Agreement Series 232, No. 1703.
512 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

ing facilities had been requisitioned. Restrictions on the civilian populace

were too severe, the authorities thought, and plans for evacuation in case of

attack were inadequate. What the Icelandic Government wanted in particular was a declaration that Reykjavík was an open, undefended city and the

preparation, by the occupying forces, of local security measures for the protection of power plants and canneries. In those, and in such matters as the

court procedure in cases involving civilians and members of the United

States forces, the employment of Icelandic labor, American financial assistance for road, bridge, and public utilities maintenance, and even the strength

of the American force—in all these, a clearer and formal definition of policy

was desired by the Icelandic Government.37 The War and Navy Departments, on the other hand, were opposed to a general agreement along

these lines. The only questions which, in the view of the War Department,

could properly be the subject of a definite agreement between the two nations were the jurisdiction of American courts-martial and certain concomitant matters. The strength and composition of the American forces in Iceland were a matter for the War Department alone to decide; and all the

other points brought up by the Icelandic Government fell in the field within which, according to the War Department, the commanding officer should

have discretionary power.38 Interdepartmental discussion continued through

the fall of 1941. Meanwhile, the Second Echelon arrived in Iceland. With

no formal understanding between the two governments, General Bonesteel

thus not only had to organize, in collaboration with the American legation

and the local authorities, the machinery through which co-operative action

could be taken, but he also had to make palatable to the Icelandic authorities

the unilateral decisions of policy, which, in a broad area, were his Own. In

the bases acquired in British possessions, the position of the American garrison was carefully and specifically defined by the agreement of 27 March

1941. No such agreement was signed with the Icelandic Government.

For more than a year the British military authorities had been coping

with the problems that now faced General Bonesteel, and they had worked

out fairly satisfactory procedures through which some of the more important

problems were being handled. A joint Anglo-Icelandic committee had been

37

 Consular Dispatch, 136, Reykjavík to State Dept, 18 Jul 41, sub: Projected Negotiations

Between American and Icelandic Govts . . . , IBC 014.3 Civil Status and Relations (Gen), Jul

41-Apr 44; Unsigned Memo: Navy Dept Comment on Certain Matters re Occupation of Iceland

. . . , 13 Oct 41, WPD 4493-104, sec. 4. 38

 G-1 Memo for JAG, 14 Aug 41; Ltr, SW to Secy State, 8 Oct 41, and atchd Memo: War

Dept Views Regarding Certain Matters re Occupation of Iceland . . . , WPD 4493-104, sec. 4;

see also, Memo: Navy Dept Comment . . . , 13 Oct 41, WPD 4493-104, sec. 4.
ESTABLISHING THE ICELAND BASE COMMAND 513

organized to adjudicate and settle claims against the British forces; a similar

committee handled all questions concerning the employment of Icelandic

labor, and a "Hirings Office" arranged all leases and contracts for the use

of property by the military. This machinery, already functioning, was available to the American forces, and as early as 18 July, soon after the arrival

of the marines, both the British and American consuls had urged that the

United States become a party to the existing arrangements.39

After the Second Echelon arrived the Icelandic Government lost no time

in bringing up the question of settling claims. During a conference with

General Bonesteel on 23 September, at which Generals Marston and Homer

and Consul Kuniholm were present, Prime Minister Jonasson spoke of it as

one of the most important problems, and, to be sure, it was. He assumed

that the American forces, following the British procedure, would set up a

joint committee, which, he suggested, might consist of one member from the

American military staff, one appointed by the Icelandic Government, and a

justice of the Icelandic Supreme Court as arbitrator. A committee of this

size, the Prime Minister believed, would be less cumbersome, and no less

impartial, than the British joint committee made up of three Icelanders and

two British members.40 Pertinent Army Regulations (AR 35-7020) provided only for the appointment of a board of one or more officers to settle

claims, but the liaison plan of early June, which had been incorporated into

the GHQ Operations Plan, authorized the force liaison officer to make arrangements for this purpose with the Icelandic Government, and thus

opened the way for the use of a joint committee. The plan adopted by the

American military authorities on 28 September combined the two procedures. A Primary Board, consisting of one officer who would attempt to

reach an agreement with the claimant and settle the amount of compensation, was established in accordance with Army Regulations; and if the claim

were unjustifiable or agreement impossible, the matter would then go to the

Joint Claims Board, a committee of three, such as the Prime Minister had

recommended.41 On 20 October the name of the American appointee to the

board was submitted to the Icelandic Government by the American Legation; on 20 November the two Icelandic members were named, and on 12

December the board held its first meeting. Of the eight claims presented, all

39

 Dispatch, 136, American Consul, Reykjavík, to State Dept, 18 Jul 41, IBC 014.3 Civil Status

and Relations (Gen) Jul 41-Apr 41. 40

 Memo of Conf, 23 Sep 41, IBC 014.3 Civil Status and Relations (Gen), Jul 41-Apr 44. 41

 Hq IBC, AG Ltr to All Unit and Camp Comdrs, 28 Sep 41, sub: Claims Against the United

States, IBC 014.3 Civil Status and Relations (Gen), Jul 41-Apr 44.
514 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

of them arising out of traffic accidents, two were disallowed and two deferred for future consideration. The four payments that were approved were

scaled down from about $235 claimed to a total of some $105 allowed.42

For the payment of small claims such as these and pending the establishment

of definite procedures, General Bonesteel had been provided with special

funds, which eliminated the necessity of withholding the final payment until

remittances came from Washington.

The question was immediately raised by the Icelandic member whether

the decisions of the board were to be considered as final or merely as recommendations to the commanding general. If the reply had been sent in the

form of an official note from the Legation, as had been the first intention,

the query might well have become an issue. But General Bonesteel and Mr.

Lincoln MacVeagh, the American Minister, agreed that it would be preferable for the American member of the board to point out, by informal discussion with the Icelandic members, that the commanding general was required

by United States law to approve all expenditures of public money allotted

to his command and for this reason alone he would have to approve all

claims allowed by the board.43 The Joint Claims Board was, moreover, precluded by existing United States law from entertaining claims against individual members of the American forces for actions outside their official

capacity, and it was inevitable that claims of this nature would arise. By the

time this question was raised, however, the law had fortunately been

changed.44

The joint board or committee, employed first in settling claims, was an

obvious device for handling the questions that later arose in connection with

the acquisition of property and the employment of Icelandic labor. These involved contractual relations and were, like claims, justiciable in nature. On

the other hand, the problems incident to normal intercourse between troops

and townspeople were totally different in character. Any deficiency in the

conduct of civilians and soldiers toward each other was a matter for the

respective authorities, not for a joint board. As a breach of discipline on the

part of the soldiers was a responsibility of the military alone, so a breach of

42

 Note from Foreign Ministry to American Legation, 20 Nov 41; Min, Mtg Jt AmericanIcelandic Claims Bd, 12 Dec 41, IBC 040 Legation, Sep-Dec 41. For the figures given above, the

official 1941 exchange rate of 6.5 krónur to one dollar has been used. 43

 Ltr, Gen Bonesteel to Minister McVeagh, 18 Dec 41, and atchd undated hq routing slip, CG

to CofS and AG; Ltr, Mr. MacVeagh to Gen Bonesteel, 29 Dec 41. Both in IBC 040 Legation,

Sep-Dec 41. 44

 Ltr, Gen Bonesteel to Mr. M. B. Barnes, Chargé d'Affaires, 7 Feb 42, IBC 040 Legation,

Jan-Apr 42.
ESTABLISHING THE ICELAND BASE COMMAND 515

the peace on the part of the populace was solely a matter for the civil authorities.

One of the key men among the local authorities was the chief of police

of Reykjavík, Mr. Kofoed-Hansen, whose friendship with Consul Kuniholm

simplified the handling of these problems. The situation was further eased

by recognizing the right of civilian police to arrest members of the American

force; while at the same time the chief of police made an especial effort to

convince the American authorities that the mistrust in which he had been

held by the British was unfounded.45 From the very start, fair winds favored

the negotiations with Mr. Kofoed-Hansen. His first discussion with General

Bonesteel on 6 October was, according to Minister MacVeagh, "an outstanding success." On this occasion, Mr. MacVeagh reported, General Bonesteel assured the chief of police that as few men as possible would be

quartered within the city limits, that men on pass would be required to return to camp by 11:30 p.m., and that they would be forbidden to carry arms.

Trouble spots would be declared out-of-bounds. General Bonesteel made it

clear that his responsibility extended only to the conduct of his troops and

that he would not impose unreasonable restrictions on the troops for the

purpose of relieving the civilian police of part of their responsibility for

maintaining public order. When, for example, the chief of police suggested

that members of the garrison be forbidden to use taxicabs, since bickering

and brawls between the troops and local cab drivers were a frequent complaint, General Bonesteel refused. Instead, a military bus service into

Reykjavík was inaugurated, and regulations designed to prevent the men

from defrauding cab drivers were issued. In this same general fashion, by

personal, informal negotiation and the normal processes of military discipline, each problem that subsequently came up was handled. It was a method of approach that called for the utmost diplomacy on the part of the commanding general. But his ability in this difficult art was vouched for by the

American Minister, who reported after the conference of 6 October with Mr.

Kofoed-Hansen: "The General's comprehension of the importance of even

the most minor issues in this whole matter of the relations of our forces and

the Icelanders would seem to be equalled only by his tact and promptness

in dealing with each one, while standing firm at all times for the dignity of

his command and the respect due to the American soldier."

 46

The successful relations between the military and Icelandic authorities

45

 Memo, Gen Marston for CO 5th Def Bn, CO 6th Marines, and CO Brigade Hqs Co, 30 Sep

41, IBC 014.3 Civil Status and Relations (Gen), Jul 41-Apr 44. 46

 Dispatch, American Minister to State Dept, No. 11, 9 Oct 41, WPD 4493-169, sec. 6.
516 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

rested partly on General Bonesteel's practice of dealing through the appropriate nonmilitary agencies in all matters that were not primarily an Army

responsibility. Thus when a question arose in October concerning measures

for civilian relief in the event of an air raid, for which only the most elementary planning and a few half-hearted steps had been undertaken by the

local authorities, the assistance of the Army was offered through the Legation and made available through the American Red Cross. Between the headquarters of the Iceland Base Command and the American Legation in particular there was the closest co-operation. In fact Mr. MacVeagh claimed that

he was kept better informed by General Bonesteel and the American naval

commander than by his own department.47 The same close relations prevailed between the military command and the consulate. Mr. Kuniholm, the

consul, was himself a West Point graduate and both General Bonesteel and

his chief of staff, General Homer, had been his tactical officers at the Academy. In Newfoundland and Trinidad, the lack of co-operation between

Army headquarters and representatives of the State Department had, on the

other hand, immeasurably added to the problems of the base commanders.

Iceland demonstrated what teamwork could accomplish.

Much the same situation prevailed in American relations with General

Curtis and the British force. The difficulties anticipated from a joint occupation did not prove to be entirely illusory, but those that materialized were,

for the most part, matters of more concern to Washington and London than

to Camps Pershing and Alabaster, the respective headquarters in Iceland.

Differences of opinion between the War Plans Division and SPOBS over

censorship in Iceland and between GHQ and the War Plans Division over

the command of the joint garrison, and Congressional needling on this sensitive subject, failed to shake the friendly co-operation maintained by the two

commanding generals in Iceland.48 On 19 April 1942, shortly before General

Curtis returned to England, General Bonesteel had the pleasure of present47

 Ltr, Gen Bonesteel to MacVeagh, 14 Oct 41, IBC 040 Legation, Sep-Dec 41; Memo, SW to

President, 29 Nov 41, sub: Civilian Relief Measures in Iceland, OCS 21224-130, bk. 22; Ltr,

MacVeagh to President, 22 Nov 41, OCS 21224-150, bk. 22. 48

 For the censorship question, see: Cable 34, Chaney to TAG, 2 Sep 41; GHQ Memo for

ACofS WPD, 3 Sep 41. Both in OPD-GHQ INDIGO "B." On the command problem see: Joint

Army-Navy Directive INDIGO-3, Aug 41; GHQ Opns Plan, 1 Aug 41; Ltr of Instr (2), CofS to Gen

Bonesteel, 4 Sep 41. All in OPD-GHQ INDIGO "B." Also: Ltr, Gen Marshall to Bonesteel, 23

Sep 41; Bonesteel to Marshall, 10 Oct 41. Both in OPD-GHQ INDIGO "B." GHQ Memo to Gen

L. T. Gerow (WPD), 7 Nov 41; WPD Memo for CofS, 10 Nov 41; Ltr, Marshall to Bonesteel,

13 Nov 41. Last three in WPD 4493-165, sec. 5. Ltr, Marshall to Senator Francis Maloney, 10 Oct

41, WPD 4493-150, Sec. 5; Ltr from SW to Senator A. H. Vandenburg, 16 Oct 41, OCS 21224-

80. Ltr, SW to Representative G. H. Tinkham, 27 Nov 41, OCS 21224-123.
ESTABLISHING THE ICELAND BASE COMMAND 517

ing him with the American Distinguished Service Medal. General Curtis

thus has the distinction of being the first British officer to receive this award

during World War II.

On the subject of his command relationship, General Bonesteel's instructions were vague: as long as the United States remained out of war he was

to "coordinate" operations by "mutual cooperation" with the British. What

his instructions left indefinite was spelled out, however, in the plan of joint

operations agreed upon by the two commanders. Not only did the plan define the tactical responsibilities of the Iceland Base Command, but it provided, as well, for the joint use of certain facilities and services and for the

free interchange of information between the two forces. The details of these

and of any other topic of immediate, current interest to both commands

were discussed at a formal interservice conference each month, as well as

at the more frequent informal meetings of the two commanders. In this

fashion a common course was decided upon in matters of policy.49

One of the more perplexing questions arose from the material aid given

by the British to the arriving Americans. Under the arrangements made during the summer between SPOBS and the War Office, Nissen huts for American use were sent from England, erected by British labor, and provided with

utilities under British contracts; British Army trucks had assisted in discharging the American convoys; and supplies, weapons, and equipment of one

sort or another were from time to time turned over to the Iceland Base Command. No attempt was made by the British to place a value on the goods

and services received by the Americans and nothing more than an informal

receipt was required for the goods that were turned over. By mid-October

the American staff officers most directly concerned had become disturbed

about the informality of the procedure.50 Repeated requests that GHQ advise whether the procedure was satisfactory brought a reply, on 9 December,

that the question was being considered by the War Department and in

the meantime all supplies taken over from the British should be inventoried,

assessed as to value, and receipted for, in conformity with the GHQ Operations Plan. If the British would not assess the value of the goods, continued

GHQ, the Americans must do it alone.51 Quite unknowingly, the Iceland Base

49

 Min, Interservice Confs and Matters for Discussion, 23 Sep 41, 28 Oct 41, 23 and 27 Dec

41, 8 Jan 42, 20 Jan 42, IBC 091.1 British Data, 1942. 50

 Memo, Lt Col George F. Forster, S-4, for CofS IBC, 17 Oct 41; Draft Ltr, CG Iceland, to

CofS GHQ, drawn up by Col Iry, Base Engr, 20 Oct 41; Memo, Forster for CofS IBC, 27 Oct 41;

Memo, Forster for CofS IBC, 12 Dec 41. All in IBC 400.3295 Lend-Lease, Sep 41-Dec 42. 51

 Rad, Gen Bonesteel to CofS GHQ, 14 Nov 41; Rad, Bonesteel to CofS GHQ, 4 Dec 41;

Rad, Gen McNair to CG INDIGO, 9 Dec 41. All in IBC 400.3295 Lend-Lease, Sep 41-Dec 42.
ARMY POSTS IN ICELAND. Nissen huts on "Main Street" of an Iceland camp (top).

View of the mountains from Camp Pershing (bottom).
ESTABLISHING THE ICELAND BASE COMMAND 519

Command had been caught in the eddy of "Reverse Lend-Lease." The idea

of reciprocal aid, which had been germinating since early summer, was intended to cover just such a situation as Iceland offered. And in Iceland the

British Government made clear the position which it consistently took: that

lend-lease and reciprocal aid transactions could not be balanced in terms of

dollars and pounds. Discussions with British representatives in Washington

during December failed to resolve the issue. On 31 December, GHQ notified

the Iceland Base Command that all goods and facilities received from the

British in Iceland would be included in lend-lease accounts and that, contrary to previous instructions, all inventories must bear a British assessment

of value.52 The British force in Iceland continued to follow the policy fixed

by its own government, but with lend-lease machinery now coming into

operation the valuation question no longer rested in the hands of the Iceland Base Command.

Of all the administrative problems that had been anticipated, none had

foretokened greater difficulty than the questions of housing and shipping.

As it turned out, housing, although troublesome, proved to be less formidable than had been expected; and as to shipping, the problem became one

of harbor congestion and of allocation between Icelanders, British, and

Americans rather than an actual dearth of vessels. Both housing and shipping were closely tied to the continuing question of what reinforcements

should be sent and to what extent the relief of the British should be carried.

Troop movements to Iceland, whether reinforcements or relief, obviously

depended upon accommodations for the men and berthing space for the

ships. Yet troop movements were also a matter of strategy and policy.

Should a reinforcement be decided upon in Washington, the problems of

housing and port congestion could suddenly assume greater proportion.

When the Second Echelon moved ashore on 25 September there were

enough Nissen huts available to house the entire American force, thanks to

a Herculean effort on the part of the marines. They had not received word

of the construction task expected of them until 19 August, but by dint of a

17-hour, 2-shift working day and by specialization of labor—one crew working on foundations, one on decking, another on tinning, and so on—the

marines met the deadline. It had been touch and go, however. The last of the

First Echelon had moved into their accommodations only a week or so

before the Second Echelon arrived, and there were still lacking about 120 of

52

 1st Ind, TAG to CG FF, 26 Dec 41, on GHQ Memo for TAG, 26 Nov 41; 2d Ind, GHQ

to CG Iceland, 31 Dec 41. In IBC 400.3295 Lend-Lease, Sep 41-Dec 42.
520 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

the total number of huts that Colonel Iry, the base engineer, had estimated

would be required. After the Second Echelon had been crowded into all

available quarters, Iry revised his estimates upward. Including those already

in use, about 1,830 huts would, he reported, be needed to house the force

adequately and to allow for contingencies. Although the Second Echelon had

brought material for 200 huts along with them, an additional 280 would

have to be obtained either from England or the United States to meet these

requirements.53 Storage space was more urgently needed, but the requirements were not so readily calculated. The background of high confusion

presented in the reports of the base engineer obscured what should have

been clearly set forth, namely, the amount of space in use and the number

of buildings on order at any one time, and the number and type of buildings

needed to fill the estimated requirements. Perhaps the most that can be ventured as an observation is that one-fourth, or thereabouts, of the 200,000, or

230,000 square feet of storage space required was available when the Second

Echelon completed discharge. A somewhat smaller amount was obtained by

lease either then or shortly afterwards.54

The Question of Reinforcements and Relief

The question of sending additional troops to Iceland had come up even

before the Second Echelon was fully established on shore. In a conference

with the President on 22 September on the subject of reducing the strength

of the ground forces, General Marshall adverted to the plan for relieving

the British with the remainder of the 5th Division in the spring of 1942. To

this the President gave his characteristic "O.K."; but he also expressed the

desire to have small groups sent to Iceland during the winter for the purpose

of relieving corresponding British units and of permitting the return to the

United States of any "misfits" among the American garrison. Marshall

thought none too well of the idea, nor did General Bonesteel, to whom the

Chief of Staff immediately wrote. General Marshall pointed out to the President the difficulty imposed by the territorial restrictions on the use of selectees; but he would, he assured Mr. Roosevelt, inquire into the Navy's ability

to provide transports and escorts, and if it were possible to send troops dur53

 Ltr, Col Forster to Col Harmon, 25 Sep 41, OPD-GHQ Iceland 093; Aug 41 Rpt, Base

Engr to GHQ, 1 Sep 41, OPD-GHQ 319.1 Iceland-Rpts; Sep 41 Rpt, Base Engr to GHQ, OPDGHQ Misc 093 Iceland. 54

 Rpt, Base Engr to GHQ, OPD-GHQ Misc 093 Iceland; Ltr, Gen Bonesteel to Gen Marshall, 10 Oct 41, OPD-GHQ INDIGO "B"; Rad, Col Iry to TAG, 20 Sep 41, OPD-GHQ INDIGO,

Ref and Misc Data, binder 2.
ESTABLISHING THE ICELAND BASE COMMAND 521

ing the winter, it would be done.55 Two weeks later the subject was explored

at a meeting in the office of the Deputy Chiefs of Staff. Besides General

Bryden and General Moore, Deputy Chiefs of Staff, there were present Generals Malony and Gerow, and representatives of the Navy Department, of

the Chief of Engineers, and of G-1 and G-3. The problem of culling selectees out of the 5th Division was discussed and questions of housing, shipping, and port congestion were raised. The suggestion was made by General

Gerow that perhaps the marines could be brought home and their accommodations used for housing the Army troops. As to the number of men to

be sent, it was General Moore's opinion that 8,000 was the most they should

try to send before April, but on this matter the recommendations of General

Bonesteel, of the Navy Department, and of the British would have to be

considered.56 In WPD and GHQ the planning machinery now began to revolve in this new direction, toward a winter schedule of relief.

Since the interests of the Army, the Navy, the Maritime Commission, and

the British were affected, Rear Adm. Richmond Kelly Turner, head of the

Navy War Plans Division, proposed a conference of all interested parties

for the purpose of drawing up the plan of relief. As a preliminary step, he

suggested that an agreement be reached by the War and Navy Departments

on certain basic issues, foremost of which, from Admiral Turner's point of

view, was the question whether the marines would be withdrawn before the

relief of the British was undertaken.57 Two of the other points raised by

Admiral Turner—the question of providing air units "for general strategic

purposes" in Iceland, and whether the United States would take over all

British naval bases and services there—became increasingly important in

later weeks, but the big stumbling block was the relief of the marine brigade.

In spite of General Gerow's suggestions at the staff conference of 8 October,

the Navy's proposal to withdraw the marines was coolly received by the War

Plans Division. It was argued that relieving the marines would not further

the President's purpose to release British units and that a general conference

such as Admiral Turner had in mind would merely lead to a long delay. As

for taking over British air and naval installations, it was the understanding

of the War Plans Division that the relief of British ground forces only was

55

 Memo, CofS for the President (22 Sep 41), Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 15, pp. 1636-39. For

the situation leading to General Marshall's conference with the President, see Conn and Fairchild,

Framework of Hemisphere Defense, pp. 143-47; Ltr, Marshall to Bonesteel, 23 Sep 41, OPDGHQ INDIGO "B." 56

 Min, DCofS Conf, 8 Oct 41, OCS Conf File, No. 25, Oct 41; Min, GHQ Special Staff Conf,

8 Oct 41, AGF 337, GHQ Staff Confs, 7-23-41 to 10-31-41. 57

 Memo, Adm Turner for Gen Gerow, 9 Oct 41, WPD 4493-152, sec. 5.
522 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

contemplated. In the suggestion for a general conference Army planners saw

an undesirable departure from the tried procedure by which the INDIGO plans

had been formulated. The winter relief schedule could best be arranged, the

War Plans Division believed, by the usual method of joint action, and this

was offered as a countersuggestion to Admiral Turner on 13 October.58 The

questions raised by Admiral Turner could be used as the starting point for

the immediate preparation of a joint directive, the War Plans Division suggested. But, until some agreement on withdrawing the marines could be

reached, little progress could be made in preparing the new directive.

Admiral Stark laid the problem before the President at a White House conference on 16 October, only to have it handed back as a matter that he and

General Marshall would have to decide themselves. Finally, toward the end

of the month GHQ was told to proceed with its plans without waiting for

the joint directive.59

Meanwhile, General Bonesteel had no intimation that a change of plan

was brewing until Marshall's letter of 23 September arrived on 7 October.

At the time it was written no definite decision had been made, but a radio

message from GHQ which had been received a day or two after the Chief of

Staff's letter should have made it clear that the situation had crystallized in

the meantime. The message instructed General Bonesteel to report immediately the order of priority in which he wanted troops sent during the winter.

And he was asked whether a corresponding withdrawal of British troops

could be arranged in order to make housing available. The size of the units

and their sailing dates would be given to him later, the message concluded.60

General Bonesteel's opinion was, however, that troop movements during the winter would either force the occupation of the northern and eastern

outports, which in that season was highly inadvisable, or else require a concentration of American combat troops in closer proximity to Reykjavík,

which was undesirable. Housing and storage were, he believed, so uncertain

that either the British would have to move out first and make their accommodations available to the incoming Americans, or hutting would have to

be sent and erected before the troops arrived. The one would "hinge on the

coordination of British shipping in order to make the relief synchronous,"

he wrote General Marshall, and the other would mean the shipment of hut

58

 Memo, Lt Col Leven C. Allen (WPD) for Gen Gerow, 11 Oct 41; Memo, WPD to Admiral Turner, 13 Oct 41. Both in WPD 4493-152, sec. 5. 59

 Min, CofS Conf, 17 Oct 41, OCS Conf File, No. 25, Oct 41; Memo, Col Allen to Gen

Gerow, 19 Nov 41, WPD 4493-167, sec 6. 60

 Memo, WPD for TAG, 9 Oct 41, sub: Troops to INDIGO, WPD 4493-153, sec. 5.
ESTABLISHING THE ICELAND BASE COMMAND 523

materials from the United States, since "the plan for hutting to come from

England was not worked out." But it was most important, he thought, that

nothing be done which would add to the shipping congestion at Reykjavík.

Even the present schedule, he asserted, was too much for the port to handle,

and consequently he and General Curtis were both going to recommend that

supply levels be reduced, that priorities on shipping be set up, and that the

arrival of vessels be staggered. These were the considerations which he

thought should decide whether or not troops were to be sent to Iceland during the winter.61

 And to make his position clear he strongly recommended,

in his reply to GHQ's message, that until the British withdrew and the necessary facilities became available, no troops be sent to Iceland except the reinforcements he had already requested.62

The only reinforcements that General Bonesteel had requested at the

time the matter of winter movements came actively under consideration were

some six hundred men: service troops, military police, and additions for

the aircraft warning detachment. He had asked on 5 October that these

troops be sent in November, when there would be sufficient housing to care

for them without dependence on British withdrawals. Then, after receiving

General Marshall's letter and GHQ's radiogram, General Bonesteel gave

GHQ a list of Quartermaster, Engineer, and Signal Corps units, totaling

about 1,500 men, that he wanted sent to Iceland when housing became

available. His own immediate needs governed General Bonesteel's requests,

but it seemed to GHQ that they could be fitted into a scheme for relieving

British units. Accordingly, on 16 October, GHQ informed General Bonesteel that the troops he had requested on the fifth of the month would be

sent about 1 December (shipping was the cause of the delay), and that

further movements would await word from Iceland that the necessary facilities were available. At the same time General Bonesteel was authorized

by GHQ to work out a complete plan of relief with General Curtis on the

basis of relieving the British as rapidly as port facilities and housing permitted.63

Meanwhile, the Special Observer Group had been keeping in touch with

the War Office in London concerning the withdrawal of British units. The

War Office, SPOBS reported to the War Department, was agreed on the

61

 Ltr, Bonesteel to Marshall, 10 Oct 41, OPD-GHQ INDIGO "B." 62

 Rad, CG IBC to CG GHQ, 12 Oct 41, OPD-GHQ INDIGO "B." 63

 Rad, CG IBC to CG GHQ, 12 Oct 41, OPD-GHQ INDIGO "B"; Rad, Gen McNair (GHQ)

to CG IBC, 16 Oct 41, GHQ 320.2 INDIGO, binder 3; Memo, Gen Malony for CG FF, sub: Relief

of British Troops in Iceland, 27 Oct 41, WPD 4493-153, sec. 5; WPD routing form to G-3,

20 Oct 41, with unsigned Memo for Rcd, WPD 4493-156, sec. 5.
524 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

practicability of relieving certain units in the Reykjavík area during the

winter; but it was unwilling, because of the special winter training program

in Iceland, to withdraw more than one infantry brigade before 1 February

1942. The British nevertheless desired assurances from the War Department

that the relief of the whole division would be completed by the end of April.

Being of the opinion that the defense of the Reykjavík area did not require

all ten infantry battalions then stationed there, the War Office had no

objection to withdrawing two British battalions before the American troops

arrived, which, continued SPOBS, would take care of the housing question.64

Using the report from SPOBS as his starting point, Major Lemnitzer of

GHQ had worked out a tentative plan of relief which involved the withdrawal of two British battalions before 1 December and another two battalions of British infantry, or the equivalent number of service troops and

artillery, before 1 January 1942. As for the incoming movements, the 600

service troops and military police scheduled to sail from the United States

about 1 December would be followed on 10 December by about 1,200

Quartermaster and Engineer troops; and the rest of the units on General

Bonesteel's priority lists would sail about 10 January. When General Bonesteel apparently took the proposed withdrawal of British infantry to mean

either that American combat troops would be substituted for the service

troops he had requested or, if not, that the defenses of Reykjavík would be

seriously weakened, a misunderstanding arose that resulted in a rather

heated exchange of radiograms between the general and GHQ.65 The atmosphere was not long in clearing, however. It was made plain to General Bonesteel that his wishes as to troops and arrival dates would be followed, and

that there was no objection to the British withdrawing noncombat troops

provided the relief proceeded as rapidly as troops could be accommodated

in Iceland.66

On 7 November General Bonesteel reported to GHQ that two British

infantry battalions plus service troops would leave during the first part of

December, and that another battalion plus service troops would depart early

in the next month. As a complement to this change, the 2d Battalion, 10th

64

 Cable, Gen McNarney (London) to TAG, 18 Oct 41, OPD-GHQ INDIGO "B." The same

information, obtained from General Curtis, was outlined in a radiogram from General Bonesteel

to CG GHQ, 31 Oct 41, GHQ 320.2 INDIGO, binder 3. 65

 Memo, GHQ for WPD, 30 Oct 41, WPD 4493-153, sec. 5; Rad, GHQ to CG Iceland,

31 Oct 41; Cable 109, TAG to SPOBS, 1 Nov 41; Rad, CG Iceland to CG GHQ, 3 Nov 41;

Rad, McNair, GHQ, to CG Iceland, 4 Nov 41. Last four in GHQ 320.2 INDIGO, binder 3. Pers

Ltr, Maj Lemnitzer to Col Hays, 8 Nov 41, OPD-GHQ 320.2 Organization—IBC, binder 1. 66

 Rad, McNair to CG, Iceland, 4 Nov 41, OPD-GHQ 320.2 Organization—IBC, binder 1.
ESTABLISHING THE ICELAND BASE COMMAND 525

U.S. ARMY Troops ARRIVING IN REYKJAVÍK, JANUARY 1942

Infantry, was added, at the request of General Bonesteel, to the movement

of American troops planned for January; and the 50th Signal Battalion was

added to the December movement. At this point the arrangements in Iceland

were, Bonesteel reported, going ahead very satisfactorily.67

Meanwhile, during November some 1,100 British troops had been returned from Iceland. Another 3,400 men were to be withdrawn during the

last two weeks of December, which would bring to a little more than 6,300

the number of British troops relieved since the arrival of the Second Echelon

in September.

The consensus had been that any movement of troops, either of reinforcements or for relief of the British, would depend upon housing and the ability

of the port to handle the movement. Yet if the arrangements for relieving

the British garrison had awaited solution of the housing and port problems,

progress would have indeed been slow.

67

 Rad, CG, INDIGO to CG GHQ, 7 Nov 41, GHQ 320.2 INDIGO, binder 3.
526 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Housing requirements, not to mention the confused storage situation or

the undetermined Air Force needs, would not have been met by the construction program. The base engineer estimated at the end of November that the

additional huts needed to fill the present requirements and those of the

planned additions to the force would number 765, which were to be erected

out of materials either on hand or previously ordered. Actually, during the

next two months only 268 huts were built, and the remainder of the 829 huts

that became available during the period were those that were turned over

to the Americans by the departing British troops.68 It was fortunate that no

hitch appeared in the British convoy schedule.

The port construction program, designed to speed up cargo operations,

had been laid down before the decision was made to undertake troop movements during the winter. The improvements along Reykjavík waterfront

would, it was estimated, increase the available pier space by about 37 percent; but the earliest completion date that could be expected was 1 March

1942. A major cause of the congestion in the port was the shortage of labor;

but, in this too, no improvement could be looked for until the arrival of

additional port troops in January. The question, then, was what could be done

with the resources available. During November about 31,000 measurement

tons of cargo for the American forces were handled through the port of

Reykjavík. How could this performance be bettered in order to take care

of the 22,400 tons that the troops scheduled for movement in December

would bring with them?

 69

 Considerable thought, much discussion, and reams

of paper were devoted to the problem. Several interdepartmental conferences

were held in Washington to discuss the co-ordinated use of transport shipping, but no agreement could be reached as to whether the Navy, the War

Department, or the Maritime Commission should be given control. Partly

in recognition of the need in Iceland for closer co-operation on shipping

matters, the Navy, on 8 November, announced that a naval operating base

was to be established at Hvalfjördhur.70 But the most effectual measure perhaps was the reduction in the level of maintenance supplies from 180 to 120

68

 Rpt of Base Engr for November, 6 Dec 41, OPD-GHQ 319.1 Iceland—Rpts; Monthly

Progress Rpt, Base Engr, 18 Feb 42, IBC 600.1 Construction (Gen), 1942. 69

 Extracts from Report Submitted by Capt. D. E. Barbey, USN, 26 Nov 41, OPD-GHQ,

Base Facilities—INDIGO; Interoffice Memo (GHQ), by Col Sheetz, sub: "INDIGO Augmentations

. . . ," 28 Nov 41, OPD-GHQ INDIGO, Late Nov-Dec Reference Notes. 70

 Min, CofS Conf, 17 Oct 41, OCS Conf file, No. 25, Oct 41; Rpt of Army-Navy Conf in

WPD on 21 Oct 41 (dated 24 Oct 41), OPD-GHQ, INDIGO "B"; Pers Memo from CofS for

Adm Stark, 17 Oct 41, OCS 21224-83, bk. 22; Administrative History of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet

in World War II, vol. IV, Commandant, NOB Iceland (Commander in Chief, United States

Atlantic Fleet, 1946) on file in Naval Research Sec, Naval Hist Div, OCNO, p. 42.
ESTABLISHING THE ICELAND BASE COMMAND 527

days, which had been recommended by the Joint Port Committee in Iceland,

approved by General Bonesteel, and which was, on 10 November, officially

established by the War Department. It was to be accomplished by suspending maintenance shipments for two months, and this, according to Lt. Col.

Ernest N. Harmon, of GHQ's G-4 Section, would mean a saving of 30,000

tons in each of the two months. Colonel Harmon, it should be added, viewed

the saving more as an opportunity to send additional construction equipment

and special supplies to Iceland than as a means of reducing the port congestion there. Nevertheless, if cargo estimates for the December and January

troop movements and the tonnage figures for November were at all accurate,

the congestion must have been substantially reduced; for only 28,000 or

30,000 tons of cargo were shipped to Reykjavík in December and January.

The reduction was achieved, however, only at the expense of shifting the

jam from Reykjavík to New York, where 45,000 tons of cargo for Iceland

had accumulated by 8 February 1942.71

A New Role

The program for relieving the British during the winter was only one

of several new developments. The changes made in the mission assigned to

the American forces were far more pregnant than the adoption of a new

schedule of relief; but, interestingly enough, they had, for all their significance, less immediate effect on the situation in Iceland.

The INDIGO-3 directive, in setting forth the joint Army and Navy tasks,

had specifically interpreted the approach of Axis forces within fifty miles

of Iceland to be "conclusive evidence of hostile intent" which would "justify"

attack by the defending United States forces. By the end of August 1941, the

President was willing to bring deeds and diction more into line. In approving

the directive on 28 August he expressed himself as follows: ". . . I think it

should be made clear that the Joint Task . . . requires attack on Axis planes

approaching or flying over Iceland for reconnaissance purposes."

 72

 Here then

was a "shoot on sight" order six days before the Greer incident took place on

71

 Rad, Gen McNair to CG Iceland, 22 Oct 41; Memo, Col Harmon for Gen Malony, 23 Oct

41, OPD-GHQ Misc files, 093 INDIGO; Ltr, TAG to CofS GHQ and CG's sub: INDIGO (Supply

Levels), 10 Nov 41, OPD-GHQ, 400 Supplies (INDIGO) ; Recapitulation of All Supplies Shipped

to Iceland by Vessel (27 Jul 41-19 Feb 42), OPD-GHQ files; Hist Monograph: Transportation

of the U.S. Forces in the Occupation of Iceland (Office, Chief of Transportation), pp. 65, 104,

OCMH. 72

 Jt Army-Navy Directive INDIGO-3, 16 Aug 41; Memo, the President for SW and SN,

28 Aug 41, OPD-GHQ INDIGO "B." The underlining is in the original.
528 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

4 September; but, for almost eight weeks past, the American forces in Iceland had been attempting to do by justification what the President now

wanted done by injunction. The new phraseology brought no added responsibilities nor any changes in the conduct of operations.

More meaningful were the directions the President gave to Admiral Stark

on 6 September to have identical tasks assigned to the Navy and to the Army

Air Forces in Greenland and Iceland. As a result, the Army was given the

enlarged responsibility of supporting naval operations in the waters between

Iceland and America and of destroying any Axis forces met within the Western Atlantic Area. Although dispatched from GHQ on 23 September, the

formal notification of this change was apparently lost en route or mislaid on

arrival. For almost two months the Iceland Base Command continued to be

unaware that the President's memorandum of 6 September gave the Army a

new role. And of the Iceland Base Command's unawareness the War Department had no inkling until mid-November.73

 In any event, the role could not

be played without the necessary properties. The only Army planes in Iceland

were the fighter planes of the 33d Pursuit Squadron; the brunt of high-seas

patrolling done by the Americans had been carried by the PBY's of the naval

air force. Now the War Department, to consist with its new air mission and

to make possible its assistance in the Battle of the Atlantic, proposed to send

heavy bomber reinforcements to Iceland. They were to be, so Secretary Stimson informed the President on 21 October, the advance unit of a team of

four-engine bombers, the reserve component of which had already been sent

to Newfoundland. "In other words," he declared, "we contemplate the

possibility of sweeping operations by these long-range bombing planes and

have planned to place them in separated bases to facilitate that purpose as

well as to protect against air attack on either base."

 74

But the War Department had not reckoned either with the overcrowded

and unsatisfactory state of Reykjavík airfield or with the misapprehension

that ground support and interception were still the sole mission of the Iceland

Base Command air force. An inquiry from GHQ as to whether housing was

available and runways suitable for medium and heavy bombers brought forth

the reply that light bombers were what was needed, and that the Navy proposed sending a land-based bomber squadron in December, which would com73

 Memo, President for Adm Stark, quoted in Joint Army and Navy Basic Directive

for the Defense of Iceland and Greenland, 30 Sep 41; Ltr, TAG to CofS (GHQ), CG's, et al.,

17 Sep 41, with 1st Ind on Ltr, AG (GHQ), to CG IBC, 23 Sep 41; Ltr, TAG to CofS (GHQ),

CG's, et al., 17 Oct 41; 1st Ind on Ltr, AG (GHQ) to CG Iceland, 25 Oct 41. All in IBC 381

INDIGO-NOAH, 1941. 74

 Ltr, SW to the President, 21 Oct 41, Pearl Harbor Attack, pt. 20, pp. 4442-44.
ESTABLISHING THE ICELAND BASE COMMAND 529

pletely fill the accommodations at Reykjavík airfield. A second message to

General Bonesteel, on 14 November, informed him that "in order to increase

your defense capabilities and to further army air mission of supporting the

fleet" the immediate dispatch of an Army bomber squadron, either medium

or heavy, was desirable. "Either type . . . ," it was stated, "will permit attack

well out to sea as well as defense against land operations. . . . Light bombers

are of limited use."

 75

 Only at this point, apparently, was it recognized that

the Iceland Base Command air force had not, until now, known that "attack

well out to sea" was one of its tasks. In his reply to GHQ on 16 November,

General Bonesteel explained his position: "Your radio of 14 November . . .

gives Army Air Force new mission of supporting the fleet, which is the object

of the squadron the Navy states will arrive in early December."

 76

 Since

Reykjavík airfield could not accommodate two additional squadrons and since

the Navy was already putting up housing at the nearby seaplane base, he

recommended that the Navy bombers be given priority.

The Navy had acceded to the Army's participating in a role traditionally

reserved to naval aviation; now, when the Navy proposed to leave its own

element and make use of land-based bombers, it was the War Department's

turn to yield. It did so only with considerable misgiving, and only after an

offer to place an Army squadron under Navy command was rejected by the

Chief of Naval Operations.77 On the last day of peace the United States

would have for nearly four years, GHQ instructed General Bonesteel to make

allowance in his air plans for the operation out of Reykjavík airfield of

twenty-four Navy bombers. One squadron was scheduled to arrive by the

following Wednesday, 10 December, and the rest would follow before the

winter's end. But somewhere in the shock and hurly-burly of 7 December

1941 GHQ's message must have gone astray. The bombers, too, seem to have

been caught up in the hurried redeployment of air strength westward, and

in January General Bonesteel's headquarters was still wondering what disposition had been made of the bomber problem posed in November and of

the bombers that never arrived.78

75

 Ltr, Gen Bonesteel to CofS GHQ, 11 Nov 41 (and radio Msg same date), OPD-GHQ

320.2 Organization (IBC), binder 1; Rad, GHQ to CG Iceland, 14 Nov 41, WPD 4493-172,

sec. 6. 76

 Rad, CG Iceland, to CG GHQ, 16 Nov 41, WPD 4493-172, sec. 6. 77

 Memo, WPD for CofS, sub: Aviation, 24 Nov 41; Memo, CofS for CNO, 25 Nov 41.

Both in 4493-173, sec. 6. Memo, CNO for CofS, 5 Dec 41, OPD-GHQ, INDIGO "B." 78

 Memo, CofS for CNO, 6 Dec 41, WPD 4493-173, sec. 6; Cable, McNair to SPOBS

London, 6 Dec 41, OPD-GHQ, INDIGO "B"; An. 1-A: Synopsis of Requests for Tactical Aviation Units for Iceland Base Command, received GHQ, 25 Jan 42, GHQ 381 Def Plans (IBC),

binder 1.
530 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Basic Considerations for Determining the Post-Pearl

Harbor Course of Action

What had been done so far might have given a clue to what could be

done in the future, and to what could be done in respect not only to Iceland

but to operations farther afield. There would be, as there had been, other

operations that would require moving considerable bodies of men through

waters patrolled by unfriendly ships of war, operations that would require

landing a force completely armed at ports inadequately equipped and exposed to the foulest weather, operations that would require maintaining large

forces from supply bases two thousand miles or more distant. By December

1941 the pitfalls that might beset unwary planners of such an operation had

become all too obvious. By this stage of the Iceland operation there had been,

also, an excellent opportunity to test the effectiveness of American weapons

and equipment under conditions that verged on actual combat. And by this

time the weather, the terrain, and the poor roads of Iceland had thoroughly

put to proof the mobility of troops depending on mechanized transport. But

whether the Iceland operation would have any value as experience gained

would hang on the ability of War Department planners to perceive what

points of resemblance there might be in the situations later encountered.

Certainly if every operation were to be approached, planned, and carried out

as if it were something entirely new and unique, little would be gained. Considerations such as these were nevertheless subordinate to those of strategy.

To War Department makers of strategy the danger zone had been not

the Faeroes-Iceland-Greenland line of approach but the great BermudaAzores-Dakar-Natal quadrilateral. The defenses provided in the RAINBOW

4 plan for the Western Hemisphere thus had a decided southern exposure. And from this point of view, the relief of the British garrison in

Iceland was a diversion. But the gradual assumption on the part of the

Navy of some of the tasks set out for it in the more extensive and somewhat differently oriented RAINBOW 5 placed the operation in quite a

different setting. Not only would an American garrison in Iceland relieve

the British ground troops there, but, what was perhaps even more important, the escort-of-convoy and other naval measures necessary to protect the flow of supplies to the American forces would assist the Navy in

the execution of its duties and make possible the relief of British naval

vessels in the Western Atlantic. The War Department seems to have

lagged behind the German high command in recognizing the value of the

Iceland operation in this respect. As the scope of American naval operations
ESTABLISHING THE ICELAND BASE COMMAND 531

in North Atlantic waters grew larger, Iceland became one of the vital outposts

of the Atlantic Fleet, and, when Army aviation was given the mission of supporting the fleet, the island took on added importance to the War Department. As the Secretary of War had pointed out in October, if the Army Air

Forces were to carry out effectively any tasks in support of the fleet, Iceland

would be essential as an advanced air base. And by this time it gave promise,

too, of being a serviceable way station on the air ferry route to England.

In spite of the growing recognition of Iceland's strategic importance, the

entry of the United States into the war made the Iceland operation in a sense

less meaningful. The most valid reason for sending American forces had

been the replacement of front-line troops with soldiers who were still noncombatants. Although this objective had not been completely achieved, it

ceased to have any validity at all now that the United States itself was in the

war and could move into the front line of combat.

But even then Prime Minister Churchill was on his way to America to

confer with the President on the whole plan of joint defense and attack.

On the decision they made would hinge the future of the Iceland operation.
CHAPTER XX

The North Atlantic Bases

in Wartime

As outposts of defense, the North Atlantic bases were only imperceptibly

affected by the entry of the United States into the war. More than two months

before, instructions had gone out to the American garrisons to dispute actively

the approach of any Axis military plane or naval vessel. Iceland had gone

on the alert even earlier. The ultimate decision that would bring into action

the guns of the American garrisons had thus rested with Hitler and on his

view of what was expedient. It had not depended on America's status,

whether of belligerency, nonbelligerency, or neutrality. In recognition of these

circumstances, reinforcements had been dispatched to the Atlantic outposts

throughout most of 1941. This is not to say that the bases in the Atlantic

escaped, even for a time, the hard impact of war. The affirmation in the

ARCADIA Conference (the Anglo-American conference in Washington, December 1941-January 1942) of the strategy of concentrating an American

air force in the United Kingdom acted as a catalyst on the hitherto uncertain

and somewhat nebulous proposals that the United States take over the North

Atlantic air route—the shortest path between America and the European

front. As way stations on this route both Greenland and Iceland now acquired

a new importance, in which Newfoundland, as one of the terminal points,

shared.

But the first blow had come from the far side of the world, and the demands of strategy had to be adjusted to the danger of the moment. Air reinforcements destined for the North Atlantic were hastily rerouted toward

the Pacific. The B-17's of the 49th Bomber Squadron, on the eve of their

departure for Newfoundland, were diverted across country to California in

spite of the fact that the squadron's ground echelon was already in Newfoundland. The bombers intended for Iceland likewise reached a destination

far from that originally planned, and for a few days there was a strong possibility that the scheduled troop movements would go the way of the planes.
THE NORTH ATLANTIC BASES IN WARTIME 533

The Build-up

Of the four outposts in the North Atlantic, Iceland alone presented a

major, immediate problem. The reinforcement of Newfoundland and Bermuda would require the transportation of comparatively small numbers and

the distances were not great. Greenland would be frozen in until spring.

Furthermore, early plans and prior commitments and the desire of the British

to transfer their garrison gave Iceland a special position in the tug of

European strategy versus Pacific needs.

As matters stood, the United States had a little more than 10,000 men,

including the marines, in Iceland on 7 December 1941. The two troop movements planned for December had been combined into one of about 2,100 men,

which was ready to leave on 10 December, and preparations for sending approximately the same number of troops on 20 January were well under way.

Tentative plans for the next four months, which would include relieving

the marines, were being worked out. Now, suddenly, all these plans and

preparations were thrown into jeopardy. Three or four days of uncertainty

passed and then, on 11 December, the War Plans Division notified GHQ to

carry out the December move according to plan. Four days later, on 15 December, the troops sailed. But the final decision on all subsequent movements

was postponed.1

Twice during these weeks in December 1941 Secretary Stimson urged the

President to reconsider the Iceland situation and withdraw the American

garrison. The British, he argued, could do the job without the problem of

leave and rotation, with all its psychological ramifications, that confronted

American troops.2 In Mr. Stimson's view, a British garrison would in no way

hinder the United States from making use of Iceland as an air or naval base.

But the Navy thought otherwise. The President, whose interest had been

aroused in the first place by Iceland's naval importance, agreed with Mr. Stimson that the situation ought to be restudied; but his reaction to the Pearl

Harbor attack and to the removal of the last remaining restrictions on

the use of selectees was that now the garrison ought to be strengthened. He

1

 Memo, Maj Lemnitzer, GHQ, for DCofS GHQ, 24 Nov 41, WPD 4493-153, sec. 5; Cable,

TAG to SPOBS, London, No. 166, 29 Nov 41; Memo, Col Handy for General Gerow, 5 Dec 41.

Last two in OPD-GHQ INDIGO "B." Memo, WPD for CofS GHQ, 11 Dec 41, WPD 4493-181,

sec. 6. 2

 Ltr, SW to the President, 25 Dec 41, Roosevelt Papers, FDRL.
534 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

would be "much happier," he wrote to Secretary Stimson, "if we had another

10,000 men in Iceland."

 3

The ARCADIA conferees acted promptly in accordance with the wishes

of the President and Prime Minister and decided to carry through the relief

of the British in Iceland, but the matter of a timetable and priority in relation to the other major operations proposed for the Atlantic theater was not so

easily settled. In deference to the wishes of Admiral Stark and the Navy

planners it was agreed to relieve the marines first, and on this account the

troop movement scheduled for January was greatly expanded—6,000 and

8,000 men were the two figures discussed. But before the conference ended,

shipping requirements for the Pacific made it necessary to abandon the idea

of relieving the marines for the time being and to restore the original schedule

of moving about 2,500 men to Iceland in January.4

As it turned out, the relief of the marines and the relief of the British

garrison were carried out simultaneously, over a period of six months. After

the arrival of the December troop convoy a battalion of marines had taken

over the positions of one of the British infantry battalions, which was

immediately returned to the United Kingdom. Then the 2d Battalion, 10th

Infantry, which arrived in the January convoy, took over from the marine

battalion and it returned to the United States. No troops arrived in February.

In March a small British force and the last remaining units of the marine

brigade departed upon the arrival of the 2d Infantry (minus one battalion)

and accompanying units. A large American convoy arrived in mid-April and

another in May with a total of about 8,700 troops, and this enabled most

of the remaining British troops to be withdrawn. After 11 May only the

British 146 Infantry Brigade, distributed among the three outports of

Akureyri, Seydhisfjördhur, and Búdhareyri, and some Royal Air Force units

remained. The better part of the job the United States had undertaken

twelve months before was accomplished. There were now, at the beginning

of June 1942, about 24,000 American troops in Iceland; but in the meantime Iceland's defense requirements had risen. The building of the Keflavík

airfields, air ferrying activity, and troop transport operations over the sea

lanes, and the fact that the United States had become one of the belligerents

all meant that the size of the garrison had to be revised upward. Shortly after

Iceland's inclusion in June in the new European Theater of Operations, large

additions to the American forces arrived in July, August, October, and

3

 Memo, the President for SW, 12 Dec 41, Roosevelt Papers, FDRL. Memo, G-2 for CofS,

12 Dec 41, WPD 4493-184, sec. 6. 4

 Matloff and Snell, Strategic Planning, 1941-42, ch. V.
THE NORTH ATLANTIC BASES IN WARTIME 535

December, so that by the end of 1942 the garrison in Iceland had grown to

approximately 38,000 men stationed at nearly 300 camps and posts.5

Both Iceland and Greenland had been fitted into the strategy of the war

within a month after the United States entered it. The unfinished air bases in

Greenland, which the Air Forces had earlier sought to justify on grounds of

their importance to the direct transport operations between Newfoundland

and Scotland and to antisubmarine patrol and reconnaissance operations,

and the projected fields at Keflavík, which GHQ and the Iceland Base Command had originally envisioned as tactical fields, were now recognized for

what they could become, namely, essential to the American build-up in

Britain. But before their usefulness could be realized much construction

work remained to be done and adjustments had to be made to several shifts

in plans.

By late spring of 1942, when open water began to appear in the Greenland fjords and construction activity could be resumed at the BLUIE bases,

there had been adopted the BOLERO-SLEDGEHAMMER-ROUNDUP strategy

which called for a major effort from the British Isles and the movement

overseas of the Eighth Air Force. In furtherance of this undertaking the

North Atlantic staging route was merged into the grandiose CRIMSON project,

a sweeping design for airfields and weather stations along three different

trans-Canadian routes that converged in the neighborhood of Frobisher Bay.

By the time the first planes of the BOLERO movement were ready to take off,

at the end of June, the CRIMSON project had been sharply curtailed, lest the

child swallow the parent, and by August the planning for an African landing

had taken precedence over BOLERO, that is, over the preparations for a crossChannel operation. These and later shifts in strategic planning were reflected

in various adjustments and readjustments in construction plans and base

development, especially in Greenland; but the changes in base plans were

chiefly of degree, not of direction.6

The growth and development of the Greenland bases went hand in hand

with the first rush of ferrying operations. The first BOLERO flight landed at

BLUIE WEST 1 on an unfinished runway ill-provided with taxiways and

parking areas. Weather and communications facilities, aids to navigation,

5

 Memo, GHQ for WPD, 1 Jan 42, sub: Relief of Marines in Iceland, OPD-GHQ 320.2,

binder 1; Ltr, CG IBC, to CG FF, 5 Jan 42, sub: Summary of Relief of British Forces . . .

GHQ 320.2 INDIGO (Strength), binder 4; FO 6, IBC, 21 Jan 42, GHQ 381 INDIGO, binder 1;

G-1 Rpt, IBC, 5 Jun 42, OPD 319.1 IBC; Hq IBC, Rcd of Events, Jun 41-Jun 45, IBC 314.7. 6

 Matloff and Snell, Strategic Planning, 1941-42, chapter XII, unfolds the strategic picture of

this period. The CRIMSON project is touched upon in Conn and Fairchild, Framework of Hemisphere Defense, chapter XIII. For the build-up in Britain, see Leighton and Coakley, Logistics

in Global Warfare, 1941-43, chapter XIV.
536 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

and billets and messing facilities for the flight crews were wanting. Ferrying

Command officers noted a shortage of well-trained and experienced air base

personnel.7 To fill these gaps without halting or greatly impeding the ferrying operations was the aim, only partly achieved during 1942. A prolonged

spell of bad weather in August and September seriously hampered construction activity at BLUIE WEST 1. In September, the first of three disastrous

fires completely destroyed the mess hall at Ivigtut. Meanwhile, German submarines had begun to take their toll of ships, men, supplies, and equipment.

The sinking of the USAT Chatham on 27 August was the first American

troopship loss of the war. Fortunately, almost all on board were saved; but it

was a foretaste of more bitter experiences to come. Although new weather

stations were opened and new airfields started, the route was far from being

completed by mid-December, when ferrying operations ceased for the

winter.8 During the six months it had been in use nearly nine hundred planes

had taken the route.

During the same period the strength of the Greenland Base Command

was doubled. To reinforce the garrison to any great extent during winter

had been impossible, so that in April 1942 it was about the same size as it

had been the previous December. Then, in May, defense forces were sent to

Ivigtut and BLUIE WEST 8. This brought the strength up to 1,383 officers

and enlisted men, where it stood on 30 June when the ferry traffic was beginning to come through. BLUIE WEST 1 still had the largest garrison, 731 men,

compared to 238 at Ivigtut and 379 at BLUIE WEST 8, and the bulk of the

garrison now consisted of antiaircraft and coast defense troops, and of Air

Corps and service detachments, instead of engineers.9 Through the summer

and fall reinforcements continued to reach Greenland. By the end of November, just before winter weather closed the route to ferrying operations, the

strength had risen to approximately 2,856 men, more than half of them

stationed at BLUIE WEST 1.10

Most of the additional troops belonged to the infantry battalion that

arrived in early November and was divided between BLUIE WEST 1 and

7

 Samuel Milner, "Establishing the BOLERO Ferry Route," Military Affairs, XI, No. 4, Winter

1947, 213-22, is a good summary of the first ferrying operations over this route. See also Craven

and Cate, eds., Plans and Early Operations, ch. 17. 8

 North Atlantic Div, CE, U.S. Army Bases: Greenland, sec. V; Morison, The Battle of the Atlantic, pp. 330-31; War Council Notes, 2 Sep 42, OCS files, SW Conf, binder 2. 9

 G-1 Rpts for periods 16-31 Mar and 15-30 Jun 42, Hqs, Greenland Base Comd to ACofS

WDGAP (G-1), OPD 319.1 GBC, sec. 1; and statistical summary Strength of U.S. Army

Forces . . . , compiled by Statistics Sec, OCMH. 10

 Memo, Chief, North American Theater, OPD, for ACofS OPD, 21 Nov 42, OPD 381

Greenland, sec. I, case 19.
THE NORTH ATLANTIC BASES IN WARTIME 537

BLUIE WEST 8. The War Department had originally planned to send the

2d Battalion, 3d Infantry, to Greenland, and in preparation for the move

the Headquarters and Headquarters Company were dispatched at the end

of April. After the troop movements of May and June got under way,

Colonel Giles, the commanding officer in Greenland, recommended that the

defense of the airfields be placed in the hands of strong antiaircraft and

tactical air units. Specifically, he requested one pursuit squadron, one composite pursuit and bomber squadron, three batteries of 90-mm. guns, and

one battery of 155-mm. guns. Lt. Col. Robert W. C. Wimsatt, who relieved

Colonel Giles when the latter assumed command of the North Atlantic

Wing of the Air Forces Ferrying Command, concurred in the views of his

predecessor, as did General Spaatz, who had stopped in Greenland on his

way to take command of the Eighth Air Force in Britain. "As a basis for

planning," the War Department was willing to, and in fact did, approve

an even larger air and artillery augmentation; but for the immediate present

it proposed to go ahead with the plans to send an infantry battalion.11

Meanwhile, in order to take care of the increasing demands made upon his

headquarters, Colonel Wimsatt requested additional Quartermaster,

Ordnance, and other overhead personnel, and at the same time requested

that a Headquarters and Headquarters Company for the Greenland Base

Command be activated with the headquarters personnel of the 2d Battalion,

3d Infantry. The War Department gave its approval, and on 18 July dispatched the appropriate directives to Army Ground Forces and the Services

of Supply. Some months later, in October, Colonel Wimsatt's request for

additional supply and service personnel was granted also. Meanwhile, on 1

September, after the Base Command Headquarters was activated, the Headquarters and Headquarters Company of the 2d Battalion, 3d Infantry, was

inactivated and its personnel transferred to a newly constituted unit: the

Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 73d Infantry Battalion (Separate). On the same day the four companies of this battalion were activated

at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and on 11 November 1942 they arrived in

Greenland.12

During the next six months all the American outposts in the North

Atlantic were built up toward peak strength, while at the same time plans

11

 Entries of 9 Jun, 15 Jun, 16 Jun 42, OPD Diary. Memo, OPD for CG's AAF, AGF,

SOS, and GBC, 15 Jul 42, OPD 320.2 Greenland, sec. I, case 31. 12

 Memo, CO GBC for CofS WDGS, 1 Jul 42; Memo, OPD for CG AGF, and CG SOS,

18 Jul 42. Both in OPD 320.2 Greenland, sec. I, case 34. Entry for 15 Aug 42, OPD Diary.

D/F, OPD for G-3 and DCofS, sub: Strength of QM Detachment, Foreign Station, 27 Oct 42,

with Memo for Rcd and atchd papers, OPD 320.2 Greenland, sec. I, case 28.
538 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

were being laid to reduce the garrisons. All except Greenland reached the

peak before midsummer, 1943, and then started to dwindle. Before retrenchment set in, the Iceland garrison had risen to approximately 41,000, the

Newfoundland garrison to about 10,000, and Bermuda to about 4,500. The

Greenland garrison continued to grow for several months after the others

began their decline and finally reached its peak strength toward the end of

the year, when about 5,300 men were maintaining lonely vigilance there.13

Plans for using the Greenland airfields for antisubmarine operations, the

sinking in February 1943 of the transport Dorchester with the loss of 605

men en route to Greenland, the resumption in 1943 of enemy activity on its

northeast coast, and the development of plans for the invasion of Europe

(for which Greenland weather reports would be of vital importance) all suggest themselves as explanations for the lag in reducing the size of the Greenland garrison.

The entry of the United States into the war not only gave new importance

to the Greenland airfields, but likewise brought construction plans to full

maturity in Iceland and made necessary a review or recasting of the program

in Bermuda and Newfoundland. At all the bases the obvious reaction was

to eliminate those items of construction that were not essential to the purposes of actual defense. In Newfoundland, such things as family quarters,

theaters, and officers' and service clubs were either eliminated outright or

replaced by temporary structures, and such facilities as additional gun batteries and reinforced concrete storage igloos were added instead. In Bermuda,

where the ease of handling the local building stone and the availability of

concrete block made permanent- or semipermanent-type construction less of

a problem and more easily built, fewer temporary buildings were substituted.

Nevertheless the program was revised. The runways, hangars, cantonment

housing, barracks, and similar facilities were given urgent priority; certain

less essential construction was placed on a deferred status.14 In Iceland, the

need of an additional bomber field and the desirability of additional fighter

plane facilities merged and became the Keflavík air base project.

The Army Air Forces, GHQ, and the Iceland Base Command had for

some time been united in favor of an additional bomber field in Iceland.

During November and December 1941 site and soil surveys, reports, and

13

 Precise figures on the actual strength of any garrison at any particular time are almost

unobtainable. The above approximations are based on the statistical summary, Strength of U.S.

Army Forces . . . , compiled by OCMH Statistics Section, on the weekly OPD status maps, and

on scattered strength summaries in OPD 320.2 files for the several base commands. 14

 North Atlantic Div, CE, U.S. Army Bases: Newfoundland, sec. VI, pp. 12-22; North Atlantic Div, CE, U.S. Army Bases: Bermuda, sec. V, p. 2, supp. 4 and supp. 6.
THE NORTH ATLANTIC BASES IN WARTIME 539

recommendations had been made, every one of them favorable, but authority

to proceed with the preliminary clearing and grading had not been forthcoming until 29 December. Two weeks later, on 14 January 1942, General

Somervell's office recommended, with the concurrence of the Air Forces, that

the Army Engineers at once begin construction of an airfield in the vicinity

of Keflavík suitable for heavy bombers and that the necessary funds be

provided therefor.15 In the meantime, while the pros and cons of a bomber

field were being studied, Colonel Morris, commander of the Iceland Base

Command's air forces, had been unobtrusively getting the construction of

a new fighter field under way as part of the basic defense mission. As soon

as the bomber field received official approval, the fighter field was fitted into

the project as a satellite field. Thus, considerable progress had already been

made by the time the first civilian construction gangs arrived in May. They

were set to work on Patterson Field, as the satellite airfield was soon named,

and when the first planes of the Eighth Air Force began coming through on

their way to England, early in July, two of its three runways were in use.16

Construction work on the main airfield, Meeks Field, was started on 2 July

and was taken over in August by one of the first Seabee units organized.

A B-18 bomber carrying General Bonesteel and high ranking officers of his

staff, and their guests, made the first landing at Meeks Field on 24 March

1943, and with appropriate ceremony General Bonesteel declared the field

officially opened.17 By the end of November 1943 the Greenland airfields had

been completely graded and surfaced. All the links in the "Snowball" route

to England had been filled in. "The major problems concerned with aircraft

ferrying had been largely solved," states the official history of the Air Transport Command. "Ferrying had become virtually a routine operation."

 18

The Command Problem

One of the sharpest nettles growing out of the Pearl Harbor attack was

that hardy perennial, the problem of unity of command. "Lots of paper,"

as General Marshall once observed, had been expended through the years on

15

 Memo, G-4 for CofS, 14 Jan 42, OCS 21224-171. The relation between Iceland and the

strategic decisions made during the Anglo-American conversations (the ARCADIA Conference) is

suggested by the date of the authorization and of General Somervell's recommendation. 16

 Col George C. Reinhardt, Engineers, IBC, Historical Outline of Keflavík Project, 23 Mar

43 copy in OCMH; Ltr, Gen Morris, USAF (Ret.) to OCMH, 26 Jul 51; Navy Dept, BuDocks,

Building the Navy's Bases in World War II, II, 56-57. 17

 Rcd of Events, Hq IBC, Jun 41-Jun 45, IBC 314.7. 18

 Hist Br, Intelligence and Security Div, Hq ATC, Administrative History of the Air Transport Command, March 1943-July 1944, copy in OCMH, p. 176.
540 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

SECTION OF A GREENLAND AIRFIELD, 1943

this esoteric question of how command should be exercised when different

services were involved and who should exercise it. The question verged on

the philosophic, and the points at issue—unity of command versus mutual

co-operation—were absolute terms, not susceptible to compromise. It was

somewhat like the conflict between "positivism" and "relativism," which,

to the total indifference of most laymen, provides among professional historians a perpetual source of argument and a convenient explanation for the

shortcomings of their fellows. To Secretary Stimson and the professional

military men, the resounding defeat on 7 December 1941 seemed attributable

in part to this long-standing disagreement over the principles of joint command, and one of the reactions to the blow was an effort on the part of the

War Department to recreate each of the various overseas bases into a

unified command.

In spite of all the sound and fury, the argument boiled down to the

issue of which higher headquarters would have responsibility for any given

operation. The answer would obviously be determined by the nature of the
THE NORTH ATLANTIC BASES IN WARTIME 541

operation and the particular circumstances of the case. Since the answer generally was found in this way, and since in actual practice integrated operations

did not necessarily come with unity of command, nor unity of command with

integrated operations, it is fairly clear that the opposing advocates were not

misled by their own arguments and really saw the issue for what it was.

To the extent that it involved the Atlantic bases, the fundamental issue

was whether air units would be more appropriately employed in operations

in support of the fleet and under Navy command, or whether they were

primarily for local defense and should be under Army command. At Bermuda

and Iceland the planes in dispute were Navy patrol bombers; at Newfoundland they were Army aircraft. The roots of the problem went back, in the

case of Bermuda, to the agreement of April 1941 by which the Navy undertook to provide planes for local defense purposes, and, in the case of Iceland, to President Roosevelt's directive of 6 September 1941 in which he

called for the assignment of identical tasks to the Navy and the Army air

forces there. There were complicating factors. In spite of, or perhaps in

ignorance of, the April agreement regarding Bermuda, Captain James, naval

commandant there, was convinced that the base should function primarily

as an operating base for the fleet, not principally as a naval air station, and

that his own proper place in the chain of command was under the Commander

in Chief, Atlantic Fleet (CINCLANT), not the Commandant of the Fifth

Naval District, as his original orders seemed to indicate.19 But if this should

be the case, his planes would then be units of the fleet and not appropriate

elements of a local joint command. This question was not decided until 3

February 1942, directly after the Army forces in Bermuda were placed at

the disposal of the Navy commander.20 The presence of RCAF, RAF, and

British Navy units at Newfoundland and Iceland, the wide disparity in

strength between the Army garrison and the local naval defense forces in

Iceland, and, finally, the inadvertence by which the Iceland Base Command

was not apprised of the extension of the Army's mission until months afterward were additional complications.

The command pattern that took shape after the attack on Pearl Harbor

had been molded by these complications. When the Navy Department on

4 January formally proposed that "unity of command" be established in

Bermuda under CINCLANT, an arrangement similar to the one shortly before

19

 Administrative History of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet in World War II, vol. V, Commandant

N.O.B. Bermuda (Commander in Chief, United States Atlantic Fleet, 1946), on file in Naval

Research Sec, Naval Hist Div, OCNO, pp. 16, 48-50. 20

 Ibid., p. 51.
542 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

placed in effect in Hawaii, GHQ and the War Plans Division of the General

Staff found themselves on opposite sides of the question. In the exchanges

that followed neither GHQ nor the War Plans Division referred to the

April 1941 agreement. GHQ could see no reason for the Navy's proposal

except as a means of securing the naval shore establishment more fully under

the control of the fleet or of facilitating the conduct of relations with the

local British authorities, and neither purpose, according to GHQ, required

placing Army forces under Navy command. When the War Plans Division

countered with the argument that the defense of Bermuda depended upon

the Navy's control of the seas, that the operations of all the forces in Bermuda would be primarily directed toward maintaining that control, and that

for this reason the Navy should have command, GHQ replied that Bermuda

had been established as an outpost to defend the continental United States

against attack, that the primary aim was to deny the islands to the enemy, and

that the Army was the service principally charged with this mission.21 The

view of the War Plans Division prevailed. On 30 January the Chief of Staff

notified GHQ of his concurrence in the Navy's proposal, and GHQ grudgingly acquiesced. Four days later the intra-Navy disagreement of air station

versus operating base was settled by Secretary Knox in favor of Captain

James and the naval operating base. Meanwhile, the command problem

had been partly laid to rest in Newfoundland also. In late October and early

November 1941 Canadian naval forces on ocean escort duty, outside the

coastal zone, were placed under the control of CINCLANT, and some measure of co-ordination in air patrols was worked out by the RCAF and the

Commanding General, Newfoundland Base Command. It was reported, at

a meeting of the Permanent Joint Board on Defense, United States-Canada,

on 10 November, that orders were being issued placing the American air

units under the command of CINCLANT for operations in protection of

shipping on the high seas, but even for this limited purpose a completely

unified command did not come into existence until after the United States

was carried into the war.22 Not until January 1942 did the Canadian Government give its consent to a similar arrangement for the RCAF.

21

 Memo, Adm Turner for Gen Gerow, 4 Jan 42, sub: Proposal for Unity of Comd . . . ,

Bermuda; Memo, GHQ for WPD, 10 Jan 42; and Memo, WPD for CofS, 25 Jan 42. All in WPD

4351-8, sec. 2. Memo, CofS GHQ, for CG FF, 30 Jan 42, AGF-McNair file, Unity of Comd. 22

 Memo, WPD for Adm Turner, 31 Jan 42, sub: Unity of Comd, Bermuda, WPD 4351-8,

sec. 2; Ltr, Gen Embick to Col O. M. Biggar (Canadian Sec, PJBD), 11 Nov 41, Memo, Gen

Embick for WPD, 13 Nov 41; Memo, Gen Embick for WPD, 28 Feb 42. Last three in WPD

4351-9, sec. 6.
THE NORTH ATLANTIC BASES IN WARTIME 543

In spite of the fact that the United States had now entered the war, that

the Army had recognized the Navy's "paramount interest" in the defense

of Bermuda, and that Army air units in Newfoundland had been placed

under Navy command for the performance of a particular task, there still

remained a few ripples of disagreement. In Newfoundland part of the

difficulty lay in the relationship between the American and Canadian forces

there. The ABC-22 plan, which came into effect with the entrance of the

United States into the war, provided for co-ordination of effort by mutual

co-operation; but the United States in a protocol to the base lease agreement

of March 1941 had expressly recognized the predominant interest and

over-all responsibility of Canada in the defense of Newfoundland. The

installing of American harbor defenses at St. John's, in addition to existing

Canadian defenses, and the stationing of American air units at the Gander

airfield, in addition to RCAF units, created areas of divided responsibility.

A suggestion by the Canadian Army commander in Newfoundland that

Canada assume responsibility for manning the American harbor defense

battery received short shrift; and a complaint by the American air commander at the Gander airfield that closer co-ordination was necessary likewise was of no effect. Nevertheless, a joint defense plan prepared by the

Newfoundland Base Command in November was accepted by all the commanders concerned, with the exception of the RCAF commander. In December, after the United States entered the war, a Local Joint Defense Committee,

similar to those set up in the Caribbean, was formed for the purpose of reviewing and revising the existing defense plans. The wrangle over unity of

command among the American services, the autonomous position of each of

the Canadian services in Newfoundland, and difficult personal relations

between the several commanders prevented the Joint Defense Committee

from making much progress. There continued to be pressure for giving the

commanding general of the Newfoundland Base Command supreme command in Newfoundland. In February, General Drum, commanding general

of the Eastern Theater of Operations, recommended that all forces in Newfoundland, Canadian as well as American, be placed under the command

of an American officer, without any limitation. GHQ, which was the next

higher authority above General Drum, had long favored the task force

scheme of organization, an essential feature of which was the unification of

forces under a single commander, and now GHQ urged that General Drum's

recommendation be adopted. General Embick, senior Army member of the

United States-Canadian defense board, was not, on the other hand, favorably impressed. Considering how difficult it had been to obtain the assent
544 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

of the Canadian Government to the existing arrangement, General Embick

was convinced that any effort to carry out General Drum's recommendation

would fail and only impair what co-operation there already was. The War

Plans Division agreed with General Embick and replied to General Drum

accordingly.23 Shortly afterwards the Canadian Government established a

unified command in Newfoundland with a joint operations center for all

three Canadian services. Relations between the American and Canadian commanders began to improve, and in the course of the next six months or so,

there was a marked growth of co-operation between the two forces. The

American command joined the Canadian joint operations center; a joint

United States-Canadian local defense plan was prepared and approved; and

joint field exercises were held. By 1 October 1942, a satisfactory relationship

between the two forces had been established, solely on the basis of the fine

spirit of co-operation that existed between the two commanding generals.24

The command arrangements agreed upon for Bermuda had meanwhile

come under the fire of GHQ. Instructions sent by CINCLANT to the Naval

Operating Base, Bermuda, on 4 February, described the procedures somewhat as follows: the senior United States Navy officer afloat at Bermuda

or the senior officer of the joint local defense forces eligible to command—

whichever of the two might be senior—would assume command as the

deputy of CINCLANT; the senior Navy officer afloat, if upon him the

command devolved, was authorized to call upon local defense forces to

support the fleet, as the situation required; and the senior officer of the joint

local defense forces, if he were to assume command, was authorized to

assign local defense tasks to units of the fleet as long as these tasks did not

prevent the execution of fleet tasks.25 The arrangement was cumbersome,

made so perhaps by the fact that there was still uncertainty whether the

naval operating base was technically a fleet or a shore-based activity—and

by the fact that Captain James was junior in rank to General Strong, commander of the Bermuda Base Command. The opinion of GHQ was that

this procedure appeared "to utilize all local forces to best advantage in the

support of the fleet, but does not provide a satisfactory basis for the assignment of responsibilities for the defense of Bermuda."

 26

 General Marshall

23

 Memo, Gen Embick for WPD, 28 Feb 42; Memo, WPD for CofS, 9 Mar 42; and atchd

papers. All in WPD 4351-9, sec. 6. 24

 Memo, Mayor La Guardia, Chairman, American Sec, PJBD, for CG EDC, 1 Oct 42, cited

in Dziuban, Military Relations Between United States and Canada, 1939-45, p. 120. 25

 Msg, CINCLANT to NOB Bermuda, 4 Feb 42, WPD 4351-8, sec. 2. 26

 Memo, DCofS GHQ, for CG FF, 12 Feb 42, WPD 4351-8, sec. 2.
THE NORTH ATLANTIC BASES IN WARTIME 545

had already signified to Admiral King his willingness to assign as commander of the Bermuda Base Command an officer junior to the commandant

of the Naval Operating Base. But then the promotion of Captain James to

Rear Admiral, on 18 February, made a change of officers unnecessary; and

it placed responsibility for the defense of Bermuda squarely on the Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet. As to the limited authority the local defense

commander could exercise over units of the fleet, and of which GHQ had

also complained, it was the view of the War Plans Division that "this is

considered sound."

 27

One outgrowth of the Bermuda command question was the extension

of the same problem to Iceland. GHQ, in arguing against giving the Navy

command authority over the Bermuda forces, had pointed to Iceland as an

example. The situation there, according to GHQ, was similar "in principle,"

and if it seemed "advisable to yield to the Navy" in the case of one then

it might be equally advisable in the case of the other, GHQ inferred.28

In actual fact, if not in principle, the two cases were as far apart as the

islands themselves. Up to this point the Navy had not raised the question

of command in Iceland, and the Army War Plans Division would have preferred to let the issue sleep; but GHQ chose this moment to inform General

Bonesteel that the joint Army-Navy defense plan which he and the local

naval commander had drawn up the previous fall had been scuttled by the

Navy Department.29 Rear Adm J. L. Kauffman, the commandant of the

naval base at Iceland, immediately asked for instructions concerning his

command relationships, and General Bonesteel shortly afterwards sought

clarification from GHQ, which by this time was being gradually taken out

of the picture by the impending reorganization of the War Department.

Fresh impetus came from the White House. Mr. Lincoln MacVeagh, the

American Minister to Iceland and a personal friend of the President, arrived

in Washington at this juncture with a report in which he strongly urged a

27

 Draft Memo, WPD for CofS, (24-25 Feb 42); Memo, CofS, for COMINCH, 11 Feb 42;

Memo, WPD for CofS, 23 Feb 42; and Memo, COMINCH for CofS, 25 Feb 42. All in WPD

4351-8, sec. 2. 28

 Memo, GHQ for CG FF, 30 Jan 42, AGF-McNair file; Memo, GHQ for WPD, 10 Jan

42, WPD 4351-8, sec. 2. 29

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 6 Feb 42, WPD 4351-8, sec. 2; Telg, GHQ to CG US Forces in

Iceland, 12 Jan 42. Both in GHQ 381 INDIGO, binder 1. It is of interest to note that the Navy's

disapproval was made known to General Marshall by Memo from CNO for CofS, 15 December

1941 (handed to General Marshall by Admiral Stark at the Joint Board meeting of 17 December);

that this Memo was in turn forwarded to GHQ by Memo from WPD on 18 December; and that

"information for reply" was forwarded to GHQ by WPD Disposition Form on 4 January 1942.

See GHQ 381 INDIGO, binder 1; GHQ-OPD INDIGO "B"; WPD 4351-8, sec. 2.
546 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

unified command. There had been no real friction, he said, but a lack of

liaison which had led to misunderstanding, delays, and in one case to the

fatal shooting of a Navy enlisted man. Without concerning himself with

the purely military matter of operations, Mr. MacVeagh argued that a unified

command would centralize responsibility for unloading cargo and moving

troops and supplies, would improve the security service, and would steer

into a single channel all questions having to do with the local government.

More pertinently, he suggested that for reasons of rank, administrative

experience, and convenience (the Army had a larger staff in Iceland) the

over-all command be given to the commanding general of the Iceland Base

Command rather than to the naval commander.30 Sent over to Secretary

Stimson by Mr. Harry Hopkins, Mr. MacVeagh's report received the

enthusiastic endorsement of the War Plans Division, which now had no

hesitation about bringing the question into the open. Admiral Stark was

asked for his views. He, in the meantime, had ordered Admiral Kauffman

to submit a report on the situation; and the latter agreed that the lines of

command in Iceland were exceedingly complicated. But the remedy, as

Admiral Kauffman saw it, was greater control by the U.S. Navy.31

Thus the issue, touched off by the Bermuda question and by Washington's rejection of the Iceland defense plan, was transferred to the efforts

of General Bonesteel and Admiral Kauffman to agree on a revised version

of the plan. The particular point on which the controversy now focused was

the tactical control of the Navy patrol planes in Iceland, of which there

were ten or twelve. After long negotiation the most the two commanders

could agree upon was that in the event of an enemy assault the Navy planes

would be employed "in conjunction with the shore defense systems," under

the principle of mutual co-operation, when it was "clearly evident" to the

commandant of the naval base that the aircraft would not be needed for

fleet tasks.32 Although General Bonesteel considered this provision an

unsatisfactory solution he agreed to it in order to save the rest of the plan.

The Operations Division, successor to the War Plans Division, advocated

the same course that its predecessor had recommended: that the existing

command arrangements in Iceland be left undisturbed, unless the local naval

30

 Notes on Iceland, Lincoln MacVeagh to President Roosevelt, transmitted by Ltr, 20 Feb 42,

Roosevelt Papers, FDRL. 31

 Memo, WPD for CofS, 3 Mar 42, WPD 384, Iceland (3-3-42); Administrative History,

U.S. Atlantic Fleet, IV, Commandant, NOB Iceland, p. 55. 32 Gen Bonesteel to Gen Marshall, 15 May 42, AG 381 (5-15-42) (3). The revised local

joint plan (short title, ICEJANN) with the various changes and additions is in IBC 381 Local

Jt Def Plans, Project ICEJANN.
THE NORTH ATLANTIC BASES IN WARTIME 547

forces were materially strengthened, and on 16 June the War Department

notified General Bonesteel to this effect. The "relatively insignificant

strength" of the local naval forces, and "the fact that the Navy does not

consider these forces as local naval forces but rather as a part of the fleet"

were, according to the Operations Division, grounds for considering further

discussion of the matter inadvisable.33 The Operations Division reversed

itself again on the very next day, when Admiral King proposed that aircraft

of either service operating in support of the other should remain under the

direct control of their own service but should have their tasks or missions

assigned by the service in whose support they were operating. Discerning

a similarity between this proposal and the Army-Navy agreement under

which Army aircraft were operating within the coastal frontier areas, the

Operations Division immediately countered with a recommendation that

the language of the existing agreement in Joint Action of the Army and

the Navy be employed in the present case. In a memorandum to Admiral

King the following terminology was suggested:

The Army is responsible for the assignment of tasks (missions) to all U. S. aircraft

engaged in the defense of Iceland. The Navy is responsible for the assignment of tasks

(missions) to all U. S. aircraft engaged in operations for the protection of sea communications and for the support of Naval forces in the sea areas around Iceland. Army

aircraft are operated as part of the Iceland Base Command. Naval aircraft are operated

as a part of the U. S. Fleet. When, however, aircraft of either service are made available for the support of the other service, such supporting aircraft, will operate under

the principle of unity of command as set forth in Paragraph 10 of Joint Action of the

Army and Navy, 1935.34

Admiral King accepted the change, and with this the question was settled.

General Bonesteel and the commandant of the naval base in Iceland were

directed to revise their joint plan accordingly, which they did.

What had actually been agreed upon in Washington was little more

than a reaffirmation of the general principle involved. The paragraph in

Joint Action of the Army and Navy to which reference was made only defined

the responsibility and limited the authority conferred by unity of command.

Recognition on the part of both services that integrated operations might

be necessary and that those circumstances would require a single commander

was no doubt a long step toward a solution, but the final step—making it

33

 DF, OPD for TAG, 11 Jun 42, with text of reply by Ind to Ltr, Hq IBC to CofS, 16 May

42; Memo, OPD for CofS, 11 Jun 42. Both in WDCSA 330.11 Iceland (3 Dec 43). The memorandum transmitting OPD's recommendation was approved by the Deputy Chief of Staff on 15

June, and the indorsement sent out 16 June. 34

 Memo, DCofS for Adm King, 20 Jun 42, and atchd corresp, AG 381 (5-15-42) (3).
548 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

obligatory for either one of the commanders in Iceland to place his forces

at the disposal of the other—was not taken. Who should invoke unity of

command and take over the reins was left for future determination.

Command relations with the British presented a situation somewhat

similar to, and in some ways closely tied in with, the Army-Navy command

problem. Like the latter it involved co-ordinating the operations of two

different forces; it embraced an accepted, fundamental principle; and it

raised the inevitable question who should command whom. Among the

factors that had to be reckoned with were political considerations, the rate

of progress in reaching an adjustment of the Army-Navy problem, and—

before the Pearl Harbor attack—American neutrality. In Bermuda and the

West Indies the defense responsibilities of the British Governors created

a special complication. In Newfoundland, the special interests of Canada

were affected. In Iceland the Royal Navy claimed "paramount interest." By

and large the difficulty seems to have been not that forces of different nations,

but rather operations in three different elements—land, sea, and air—were

involved. More particularly the operations had different aims. The Navies—

Canadian, British, and American—were engaged in a wide-ranging war of

movement against German U-boats; the respective ground forces in Iceland

and Newfoundland—indeed at all the Atlantic bases—were employed in

preparing relatively fixed defenses against air attacks and possible hostile

landings. The several air forces, which were capable of serving either purpose equally well, were generally the point of conflict. As soon as the United

States entered the war, British and American ground forces in Iceland came

under a single commander, for purposes of local defense; the British,

Canadian, and American Navies joined forces to fight the Battle of the

Atlantic under common direction; but the two types of operations never did

meet, in the realm of command, even to the limited extent of the American

Army-Navy agreement.35

Operations Against the Enemy

The question of command, either between the United States and Britain

or between the United States Navy and the Army, was one of those questions

that by their very nature could be solved only by higher authority, not by

35

 On this subject, see WPD 4351, secs. 2, 6; WPD 381 Iceland (2-28-42), case 14; WPD

384 Iceland (3-3-42); in addition, the material cited in the immediately preceding pages. See

also Conn and Fairchild, Framework of Hemisphere Defense, ch. XIII.
THE NORTH ATLANTIC BASES IN WARTIME 549

the individuals directly concerned. The drafting of joint plans for local

operations was on the other hand a function of the local commanders, but

local planning was at times hampered by the absence of firm and specific

command arrangements. Defense preparations nevertheless had to be made

in spite of the uncertainties of the command situation. After several weeks'

respite, shipping in the western Atlantic began in January 1942 to feel the

brunt of the German submarine campaign. Allied losses rose at an alarming

rate. In addition, enemy air activity over the North Atlantic began to

increase. The BOLERO movement, during the summer, brought a corresponding reaction from the Luftwaffe. Enemy or unidentified planes were reported

over Iceland on eighteen occasions during August, which was only four less

than the total number reported in the preceding three months, and on fortyseven days out of the sixty-one in September and October following.36

 During midsummer a German meteorological party had installed itself on the

northeast coast of Greenland. Although not actually located until the next

spring its presence was soon suspected. Certainly countermeasures against

the enemy could not be deferred until the problems of inter-Allied, or of

Army and Navy, command were completely solved.

Bombers of the Newfoundland Base Command had been helping to

fight the U-boats ever since the day, late in October 1941, when one of the

B-17's of the command dove out of a layer of low lying clouds almost onto

the deck of a German submarine. The one bomb that the plane had time to

release missed the sub by a close margin. Four months later, at the beginning

of March, planes from Newfoundland bagged the first two submarines to

be sunk from the air by American forces, although in both cases the successful planes were naval aircraft from Argentia. Another four months afterwards, on 30 June, a naval patrol bomber based on Bermuda sank the third

U-boat to fall victim to an American plane.37 These were the rare climactic

moments. Day in and day out, weather permitting, the Newfoundland and

Bermuda patrols made their routine sweeps without so much as catching

sight of a submarine. Many a time they were sent out on a wild goose chase,

or, to put it more precisely, in search of porpoises and whales. Only four

submarines were sighted and attacked off Newfoundland in the first eight

months of 1942; and five attacks were made on submarines that were not

36

 Compiled from list of Hostile and Unidentified Aircraft, in Hq IBC, Rcd of Events, Jun 41-

Jun 45, IBC 314.7. The number of planes reported on these occasions was listed by General

Bonesteel as 13 in July, 31 in August, 38 in September, and 77 in October. Ltr, Gen Bonesteel to

Gen Marshall, 31 Oct 42, WDCSA 330.11 Iceland (3 Dec 43). 37

 Morison, Battle of the Atlantic, app. II.
550 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

AMERICAN FIGHTER PLANES OVER CAMP ARTUN, ICELAND

visible at the time. In the neighborhood of Bermuda three U-boats were

bombed on sight and six others were attacked sight unseen.38

The men who in 1942 were fighting the Battle of the Atlantic from Army

planes under Navy command were the real forgotten men of the war. Partly

to blame was the fact that for months at a time nothing happened to break

the monotony of their patrols, but also to blame were the shifting and sometimes confused lines of organization and command. After the Army Antisubmarine Command was organized in October 1942, their story became a

part of the Army Air Forces' history. Until then they were neither fish nor

fowl.

At the beginning of 1943 a heavy concentration of U-boats gathered in

the North Atlantic just beyond range of the Newfoundland air patrols, but

within reach of the still unfinished Greenland bases. Plans were cast to send

a heavy bomber squadron to Greenland and to increase the air cover from

Iceland; but the weather in the region of Cape Farewell was discouraging

38

 USAF, The Antisubmarine Comd, Chart: "Location of Aircraft Attacks on U-Boats, following p. 35.
THE NORTH ATLANTIC BASES IN WARTIME 551

COAST GUARDSMEN CAPTURE TWELVE GERMANS in a raid on the last enemy

weather-radio station in Greenland.

to patrol operations from BLUIE WEST 1. As a result action did not immediately follow upon design. Then, in March, the whole strategy of the war

against the U-boat was placed under discussion at the Atlantic Convoy Conference in Washington, where it was decided to increase the range of the

Newfoundland patrols and to place under Canadian operational control all

the antisubmarine operations from Newfoundland. During the next few

weeks two squadrons of B-24's were sent to the Gander airport to join the

B-17 squadron that had been carrying the full load and on 3 April Canada

took over operational control. Within two weeks the first steps were taken

to set up an operating base at BLUIE WEST 1. By this time the crisis had

passed; the battle had moved away, and the long-range bombers were no

longer needed in the North Atlantic.39

39

 OPD Diary, entries of 1 Apr, 24 Apr, 23 Jun 43; Gen Council Min, 26 Apr 43; USAF,

The Antisubmarine Comd, pp. 151, 154-55; Craven and Cate, eds., Europe: TORCH to

POINTBLANK, pp. 392-94.
552 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

In Iceland, where the Army's main effort was against the Luftwaffe, the

peak of activity was reached in the fall of 1942. The first engagement had

taken place on 28 April and had been followed by a three months' lull. Then

in late July three more encounters took place. Up to this point the honors

had gone to the Norwegian patrol squadron, which, under RAF command,

was operating off the northern and eastern coast; but it was not long before

the American air forces in Iceland had their chances at the Nazis. Having

missed being the first to engage the enemy, an American plane became the

first to bring one down. On the morning of 14 August two American fighter

pilots, Lt. E. E. Shahan and Lt. J. D. Shaffer, intercepted and destroyed a

Focke-Wulf 200 about ten miles north of Reykjvík. It was the first German

plane of the war to be shot down by the Army Air Forces.40 During the next

two months American fighter planes of the Iceland Base Command bagged

two more German planes, intercepted and attacked seven, and unsuccessfully

tried to intercept three others. Planes of the Norwegian squadron, meanwhile,

had met and attacked three German aircraft with varying degrees of success,

and during the same period the ground troops opened fire on German planes

a dozen times. A few planes appeared during the winter, but none was intercepted and only two came under antiaircraft fire. The spring of 1943 promised

to be just as lively. In April German planes were spotted or reported on at

least ten occasions. One of the intruders, a Junkers bomber, was shot down

at the end of the month by two planes of the 50th Fighter Squadron. Throughout the year the number of enemy or unidentified planes reported was about

15 percent less than in 1942. Actual contacts were considerably fewer. Apparently the German planes were successfully avoiding the antiaircraft defenses

and evading the American fighters. On 5 August American planes, making

their second interception of the year, shot down another German bomber,

the fifth and last enemy plane to be destroyed over Iceland.

Some of this air activity over the North Atlantic was undoubtedly related to the enemy's efforts to set up weather and radio stations in Greenland. Early in the spring of 1943 three members of the Greenland Sledge

Patrol discovered the German weather base that had been established on

Sabine Island the preceding summer. On being discovered, the Germans immediately descended on the patrol station at Eskimonaes, about fifty miles

to the south, destroyed the place, killed one of the patrol men, and captured

another. A third member of the patrol escaped to Scoresby Sound with the

40

 IBC, Narrative Hist; Hq IBC, Rcd of Events, Jun 41-Jun 45, IBC 314.7.
THE NORTH ATLANTIC BASES IN WARTIME 553

news of the raid, which was dramatically confirmed some time later by the

arrival of the man who had been taken prisoner by the Germans. He had

persuaded them to split forces, had engineered an opportunity to be alone

with the leader, had seized and overpowered him, and, turning the tables

completely, brought him back to Scoresby Sound, a captive. A flight of

bombers led by Col. Bernt Balchen took off from Iceland for Sabine Island

on 25 May and found the enemy base of operations. Bombing and strafing

the three or four huts that made up the installation, as well as a small supply

ship that was discovered in the harbor ice, they left the place damaged and

on fire. To follow up the air attack a joint Army-Coast Guard task force

was organized in Narsarssuak (BLUIE WEST 1) and was dispatched as soon

as ice conditions permitted, in July, on board the two Coast Guard cutters

Northland and North Star. A specially trained and equipped detachment of

twenty-six men and two officers made up the Army component. After a difficult three weeks' voyage by way of Iceland, where the North Star laid over

for several days for repairs, the force arrived off Sabine Island on 21 July.

Plenty of signs, but no Germans, could be found. Then just as the landing

party was about to return to the ship, its attention was attracted by the sound

of phonograph music. A lone German was discovered waiting to surrender.

He was taken on board. Further search of the coast revealed nothing else,

and it was assumed that the rest of the Germans had been evacuated or had

moved farther north. After almost coming to grief in the heavy pack ice,

the two cutters arrived back at the Hvalfjördhur (Iceland) naval base in midSeptember.41

Operations in Greenland were resumed the next summer with the discovery of a well-fortified German base just north of Sabine Island. A landing

party of soldiers and Coast Guardsmen went ashore from the cutters Northland and Storis, but found the place deserted. A burned-out armed trawler

lay abandoned in the ice. Some days later the Northland sighted and gave

chase to a strange vessel, which proved to be another Nazi trawler and

which was scuttled by its crew when capture seemed unavoidable. On this

occasion twenty-eight German officers and men fell into the hands of the

Coast Guard. Some of the men had belonged to the Sabine Island garrison

the year before. Before the summer of 1944 came to an end, a second German base was assaulted and destroyed, and a large 180-foot trawler was

captured undamaged. The total score for the two summers came to three

41

 OPD Diary, May-Jul 43; Hq, U.S. Coast Guard, Hist Sec, Political Intelligence Div,

The Coast Guard at War: Greenland Patrol, II, 166-78.
554 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

German bases leveled, two ships destroyed, one captured, and sixty-two

enemy prisoners.42

By the time the Greenland "campaign" reached its height in the late summer of 1944, Rome had fallen, Paris had been freed, and the Nazis were

retreating toward the Rhine. In the Pacific the winning of Saipan and Tinian

and the liberation of Guam had set the Japanese back on their haunches.

In both the Atlantic and the Pacific the war had receded beyond the point

from which it could seriously threaten the western hemisphere; but in its

backwash there were swirls and eddies such as the operations in northeastern

Greenland.

The problems that had come to the Atlantic bases with the coming of

war to America had not displaced the old, pre-Pearl Harbor problems. Supply

and transportation matters, regular mail deliveries, recreation and welfare,

relations with the local authorities and with local civilian labor—all these

were matters of almost as much importance after 7 December 1941 as before.

Quite apart from their importance, they ceased to some extent to be problems. By the summer of 1942 the machinery for dealing with them was

fairly well established. Likewise the new problems—the questions of defense, of reinforcement and replacements, of command relations—were not

any of them particularly new. Active participation in the war only gave them

higher priority. But they did not long enjoy their status. After the summer

of 1943 the chief problem, except for the men engaged in routing the Nazis

out of Greenland, was one of contraction, of reduction and redeployment.

The enemy, not the Americas, was on the defensive, and the American outposts in the Atlantic shifted roles accordingly.

42

 Ibid., pp. 178-204.
Bibliographical Note

The authors obtained the bulk of the information used in the preparation

of this volume from original records of the Army accumulated before and

during American participation in World War II. These records are now

in the custody of the World War II Records Division of the National

Archives. The Army, Navy, and joint service records of the war are described

in Federal Records of World War II, Volume II, Military Agencies, prepared

by the General Services Administration, National Archives and Records

Service, The National Archives (Washington, 1951), to which the interested

reader is referred for more detailed information about the numerous agencies

concerned and their accumulation of records.

The files of the War Plans Division (WPD) of the War Department

General Staff, generally for the period 1921 to March 1942 (more or less),

were the starting point for research in the preparation of this work. As war

approached the War Plans Division became the principal agency of the War

Department for directing as well as for planning operations. Its files have

been kept physically associated with the much larger collection of papers

accumulated by the Operations Division (OPD), the Army's General Staff

agency that planned military operations and served as the command post for

directing them from March 1942 until the end of the war. The OPD decimal

files have been used extensively. A number of special collections of OPD

papers have also been of great value, notably the OPD Executive Office file

(OPD Exec), the OPD collection relating to the attack on Pearl Harbor,

operational files transferred to OPD from General Headquarters when it

was abolished (OPD-GHQ), the OPD Diary maintained from March 1942

onward, the OPD message file (OPD Log), and a set of weekly status reports

depicting the strength and projected reinforcement of all Army commands

and bases from January 1942 until the autumn of 1944. A decimal file maintained by OPD's Strategy and Policy Group (ABC) has also provided considerable assistance, including access to minutes of meetings and relevant

papers of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). A few minutes and papers of the

older Joint Army and Navy Board (JB) have also been used.

The small group of records accumulated by the Office of the Chief of

Staff (referred to as OCS to March 1942 and WDCSA thereafter, in accordance with file designations), while very incomplete, contain much useful
556 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

information not readily found in other groups. Special items in this group

that have been of particular assistance include the numerous binders of

conference and miscellaneous notes for the 1939-42 period, two binders of

notes on the Secretary of War's War Council meetings beginning in May

1941, and four binders that represent the Army file relating to Standing

Liaison Committee (SLC) meetings between 1938 and 1943.

The authors found the central decimal files maintained by The Adjutant

General's Office (AG) more valuable in the preparation of this volume than

they were for its companion, The Framework of Hemisphere Defense. The

theory that all official action papers would eventually reach the AG files

broke down in practice to a considerable extent after 1939, but these files

are nevertheless the most voluminous and comprehensive body of War

Department records relating to the World War II period. The account of

operations in the Aleutians to evict the Japanese depends very largely on

unit reports and journals and other operational reports that form a part of

The Adjutant General's records now in the custody of the Archives' World

War II Records Division. Other departmental records used have included

those of the Secretary of War (SW), of Assistant Secretary of War John

J. McCloy (ASW), and of the Supply or G-4 Division of the General Staff.

For reconstructing the story of the evacuation of the American Japanese,

and of its planning, the files of the Office of the Provost Marshal General

(PMG) were invaluable. The minutes of meetings of the War Department

General Council from March 1942 onward were of considerable help, and

a fairly complete set of these minutes has been kept in the General Reference

Branch of the Office of the Chief of Military History (OCMH). The authors

have also made extensive use of the files of General Headquarters United

States Army (GHQ), and limited use of the records of the Army Ground

Forces (AGF), which inherited GHQ's training function and most of its

files.

To supplement the information available in the records of Army headquarters agencies, the authors drew upon the files of the operating commands

and bases of the Army in the continental United States and elsewhere. Of

these files, perhaps the most valuable for this work were those of the Western

Defense Command (WDC). In addition to its central series of records, this

command also accumulated large special collections, two of which were

used extensively. For the story of Japanese evacuation, the files of the WDC's

Civil Affairs Division (WDC-CAD) were essential, and the WDC files

relating to military developments in Alaska (WDC-ADC) were found to

be fuller and more informative for the early war period than the records of
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 557

the Alaska Defense Command (ADC) itself. The records of the Eastern

Defense Command (EDC) while voluminous were much less rewarding as

source material. Of the overseas command and base records consulted, those

of the Iceland Base Command (IBC) were most extensively used.

In addition to their research in Army files, the authors obtained some help

from pertinent records in the papers of President Roosevelt, now preserved

in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library (FDRL) at Hyde Park, N. Y. This

library contains also the papers of Mr. Harry Hopkins, used by the authors

through the medium of the Calendar of Hopkins Papers prepared in connection with the writing of Sherwood's Roosevelt and Hopkins. They also

used relevant portions of the lengthy diary kept by Secretary of War Henry

L. Stimson, now accessible to scholars in the Sterling Memorial Library of

Yale University. Critical and very helpful comments from reviewers of this

volume, a number of whom provided additional information, are preserved

in OCMH records.

For the story of enemy action toward the United States and its outposts,

the authors have made extensive use, on the Pacific side, of the voluminous

series of Japanese Monographs relating to World War II, prepared by former

officers of the Japanese Army and Navy, and given limited distribution in the

form of translated reproductions by the Office of the Chief of Military History. These monographs, the individual titles of which have been cited in

footnotes, provided useful information on Japanese submarine activities along

the west coast, the Pearl Harbor attack and its aftermath in Hawaii, and

Japanese operations in the Aleutians. Some interrogations of former Japanese

Army and Navy officers, contained in United States Strategic Bombing Survey,

Interrogations of Japanese Officials, 2 volumes (Washington, 1946) have

also been used. On the Atlantic side, where German submarine operations

were the most notable enemy activity, the authors used as their primary

source a translation of the War Logs of the German U-boat command,

Befehlshaber der Unterseeboote (B.d.U. War Logs), covering the years 1941

through 1943. They made occasional use of the series reproduced in translation by the Office of Naval Information, Fuehrer Conferences on Matters

Dealing With the German Navy (1947).

The service historical programs active during and after World War II,

both in Washington and in field commands, left a very large number of unpublished narrative histories, many of which contain documentary appendices. Unless otherwise indicated, the historical manuscripts used in the

preparation of this volume are kept in the General Reference Branch, OCMH,

and these include copies of most of the narratives compiled by Army Air
558 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Forces historians. Among the most useful have been the narrative histories

dealing with the Western Defense Command, Hawaii (the AFMIDPAC history) , Alaska and the Aleutian Campaign, the Caribbean Defense Command

and all its appendages, and the North Atlantic bases including Greenland

and Iceland. The reader is referred to footnotes of chapters dealing with these

and other areas for full titles of the historical manuscripts used.

Among printed sources, the natural starting points for almost any Army

history of events before and during World War II are the Annual Reports

of the Secretary of War to the President and the Biennial Reports of General

George C. Marshall as Chief of Staff. On what happened before 7 December

1941, the thirty-nine volumes of testimony and documents printed as Pearl

Harbor Attack: Hearings Before the Joint Committee on the Investigation of

the Pearl Harbor Attack and accompanying Report (Washington, 1946)

contain a wealth of data and opinion that has fascinated a good many historians and others ever since their publication. The Report of the War

Department Civil Defense Board (Washington, 1947) has much useful

information about how the Army handled civilian defense in the continental

United States. The War Department's Final Report: Japanese Evacuation

from the West Coast, 1942 (Washington, 1943) is an official compilation

that must be used with considerable caution in the light of other evidence.

Since Army records provided the authors' principal sources of information

a lengthy listing of published secondary works, including periodical and

newspaper references of which no note is taken here, would be misleading.

In the series in which this work is published, UNITED STATES ARMY IN

WORLD WAR II, the authors have of course drawn freely upon the previously published volume of the Western Hemisphere subseries, Stetson Conn

and Byron Fairchild, The Framework of Hemisphere Defense (Washington,

1960). Other related works in the Army series worthy of special mention

include: Mark Skinner Watson, Chief of Staff: Prewar Plans and Preparations (Washington, 1950) ; Maurice Matloff and Edwin M. Snell, Strategic

Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1941-1942 (Washington, 1953); Richard

M. Leighton and Robert W. Coakley, Global Logistics and Strategy, 1940-

1943 (Washington, 1955); and Stanley W. Dziuban, Military Relations

Between the United States and Canada, 1939-1945 (Washington, 1959).

The authors have obtained much help on the air and naval aspects of the

story from the series "The Army Air Forces in World War II," edited by

Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate, 7 volumes (Chicago; The University of Chicago Press, 1948-58), especially from Volumes I, II, IV, and VI;

and from the series "History of United States Naval Operations in World
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 559

War II," 14 volumes (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1947-1960),

by Samuel Eliot Morison, notably from Vol. I, The Battle of the Atlantic,

September 1939)-May 1943 (1947), Vol. III, The Rising Sun in the Pacific,

1931-April 1942 (1948), Vol. IV, Coral Sea, Midway. and Submarine

Actions, May 1942-August 1942 (1950), and Vol. VII, Aleutians, Gilberts

and Marshalls, June 1942-April 1944 (1951). Much valuable information

about and illustration of the Navy's work in building up the outposts of the

United States can be found in the second of two volumes published by the

Navy's Bureau of Yards and Docks, Building the Navy's Bases in World

War II (Washington, 1947).

On the diplomatic background of the war and of the military development of outlying bases the authors have used extensively the volumes by

William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason, The Challenge to Isolation, 1937-

1940 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1952) and The Undeclared War,

1940-1941 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1953). The quasi-autobiographical work, Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service in

Peace and War (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947) has been an invaluable guide to the part played by Secretary of War Stimson in developing

the war effort of the Army; and several similar works, including Robert E.

Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History (New York: Harper

& Brothers, 1948), Cordell Hull, Memoirs, 2 volumes (New York: The

Macmillan Company, 1948), and Ernest J. King and Walter M. Whitehall,

Fleet Admiral King (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1952), have

been highly useful. Among many works published about the evacuation of

Japanese Americans from the west coast in 1942, the two most useful were

found to be Mortin Grodzins, Americans Betrayed: Politics and the Japanese

Evacuation (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1949), and Jacobus

ten Brock, Edward N. Barnhart, and Floyd W. Watson, Prejudice, War and

the Constitution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954). Gwenfread Allen, Hawaii's War Years (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,

1950), is a scholarly narrative of Hawaii's participation in the war as viewed

locally, and Albert W. Lind, Hawaii's Japanese: An Experiment in Democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1946) is useful for analyzing

what many considered the islands' chief problem in defense. Norman J.

Padelford, The Panama Canal in Peace and War (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1942) is an excellent contemporary commentary on the

problems associated with the defense of the Panama Canal. Finally, the first

volume of the "Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World

War," Col. Charles P. Stacey's Six Years of War: The Army in Canada,
560 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Britain and the Pacific (Ottawa: E. Cloutier, Queen's Printer, 1955) relates

the Canadian Army's efforts on behalf of North American defense that were

integrated at several points with those of the United States Army.
Glossary

AA Antiaircraft

AAF Army Air Forces

ACof AS Assistant Chief of Air Staff

ACofS Assistant Chief of Staff

ADC Alaska Defense Command

ADF Alaska Defense Frontier

AG Adjutant General

AR Army Regulations

ARCADIA United States-British conference in Washington,

December 1941-January 1942

ASF Army Service Forces

ASGS Assistant Secretary, General Staff

ASV Air-to-surface-vessel (radar)

ASW Assistant Secretary of War

AVN Aviation

AWS Aircraft Warning Service

BC Base Command

BCT Battalion Combat Team

Bd Board

BLUIE Greenland

BLUIE WEST U.S. air bases in Greenland

BOLERO Build-up of United States forces and supplies in

United Kingdom for cross-Channel attack

Br Branch

Bull Bulletin

Bur Bureau

Cable Cablegram

CAD Civil Affairs Division

CDC Caribbean Defense Command

CE Corps of Engineers

CG Commanding general

CHL Chain Home Low

CinC Commander in Chief

CINCLANT Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet

CINCPAC Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet

Cir Circular

CNO Chief of Naval Operations

Co Company

CO Commanding officer

Cof AAF Chief of the Army Air Forces

CofAC Chief of Air Corps

Cof AS Chief of Air Staff
562 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

CofCA Chief of Coast Artillery

CofCWS Chief of the Chemical Warfare Service

CofEngrs Chief of Engineers

CofOrd Chief of Ordnance

CofS Chief of Staff

COMALSEC Commander, Alaskan Sector

Comd Command

Comdr Commander

Comm Committee

COMINCH Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet

Conf Conference

Cont Continental

Conv Conversation

Corresp Correspondence

CRIMSON Air routes through central and northeastern Canada, part of the air

ferry route to the British Isles

CRYSTAL Three meteorological stations in northern Canada

CSigO Chief Signal Officer

CTF Commander, Task Force

CWS Chemical Warfare Service

CZ Canal Zone

DCofS Deputy Chief of Staff

Dept Department

D/F Disposition Form

Dir Director

Dist District

Doc Document

DQMG Deputy Quartermaster General

EDC Eastern Defense Command

Engr Engineer

ETO European Theater of Operations

FDRL Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library

FF Field Forces

FM Field Manual

FO Field Orders

FY Fiscal Year

G-1 Personnel section of a divisional or higher staff

G-2 Military intelligence section of a divisional or higher staff

G-3 Operations and training section of a divisional or higher staff

G-4 Supply and evacuation section of a divisional or higher staff

GBC Greenland Base Command

GCI Ground controlled interception (radar)

GHQ General Headquarters

GO General Orders

H. Doc. House Document
GLOSSARY 563

IBC Iceland Base Command

Ind Indorsement

INDIGO Plan for movement of troops to Iceland

Instr Instructions

Interv Interview

JAG Judge Advocate General

JB Joint Army and Navy Board

JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff

JPS Joint Staff Planners

Jt Joint

MID Military Intelligence Division

Min Minutes

MIS Military Intelligence Service

Mtg Meeting

NBC Newfoundland Base Command

N.d. No date

NOB Naval operating base

NYPE New York Port of Embarkation

OCD Office of Civilian Defense

OCS Office of the Chief of Staff

OCSigO Office of the Chief Signal Officer

ODCofS Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff

OFF Office of Facts and Figures

ONI Office of Naval Intelligence

OQMG Office of The Quartermaster General

ORANGE Prewar plan for operations in event of war with Japan

PBY Twin-engine Navy patrol-bomber

PCD Panama Canal Department

PJBD Permanent Joint Board on Defense

PMG Provost Marshal General

PRD Puerto Rican Department

P/W Prisoner of war

QMC Quartermaster Corps

Rad Radiogram

RAF Royal Air Force

RAINBOW Various plans prepared between 1939 and 1941 to meet

Axis aggression

RCAF Royal Canadian Air Force

Rcd Record

RLG Regimental Landing Group

ROUNDUP Plan for major United States-British attack across the Channel

in 1943

Rpt Report
564 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

SDC Southern Defense Command

Secy Secretary.

Sess. Session

SGS Secretary, General Staff

SLC Standing Liaison Committee (of State, War, and

Navy Departments)

SLEDGEHAMMER Plan for limited cross-Channel attack in 1942

SN Secretary of the Navy

SOS Services of Supply

S&P Strategy and Policy

SPOBS Special Observer Group, London

SW Secretary of War

TAG The Adjutant General

TBC Trinidad Base Command

Tel Telephone

Telg Telegram

TIG The Inspector General

Trans Transportation

TS Trinidad Sector

USAFBI U.S. Army Forces in the British Isles

USAFMIDPAC U.S. Army Forces, Middle Pacific

USAF United States Air Force

USAT United States Army Transport

USO United Service Organizations

USW Under Secretary of War

WD War Department

WDC Western Defense Command

WDCMC War Department Classified Message Center

WDCSA Chief of Staff, U.S. Army

WDSS War Department Special Staff

WPD War Plans Division

WSF Western Sea Frontier
UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II

The following volumes have been published or are in press:

The War Department

Chief of Staff: Prewar Plans and Preparations

Washington Command Post: The Operations Division

Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare: 1941-1942

Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare: 1943-1944

Global Logistics and Strategy: 1940-1943

Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945

The Army and Economic Mobilization

The Army and Industrial Manpower

The Army Ground Forces

The Organization of Ground Combat Troops

The Procurement and Training of Ground Combat Troops

The Army Service Forces

The Organization and Role of the Army Service Forces

The Western Hemisphere

The Framework of Hemisphere Defense

Guarding the United States and Its Outposts

The War in the Pacific

The Fall of the Philippines

Guadalcanal: The First Offensive

Victory in Papua

CARTWHEEL: The Reduction of Robaul

Seizure of the Gilberts and Marshalls

Campaign in the Marianas

The Approach to the Philippines

Leyte: The Return to the Philippines

Triumph in the Philippines

Okinawa; The Last Battle

Strategy and Command: The First Two Years

The Mediterranean Theater of Operations

Northwest Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West

Sicily and the Surrender of Italy

Salerno to Cassino

Cassino to the Alps

The European Theater of Operations

Cross-Channel Attack

Breakout and Pursuit

The Lorraine Campaign

The Siegfried Line Campaign

The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge

The Last Offensive
566 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

The Supreme Command

Logistical Support of the Armies, Volume I

Logistical Support of the Armies, Volume II

The Middle East Theater

The Persian Corridor and Aid to Russia

The China-Burma-India Theater

Stilwell's Mission to China

Stilwell's Command Problems

Time Runs Out in CBI

The Technical Services

The Chemical Warfare Service: Organizing for War

The Chemical Warfare Service: From Laboratory to Field

The Chemical Warfare Service: Chemicals in Combat

The Corps of Engineers: Troops and Equipment

The Corps of Engineers: The War Against Japan

The Corps of Engineers: The War Against Germany

The Corps of Engineers: Military Construction in the United States

The Medical Department: Hospitalization and Evacuation; Zone of Interior

The Medical Department: Medical Service in the Meditarranean and Minor

Theaters

The Ordnance Department: Planning Munitions for War

The Ordnance Department: Procurement and Supply

The Ordnance Department: On Beachhead and Battlefront

The Quartermaster Corps: Organization, Supply, and Services, Volume I

The Quartermaster Corps: Organization, Supply, and Services, Volume II

The Quartermaster Corps: Operations in the War Against Japan

The Quartermaster Corps: Operations in the War Against Germany

The Signal Corps: The Emergency

The Signal Corps: The Test

The Signal Corps: The Outcome

The Transportation Corps: Responsibilities, Organization, and Operations

The Transportation Corps: Movements, Training, and Supply

The Transportation Corps: Operations Overseas

Special Studies

Chronology: 1941-1945

Military Relations Between the United States and Canada: 1939-1945

Rearming the French

Three Battles: Arnaville, Altuzzo, and Schmidt

The Women's Army Corps

Civil Affairs: Soldiers Become Governors

Buying Aircraft: Materiel Procurement for the Army Air Forces

The Employment of Negro Troops

Manhattan: The U.S. Army and the Atomic Bomb

Pictorial Record

The War Against Germany and Italy: Mediterranean and Adjacent Areas

The War Against Germany: Europe and Adjacent Areas

The War Against Japan


Index

A-20's, 191, 415, 503

ABC meetings, 339, 462

ABC-1, 386, 460, 463, 465, 471

ABC-22, 7, 543

Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., 72

Act of Havana, 445

Adak Island, 258, 262-63, 270, 272-74, 278,

283, 291, 295-96

Admiral Hipper, 387

Africa, 9-10, 56, 334, 434

AGC's (amphibious command ship), 285

Agriculture, Department of, 125, 202

Air Corps Ferrying Command, 392, 536-37

Air Defense Board, 20, 56, 58, 60, 314, 326

Air Defense Command, 20, 24, 26-27, 63

Air Field Forces, Alaskan Defense Command,

248

Air Force Combat Command, 29-30, 36, 56-57,

63, 396

Air power, 23

design to contain Japan by, 15

lessons in Pearl Harbor attack, 196

as threat to the United States, 3, 55, 56

Air Transport Command, 539

Air units

Air Base Group, 23d, 248

Air Forces

First, 35, 40-41, 44, 95, 97, 104, 108,

110, 394, 396

Second, 33, 36, 83-84

Third, 35-36

Fourth, 33, 40-41, 44, 83-85, 93-94,

108, 110

Sixth, 430

Seventh, 204. See also Hawaiian Air

Force.

Eighth, 454, 535, 539

Eleventh, 256, 263-64, 270, 278, 285

296, 298-300

Air Support Command, I, 97

Air Wings (Composite)

13th, 350

19th, 302

Antisubmarine Wing, 26th, 436

Bombardment Groups

9th, 430n

25th, 430n

40th, 430, 430n

Bombardment Squadrons

1st, 390, 430n

5th, 430n

Air units—Continued

Bombardment Squadrons—Continued

9th (H), 501

10th, 430n, 434

12th, 430n

29th, 430n

35th, 430n

36th (H), 248

44th, 430n

45th, 430n, 433

49th, 532

59th, 430n

73d (M), 248

99th, 430n

395th, 430n

430th, 430n

Bomber Command, I, 97-98, 435

Composite Group, 28th, 230, 247-48

Fighter Squadrons

42d, 272

50th, 552

54th, 272

Interceptor Commands

III, 503

IV, 85

Observation Squadron, 1st, 501

Pursuit Groups

8th, 503

53d, 412

Pursuit Squadrons

18th, 248

33d, 483-84, 500-501, 503, 505, 528

Reconnaissance Squadrons

5th, 430n

21st, 390

27th, 325, 430n

44th, 430n

Sea-Search Attack Group, First, 435

Sea-Search Squadron, Second, 435

Aircraft, 15, 23, 42, 83, 448. See also types by

model number and name.

for Alaska, 228, 234, 239, 240, 243, 247-50,

255-56, 261

bombardment, 26, 42, 55-57, 59, 80, 84-85,

89, 91, 93, 111, 152-54, 156-57, 197,

255-56, 349, 388, 412, 429-30, 503

in Canal Zone, 302, 349

factories, 38, 82, 198

for Hawaii, 156-57, 160-61, 163-64, 166-

67, 197, 214, 216

for Iceland, 466-67, 503, 505
570 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Aircraft—Continued

increasing range and threat to the United

States of, 4

Japanese losses at Pearl Harbor, 188, 191

in Puerto Rico, 350

pursuit, 26, 55-57, 80, 84-85, 91, 104, 110,

156-57, 180-81, 197, 255-56, 349, 412,

503, 505

U.S. losses at Pearl Harbor, 188-91

Aircraft carriers, 92, 161, 177, 197

in Alaskan operations, 258-59, 261-62, 273,

287-88

and attack on Pearl Harbor, 184-88, 195,

195n, 196

in Battle of the Atlantic, 389

in Midway operations, 220-21

as threat to Panama Canal, 409, 425

as threat to U.S. territory, 5, 42, 55-56, 82,

85, 88, 91-92, 94, 106, 153, 156-57, 160,

164, 166,-173, 198, 216

Aircraft Warning Service, 304-05, 314-15,

334, 341, 345, 349, 506-07. See also

Aircraft warning systems.

Aircraft warning systems, 304-05. See also

Radar, development of.

in Alaska, 240, 244-46, 251, 256-57

for Greenland, 456

in Hawaii, 167-68

in Iceland, 483, 506, 523

in Panama, 348-49, 425-29

Airfields, 10, 156, 322-23, 358, 379, 407. See

also by name.

in Alaska, 228, 240, 244-45, 250-51, 270,

272, 276, 295

CRIMSON project, 535

in French Guiana, 439

in Greenland, 443-44, 447, 453-54, 535-36,

538-39

in Hawaiian Islands, 152, 169-70

in Iceland, 499, 503-04, 528-29, 538-39

in Sault Ste. Marie area, 104

Airport Development Program, 439

AKA's (cargo ships), 279

Akureyri, 498-99, 501, 503, 534

Alafoss, 498, 501

Alaska, 9, 32, 43-44, 153, 161, 174, 223-76,

300, 330, 393, 401. See also Aleutian

Islands; Attu; Kiska,

aircraft for, 14, 243-44, 261, 430

alert communicated to, 80, 243

as base for offensive operations, 253-55

command problems in, 266-68

command relationships in, 260-61

designated a theater of operations, 44

evacuation of Japanese civilians from, 115,

133, 143

Japanese threat to, 92, 113

Alaska—Continued

organization of U.S. Army forces in, 17

physical characteristics of, 225

prewar estimate of threat to, 5

prewar military preparations in, 223-52

reduction of forces in, 300

in Western Defense Command, 33

Alaska Communication System, 226-21, 241

Alaska Defense Command, 231-32, 237-39,

246, 248-50, 252, 255, 265, 267-69, 272,

296, 300

Alaska Defense Force, 231, 234

Alaska Highway, 225, 256

Alaska Railroad, 225-27, 237, 241, 250

Alaska War Council, 267

Alaskan Department, 300. See also Alaska

Defense Command.

Alaskan Scouts, 287

Alaskan Sector, 231, 234-35, 250

Alberta, 255

Albrook Field, 301, 303-04, 313, 316

Aleutian Islands, 3, 109, 223-24, 228, 239, 244,

250, 261, 277-300, 430. See also Attu;

Kiska.

as base for offensive operations, 254, 263

and defense of Alaska, 239-42, 253-54

Japanese threat to, 5, 89, 92, 219-21, 258-59

physical characteristics of, 257

plans for offensive operations in, 270-72,

274-79

Alexai Point, 289, 295

Aliamanu Crater, 192

Alice Island, 235

Alien Enemy Control Program, 123

Aliens, control of. See also Nisei.

in Alaska, 115, 133, 143

in Canada, 143

German, 115-16, 120, 120n, 123, 126, 130n,

131, 131n, 136-37, 139, 143-46, 146n, 199

in Hawaii, 115, 121-22, 148-49, 206-14, 216

Italian, 115-16, 120, 120n, 123, 126, 130n,

131, 131n, 136-37, 139, 143-46, 146n, 199

Japanese, 38n, 40, 115-49, 199-202, 206-14

Amagansett, (New York), 99, 101

Amaknak Island, 236

Amchitka Island, 273-76, 285, 296

America, 385

America and West Indies Station, 359

American Legation in Iceland, 513-14, 516

American Legion, 66-68, 72

American Red Cross, 72, 404n, 507-08, 516

Ammunition, 214, 387, 476

shortages of, 60, 80, 83, 85-86, 91, 252, 349

Amphibious Force, North Pacific, 266, 277

Anadyr Bay, 243

Anchorage, 224, 226-30, 233-34, 237-39, 241,

245-47, 256-57, 264-66, 385
INDEX 571

Anderson, Col. Jonathan W., 25-26, 451

Andrews, Lt. Gen. Frank M., 343, 346, 349,

409-10, 418-19, 426, 438

and Caribbean command arrangements, 331,

333-35, 352, 412-13, 421-22

and defense of Aruba and Curaçao, 415, 423

and protection of Panama Canal, 424-25

recommends against construction of additional

Panama Canal locks, 321

recommends supply procedure for Caribbean,

402

Anegada Passage, 331

Angmagssalik, 454, 458

Annette Island, 231, 244, 250, 261. See also

Metlakatla.

Antiaircraft Artillery Brigade, 53d Coast, 191

Antiaircraft Artillery Regiments

61st Coast, 469

62d Coast, 385, 385n

68th Coast, 469

78th Coast, 278

100th Coast, 104

251st, 159

501st Coast, 278, 293

Antiaircraft defense, 282, 324

of Alaska, 230, 238, 251, 258, 261, 264

of continental U.S., 34, 36-37, 40, 45-47, 51,

54, 57-64, 81n, 83, 87-88, 93-95, 102-06,

108, 110n

of Greenland, 537

of Hawaii, 158-60, 168-69, 181, 215

of Iceland, 466-67, 502

of Panama Canal, 302-04, 312-13, 314-15,

349, 412

in Pearl Harbor attack, 188, 191-92, 195

Antigua, 327-29, 331, 350, 350n, 354, 357-58,

397, 402, 405, 430n, 441

construction of U.S. base in, 376-79, 381

unity of command in, 417

Antigua Base Command, 402

Antilles, 10, 303, 325, 333, 340, 350, 351, 355,

394, 429

Antilles Air Command, 434

Antisubmarine operations, 97-99, 336, 423,

429-30, 432-37, 535, 538, 549-50

APA's (attack transports), 279

ARCADIA Conference, 532, 534

Arctic Circle, 257, 454

Arctic Ocean, 225

Arcturus, 482

Argentia, 355, 401, 452, 480, 509, 549

Argentia conference, 486-87

Arias, President Arnulfo, 345-46

Arima, 405, 406n

Arizona, 33, 115, 120, 130, 139, 141, 147

Arizona, 187

Armies

First, 17, 19-20, 24, 26, 33-35, 37, 39, 44,

393-94, 454

Second, 26, 39-40

Third, 26, 39-40, 95-96

Fourth, 19-20, 26, 33, 37, 39, 44, 80, 83, 231

Armor, 53, 94, 214, 238, 483

Armored divisions, 94

Army, Brazilian, 10

Army, Japanese, 185, 273

Army, U.S., 10-12

and air defense, 16-17, 19-20, 22-30, 36,

42, 54-64

alert measures in Hawaii, 179-82

and antisubmarine operations, 97-98, 98n,

99-101

casualties at Pearl Harbor, 193-94, 194n

and civilian defense, 64-73

and creation of GHQ Air Force, 19

and Defense Act of 1920, 21

and evacuation of aliens from sensitive areas,

122, 131, 137, 140-42, 142n, 144, 147,

206-11

expansion of, 16, 21, 49

and garrisoning of Azores, 14

and garrisoning of Iceland, 14

mission in the Hawaiian Islands, 151, 153-

54, 163

mobilization of, 16, 21-22, 52, 57-58

and policy of "calculated risk," 94, 107-08,

114

and preparedness in the Pacific, 14-15

prewar concern for Caribbean and South

American areas, 9-10, 12-13

prewar estimate of Japanese capabilities, 4-5

and protection of naval installations, 15

and the RAINBOW 4 plan, 10

reorganization of 17 March 1941, 28-29

reorganization of December 1941, 33-36

reorganization of 9 March 1942, 38-39

and seacoast defense, 17-18, 21-22

state of readiness of, 8, 15, 19, 23

strength of, 10, 15, 23, 57

training, 16-24, 36, 39

and unity of command, 17, 27, 29, 40-44,

182, 204-05, 410-11

unpreparedness to meet German submarine

assault, 429

Army Air Board, 55, 156, 228

Army Air Corps, 29, 77, 156, 228-29, 241,

304, 309, 333-34, 392, 401. See also Army

Air Forces.

and autonomy of command, 20, 23, 26, 29

and barrage balloon development, 63

and civilian defense, 68

and command arrangements in Newfoundland, 394-96
572 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Army Air Corps—Continued

organization of, 23-24, 29

survey of destroyer-exchange base sites, 364-

65

Army Air Forces, 81, 103, 269, 428, 538, 539.

See also Army Air Corps.

and antisubmarine operations, 434-35

authority and responsibility, 29-30, 32, 36

and command in Alaska, 255

and continental defense, 40-42, 44, 63-64,

84, 86, 95, 107

establishment of, 29, 39

and reconstitution of Hawaiian Air Force,

197

Army Air Forces Antisubmarine Command, 99,

435, 550

Army areas

establishment of, 17-18

responsibilities of commanders of, 18-21,

24-25

separation from corps areas, 25

Army Ground Forces, 39-41, 91, 93, 105-06,

108, 110

Army and Navy Munitions Board, 320

Army Service Forces, 39, 539

Arnold, Maj. Gen. Henry H., 24, 29-30, 48,

62, 329, 392, 436, 505

on air strength of overseas garrisons, 326

appointed Deputy Chief of Staff, 24

and command arrangements in Newfoundland, 394-95

on continental air defense, 42

and defense of Alaska, 247-48, 250

and Greenland base development, 447-48,

451

on Japanese aircraft performance, 176

on responsibilities for air defense, 36

on U.S. radar equipment, 62

Arnold, Capt. Richard R., 472-73

Arthur, Col. Joseph D., Jr., 375

Arthur Middleton, 276

Aruba, 328, 337-39, 430n

German operations against, 423-24

problems of U.S. base establishment in, 414-

16, 421-22

Asserson, Lt. William C, 472

Atka Island, 263, 270, 272

Atkinson Field, 430n

Atlantic Convoy Conference, 436, 551

Atlantic Fleet, 163, 197, 389, 410, 413, 435,

531, 541. See also Pacific Fleet; U.S. Fleet.

Atlantic Fleet Patrol Force, 435

Atlantic Ocean, 3, 5, 9-10, 12, 14, 19, 23. See

also North Atlantic; South Atlantic,

coast defense, 47-48, 50-52, 58, 62, 77, 94,

101, 106

submarine threat in, 42, 96, 99

Atlantic Ocean—Continued

U.S. Navy prewar role in defense of, 11-12

versus Pacific in U.S. defense planning, 5,

11, 14-15, 34, 47, 58, 155, 157-58

Atlantic Sector, Panama Canal Zone, 302, 315

Atlantic Sector, Panama Sea Frontier, 429-31,

437

Attu, 92, 221, 223, 258-59, 263-65, 272-73,

278-81, 298

combat operations on, 287-95

composition and disposition of enemy

forces on, 282

composition of U.S. invasion force, 283

description of, 280-81

U.S. plans for assault on, 283-84

Australia, 174, 181, 198, 217, 219

Avalon Peninsula, 355

Axis Powers, 23, 81, 115, 242-43. See also

Germany; Italy; Japan.

Azores, 3, 14, 167, 337, 358, 395, 462-65, 470,

530

B-10's, 304

B-17's, 157, 161, 163, 166, 174, 181, 189-91,

197, 205, 221, 249, 256, 304, 325, 342,

389. 532, 549, 551

B-18's, 191, 221, 248, 251, 304, 325, 339, 343,

390. 539

B-24's, 87, 176, 272, 504, 551

B-26's, 221, 249

Bahama Islands, 329, 351, 354, 357-58, 376-78

Bainbridge Island, 141

Baker, Newton D., 73

Balboa, 304, 317

Balchen, Col. Bernt, 553

Balloon operations

barrage balloons, 62-63

Japanese "free balloons," 113-14

Barrage Balloon Battalion, 39th, 104

Barrage Balloon Training Center, 63

Barrington, Brigadier J. F., 417

Bases and base facilities, 10, 12, 107, 254, 304,

316, 327-29, 352-53, 386. See also Destroyer-Base Agreement; and by geographical location.

in Alaska, 223-24, 228-47

in Antigua, 354, 357-58, 376-79, 381, 397,

402

in Aruba, 414-16, 430n

in Bahamas, 354, 357-58, 376-78

in Bermuda, 354, 358-59, 366-68, 372,

375-79, 381-82, 385, 387-91, 393, 397,

400

in British Guiana, 354, 376-79, 381, 397,

402

in continental United States, 55-56, 58

in Curaçao, 414-16, 430
INDEX 573

Bases and base facilities—Continued

in Ecuador, 340-43

in Galápagos Islands, 340-43

in Greenland, 388, 443-45, 447, 451, 535-36

in Guatemala, 343

in Iceland, 388, 461, 466-67, 481-83, 494-

506, 531

in Jamaica, 354, 358, 365, 368, 375-78, 381,

397, 402

jurisdictional problems in Atlantic, 405-07

in Latin America, 7, 13

in Newfoundland, 9, 358, 366-67, 372,

375-79, 383-86, 389-93, 397, 400

in Nova Scotia, 9

in Panama, 308-09, 344-48

for Panama Canal defense, 304-09, 316

in Peru, 340, 342

in Puerto Rico, 322-23, 325, 402

in St. Lucia, 354, 356-58, 376-79, 397, 402

in Trinidad, 354, 358, 368-69, 372, 375-79,

382, 384-85, 387-91, 393-94, 400-402

Battista Field, 440

Battle of the Atlantic, 5, 387, 407, 460, 528,

548, 550

Battle of the Caribbean, 434

Battle of the Coral Sea, 220

"Battle of Los Angeles," 87-88, 139

"Battle of Niihau," 194

Bay of Panama, 426, 428

Beach Blue (Attu), 287

Beach Red (Attu), 283-84, 287-88

Beach Scarlet (Attu), 287-88

Beach Yellow (Attu), 287

Beane Field, 430

Bearn, 329

Belgium, 230

Bellows Field, 170, 189-91

Bendetsen, Col. Karl R., 118, 122-24, 126-29,

132, 133n, 134-35, 139-41, 144-46

Benedict Field, 430

Bering Strait, 243, 254

Berle, Adolph A., 443-44

Bermuda, 3, 8, 327, 330, 335, 354, 530, 548

administrative problems of base operation in,

397, 400, 403-04, 407

build-up after U.S. entry into war, 538

construction of U.S. base in, 375-79, 381-82

garrisoning the U.S. base in, 384-85, 387-91

negotiations for U.S. base in, 366-68, 372

planning for U.S. base establishment in,

358-59

problems facing U.S. base acquisition in,

355-57, 366

U.S. troop strength in, 538

unity of command in, 416-17, 541-42

Bermuda Base Command, 39, 393, 395, 400,

402, 544-45

Bethel (Alaska), 229 , 245

Bethel, Capt. J. S., 364

Biddle, Francis, 118, 120, 123, 130-31, 135,

145

Biesemeier, Comdr. Harold, 369, 375

Big Delta, 245

Bismarck, 448, 464, 500

Bissell, Lt. Col. Clayton L., 443

Block, Rear Adm. Claude C, 165-66, 180-81,

211-12

Blönduós, 499, 501

BLUIE bases, 535

BLUIE EAST 2, 458

BLUIE WEST 1, 453, 453n, 454, 456-57, 535-

36, 551, 553. See also Narsarssuak.

BLUIE WEST 8, 453-54, 536-37. See also

Søndre Strømfjord.

Bly (Oregon), 113

Board for Civilian Protection, 68-69. See also

Office of Civilian Defense.

Board of Experts. See Greenslade Board.

Bogota, 336

BOLERO, 535, 549

Bonesteel, Maj. Gen. Charles H., 490-91, 496,

498, 501-10, 512-17, 520-25, 529, 539,

545-47

Bordheyri, 501

Borgarfjördhur, 502

Borgarnes, 499, 501

Borinquen Field, 350, 430n

Boston, 47n, 58, 64, 99, 509

Boundary (Alaska), 245

Bradley, Maj. Gen. Follett, 269

Brazil, 9-10, 13, 56, 301, 337, 351, 438

Brett, Maj. Gen. George H., 334

Brewster, Senator Ralph Owen, 238

Bristol Bay, 243

British Admiralty, 451, 466, 480

British Air Commission, 427

British Air Ministry, 372, 466

British Chiefs of Staff, 138n

British Colonial Office, 382, 418

British Columbia, 143, 261

British Commonwealth of Nations, 4

British Empire, 13

British Foreign Office, 479

British Guiana, 327-29, 350, 350n, 354-55,

394, 397, 403, 430

construction of U.S. base in, 376-79, 381

problems facing U.S. base acquisition in,

355-58

unity of command in, 417

British Guiana Base Command, 402

British Home Fleet, 464. See also Royal Navy.

British Home Guard, 79
574 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

British Isles, 9, 15, 358, 535

British Military Mission, 416, 480

British War Ministry, 466

British War Office, 493, 517, 523

British West Indies, 355

Brittany Peninsula, 111

Brookings (Oregon), 93

Brooklyn, 452

Brown, Maj. Gen. Albert E., 277, 280, 282-85,

285n, 287, 291-94, 294n

Bryden, Maj. Gen. William B., 521

Buckner, Brig. Gen. Simon B., 231, 235, 237,

240-44, 250, 253, 255, 258, 260, 299-300

on air needs in Alaska, 247-49

and Aleutian operations, 270, 274, 279, 291,

293

and command relationships in Alaska, 266-67

and counteraction in the Aleutians, 265

on defense construction in Alaska, 247

Búdhareyri, 499, 503, 534

Bullard, Col. Peter C., 415, 421

Bureau of the Budget, 317

Buskin River, 235

Buskoe, 458

Butler, Uriah, 357

Butler, Brig. Gen. William C., 256, 260-61,

267, 278

"Buy American" Act of 3 March 1933, 401

Cabot Strait, 355, 358

Caffrey, Jefferson, 337

California, 33, 82, 86-87, 89, 94, 115-16, 119,

122-23, 125-31, 133, 136, 138-39, 141,

143, 147, 166

Callaghan, Capt. Daniel J., 340

Camaguey, 430n

Camp Alabaster, 498, 516

Camp Davis, 63

Camp Lee, 77

Camp Molekoli, 191

Camp Pershing, 498, 516

Camp Tadcaster, 498

Camp Tortuguero, 350

Canada, 6, 8-9, 17, 92, 250-51, 270. See

also Permanent Joint Board on Defense,

Canada-U.S.

and basis of joint war plan ABC-22, 7

close military relations with U.S., 6

and defense of Greenland, 443, 448

and defense of Iceland, 442, 459-60

and defense of Jamaica, 419-20

and defense of Newfoundland, 357, 375,

407, 543-44

and defense of Sault Canal, 102-05

and evacuation of aliens from sensitive

areas, 143

Canada—Continued

interest in Newfoundland's affairs, 356

Japanese threat to, 113

responds to U.S. request for radar equipment, 427

troops in Kiska operation, 296

and unity of command in Newfoundland,

542-44

Canal Zone. See Panama, Republic of; Panama

Canal; Panama Canal Zone.

Canal Zone Code, 312

Canary Islands, 465

Canton Island, 181

Cape Chiniak, 257

Cape Engaño, 326

Cape Farewell, 443, 550

Cape Flattery, 86, 92

Cape Hatteras, 97-98

Cape Hinchinbrook, 223

Cape Horn, 337

Cape Mendocino, 87

Cape Prince of Wales, 246

Cape Sable, 424n, 431n

Cape Verde Islands, 433, 465

Cape Wislow, 257

Cape Wrangell, 280

Capetown, 337

Caradoc, 364

Caribbean, 7-10, 12-13, 80, 98-99, 107, 323-

25, 409-41

operational plan for defense of, 413-14

reinforcing the garrisons in, 412-13

unity of command in, 410-11

Caribbean Air Force, 334-35, 349, 418

Caribbean Coastal Frontier, 410-11, 415

Caribbean Defense Command, 321, 329-31,

335, 343, 350n, 352, 397, 402, 413-14,

438, 441

command problems in, 331, 333-35, 393-94,

396, 410

Caribbean Sea Frontier, 424, 424n, 430n, 431-

35, 437

Caroni Swamp, 369

Cascades, 319

Castle Harbour, 368

Castle Harbour Hotel, 388, 390

Casualties

in Aleutians, 261-63, 273, 278, 295, 297-98

at Pearl Harbor, 187, 189, 193, 193n, 194

Catalinas. See PBY's.

Cativa, 317

Caucasus, 465

Cavalry units, 83-84, 106, 110n

Cayenne, 439

Cayenne Airport, 439

Cayuga, 444
INDEX 575

Censorship, 202-03, 372, 402-03, 516

Censorship, Office of, 203

Central Air Defense Zone, 104

Central America, 302, 312, 351

Central Defense Command, 28, 35-36, 40, 42,

44, 102

Central Sector (Iceland), 499

Chacachacare Island, 390

Chagres River, 316

Chandler Committee, 267

Chancy, Maj. Gen. James E., 28, 331, 465-66,

472-76, 478, 480-81, 483, 485-86, 489,

492-93

Charcoal Island, 235-36

Charleston (South Carolina), 47n

Chateau Thierry, 390, 452

Chatham, 536

Chemical Warfare Service, Chief of, 48n, 65

Chemical Warfare Service, and civilian defense

planning, 65, 72

Chernofski Bay, 241

Chesapeake Bay, 47n, 99

Chichagof Harbor, 282, 284, 288, 394-95

Chief of Naval Operations. See Stark, Adm.

Harold R.

Chief of Staff. See Marshall, Gen. George C.

Chile, 342

Chilkoot Barracks, 223, 250

China, 5, 159, 176

China Sea, 183

Chippewa County (Michigan), 104

Chirikof Point, 280-81, 289

Christmas Island, 181

Churchill, Winston S., 358, 462, 531

and Destroyer-Base Agreement, 373-75

Circle (Alaska), 226

Civil Aeronautics Authority, 229, 244-45, 258

Civil Affairs Division, Western Defense Command, 141, 143

Civil Air Patrol, 97

Civil Defense Branch, G-3, 67, 69

Civil Defense Plan, 66, 74

Civilian defense, 45, 64-73

Civilian Defense Board, 70

Civilian Defense Bureau, 64

Clark, Col. Frank S., 359

Clark, Brig. Gen. Mark W., 37-38, 42, 121,

125, 131, 133, 135

Clark, Thomas C., 123-24

Clipperton Island, 304

Coast Artillery, 155, 206, 301-02, 309, 312,

324, 342n, 390, 412, 467, 469

defense of continental United States, 45-47,

47n, 48-54, 107-08

Coast Artillery, Chief of, 47, 313, 469

Coast Artillery Batteries

F, 52d, 389

B, 57th, 389

D, 69th (AA), 325

Coast Artillery Corps assumption of barrage

balloon responsibility, 63

Coast Artillery districts, 17, 22, 33

Coast Artillery Regiments. See also Antiaircraft

Artillery Regiments.

1st, 302

4th, 302

52d, 390

57th, 385, 385n

252d, 390

Coast Artillery School, 51

Coast Artillery units, 214, 238, 338

Coast and Geodetic Survey, 281

Coast Guard, 223, 444, 451, 457-58, 553

Coastal frontier defense system, 21-22

Coco Solo, 409

Cocos Island, 304-06, 351

Cold Bay, 242, 244, 258, 261-62, 284

Collins, Maj. Gen. James L., 331

Colombia, 301, 322, 351

Colon, 317, 319, 433

Colorado River, 141

Columbia River, 47n, 87, 92

Combined Chiefs of Staff, 109

Combined Local Defense Forces, 417, 419, 420

Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet (CINCLANT), 541-42, 544-45

Conference of Foreign Ministers, Rio de Janeiro, 415

Congress, U.S., 78, 107, 152, 199, 201-02, 480

and bases in Alaska, 224, 230, 235, 238

and civil defense, 70-71

and command relationships in Alaska, 267

and defense of Panama Canal, 303, 308-09,

319

and evacuation of aliens from sensitive areas,

122-23, 129, 133, 135-38, 146-47

and induction of National Guard, 23, 75

on lack of command unity in Hawaii, 182

and Lend-Lease Act, 12, 373, 374

and restrictions on merchant ships, 14

and selective service legislation, 23, 481, 484-

86, 488

Coolidge Field, 430

Cooper's Island, 390

Cordiner, Col. Douglas C., 385

Cordova, 229, 245

Corlett, Maj. Gen. Charles H., 277, 295, 297

Corps areas, 35, 38, 74, 76-77, 144

and continental reorganization of 20 March

1942, 39-40

control assumed by Services of Supply, 40

establishment of, 17
576 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Corps areas—Continued

responsibilities of commanders of, 17-19,

75-76

and separation from armies, 24

Corps Areas

First, 17, 35, 75

Second, 17, 19, 35, 144, 322-23, 393, 396,

402, 454

Third, 17, 35, 77

Fourth, 134

Fifth, 335

Sixth, 102-03, 134, 137

Seventh, 134, 137

Eighth, 134, 137

Ninth, 17, 19, 33, 38, 40, 78, 117, 135, 137,

231, 247

Corpus Christi, 96n

Costa Rica, 304, 322

Cox, Oscar Sydney, 388, 462

Craig, General Malin, 323

Cranborne, Lord, 370, 375

Crawford, Lt. Col. Robert W., 391

Crete, 196, 242, 409, 464-65

CRIMSON, 535

Cristobal, 337

Cross Sound, 223

Cruse, Col. Fred T., 103

CRYSTAL, 509

Cuba, 351, 355, 430, 440

Cullin, Col. Frank L., 287

Cummins, Maj. Gen. Joseph M., 315, 471, 490

Cumuto Reserve, 369

Curaçao, 328, 337-39, 430n, 441

German operations against, 424

problems of U.S. base establishment in, 414-

16, 420-22

Curtis, Maj. Gen. H. O., 473-74, 493, 501,

516, 523

Czechoslovakia, 309

Dakar, 463, 530

Daley, Brig. Gen. Edmund L., 324

Danzig, 309

Dargue, Brig. Gen. Herbert A., 313, 315, 333

Darlan, Admiral François, 439

Defense Act of 1920, 21

Defense Categories A, B, C, D, E, 82, 82n,

106-07, 109, 119-20, 123, 126, 128-32,

136-37, 172, 438

Defense commands, 37-39, 44, 112, 145. See

also by name.

establishment of, 28-29

organization and responsibility of, 28-29

reduction of, 105-06, 108-10

Defense Project, 391

Delaware, 144, 340

Delaware Bay, 47n, 99

Delgado, General Nicolas, 9n

Denmark, 442-43, 449, 511

agreement with the United States on defense

of Greenland, 388, 444-45, 447

co-operation with the United States in Greenland, 454

U.S. plans to protect colonial possessions of,

8

Denmark Strait, 464

Deputy Chief of Staff, 24, 107

Destroyer-Base Agreement, 7-8, 10-12, 327-

28, 344, 354, 404, 445

local problems and base acquisition, 355-57

negotiating for the bases, 366-75

planning for the bases, 358-65

a view in retrospect, 407-08

Devers, Brig. Gen. Jacob L., 359

DeWitt, Lt. Gen. John L., 19, 32-34, 37-38,

40, 70, 89, 93, 393

on Alaska as base for offensive operations,

254, 298-99

and Aleutian operations, 265-66, 269-70,

274-75, 277, 279, 293, 295-96

commands Western Defense Command theater, 33

on continental air defense, 41, 84

and defense of Alaska, 231-39, 241-47,

249-50, 254-58, 260, 268

and defense of Pacific Coast, 81, 83-84, 88,

91, 93

and evacuation of aliens from sensitive areas,

117-26, 128-41, 143, 145-47

on preparedness of Western Defense

Command, 80

and strength of Western Defense Command,

105-06

war warning received by, 80-81

Diamond Head, 169

Disko Bay, 450

Distinguished Service Cross, 294n

Distinguished Service Medal, 517

Division of Civilian Protection, 69. See also

Office of Civilian Defense.

Division of State and Local Co-operation, 67

Divisions, U.S. Army, 36, 39-40, 83, 105-06,

215

Dixon Entrance, 256

Doenitz, Admiral Karl, 433, 437

Dominican Republic, 326

Dorchester, 538

Draft Surmises on Insular Operations, 160

Drum, Lt. Gen. Hugh A., 19, 32-35, 37, 40-

41, 94-95, 101, 144, 149, 153-55, 392-

94, 543
INDEX 577

Dutch Harbor, 89, 92, 223-24, 228, 232-34,

236-37, 239, 241-43, 245, 250, 254-63,

265

Earle, Col. Edward P., 291

Early, Stephen T., 481

East Massacre Valley, 281

Eastern Defense Command, 39, 44

and air defense, 41-42

establishment of, 39, 95

and evacuation of aliens from restricted areas,

145

strength of, 95, 105-06

as a theater of operations, 33-40, 61, 94-95

Eastern Division, Corps of Engineers, 375, 454

Eastern Hemisphere, 4, 6, 13

Eastern Sea Frontier, 111, 435

Eastern Theater of Operations. See Eastern Defense Command.

Ecuador, 304-05, 340-42, 351

Edgewood Arsenal, 72

Edmund B. Alexander, 385, 385n, 389, 400

Egypt, 465, 486

Eisenhower, Milton S., 140-41

El Salvador, 322

Eleventh Naval District, 138

Elmendorf Field, 247-48, 250, 261

Embick, Maj. Gen. Stanley D., 364, 384, 392,

543-44

Emergency Plan WHITE, 18, 75

Emmons, Lt. Gen. Delos C., 204-05, 207-17,

221

Enfield rifles, 76, 79

Engineer Battalions

5th, 494

6th, 385n

21st (AVN), 483, 486

42d (General Service), 453

78th, 439

135th, 439

Engineer units, 467, 483, 523

Engineers, Chief of, 48n, 236, 313, 317, 393,

396, 454, 521

Engineers, Corps of, 91, 141-42, 244-45, 401

Enterprise, 183, 188

Eska, 225

Eskimonaes, 552

Estevan Point, 92

European Theater of Operations, 5 34

Evacuation of aliens. See Aliens, control of.

Ewa Marine Air Station, 188

Ewert, Col. Earl C., 420

Executive Order 8972, 16 Dec 41, 78

Executive Order 9066, 19 Feb 42, 135, 143,

145-46, 209

Expeditionary forces, 9-10, 31, 55

Facts and Figures, Office of, 127

Faeroe Islands, 530

Fahy, Charles, 369, 375

Fairbanks, 225-26, 228-30, 245, 269-70

Fairey-Battle (British seaplane), 467

Falkland Islands, 3

Farewell, 245

Faxaflói, 498

Federal Bureau of Investigation, 99, 102, 116-

17, 119, 123, 147, 207, 313

Field Artillery, 50, 54, 214, 230, 258, 283, 315,

324, 412

Field Artillery Battalion, 46th, 494

Field Artillery Regiment, 2d, 302

Field Forces, Commanding General of, 21-22,

31, 489

Fifteenth Naval District, 311, 330, 349, 351

Fifth column activities. See Subversive activities.

Fifth Naval District, 541

Fiji Islands, 258

First Naval District, 494

First Special Service Force, 296

Fleet, British, 9-11, 48, 386. See also Royal

Navy.

Fleet, French, 48

Fleet, Japanese, 87, 92, 219-20, 223

Fleet, U.S. See U.S. Fleet.

Florida, 35, 95, 98

Focke-Wulf 200 (German fighter), 552

Force A (Surinam), 338

Ford Island Naval Air Station, 188

Ford, Representative Leland M., 121

Forrestal, James V., 481

Fort Belvoir, 72

Fort Brady, 102

Fort Buchanan, 350

Fort Glenn, 258, 260-61, 275

Fort Greeley, 235

Fort Kamehameha, 191, 199

Fort Mears, 236, 258, 261

Fort Morrow, 264

Fort Ord, 277-78, 295

Fort Pepperrell, 379, 400

Fort Randall, 258, 261

Fort Ray, 236

Fort Read, 400

Fort Richardson, 230, 250, 266

Fort Shafter, 152, 186, 192

Fort Snelling, 537

Fort Stevens, 92

Fort Victoria, 390

Fort Weaver, 191

Fourteenth Naval District, 165, 211

France, 10, 47, 98, 230, 310, 327, 464. See also

Fleet, French; Vichy Government.
578 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

France—Continued

effect on the United States if defeated, 5, 56,

60

Western Hemisphere colonial possessions of,

8, 9, 328

France Field, 301, 303, 312

Freeman, Rear Adm. Charles S., 235

French Committee of National Liberation, 440

French Frigate Shoals, 218, 220

French Guiana, 394, 439

French West Africa, 463

Frobisher Bay, 535

G-1, 38, 408, 472, 508, 521

G-2, 74-76, 88-89, 103, 107, 117, 176, 178,

183, 237, 242, 259, 336, 457, 461, 463, 470

G-3, 24, 26-27, 38, 67, 109, 384, 394, 472, 521

G-4, 247, 317, 396, 472, 477, 479, 492

Galápagos Islands, 9, 304-06, 340-42, 351,

353, 413, 428-29

Galveston (Texas), 47n

Gander Airfield, 355, 357, 368, 389-90, 400,

543

Gander Lake, 355

Gas warfare, 89

Gasoline, 401. See also POL.

Gasser, Brig. Gen. Lorenzo D., 69

Gatun Lake, 321

Gatun Locks, 301

General Headquarters, U.S. Army, 21-22, 24-

28, 30, 35, 94, 232, 335, 337, 339, 343,

393, 402, 409, 412, 538

abolished, 39

assumes control of U.S. forces in Greenland,

454

and command arrangements in Iceland, 545

and command problems in Bermuda and

Newfoundland, 395-97, 543-45

and defense of Caribbean area, 414

and defense of Ivigtut, 456-57

and defense planning, 31-32, 36-38

and evacuation of aliens from sensitive areas,

117-18, 121, 126, 132-33

Marshall establishes operations section in, 31

operations plan for Iceland, 500-503, 510,

517, 519

participation in the Iceland operation, 478,

484, 488-91, 493

and relief of British in Iceland, 523

and unity of command in Bermuda, 542, 545

General Headquarters (GHQ) Air Force, 19-

20, 24, 26-29, 54-55, 248, 334

General Staff. See War Department General

Staff.

Georgia, 397

German Air Force. See Luftwaffe.

German Naval Staff, 96

Germany, 3-10, 55-56, 58, 63, 155, 223, 327,

414

alignment with Italy and Japan, 96, 159

and American entry into war, 11-12, 14,

81, 387

meteorological activities in Greenland, 449-

51, 549, 552-53

plans for air raid on the United States, 111

residents of U.S. territory, control of, 115-16,

120, 120n, 123, 126, 130n, 131, 131n,

136-37, 139, 143-46, 146n, 199

submarine threat to the United States, 51, 96-

101, 103. See also Submarines, German.

threat to Iceland, 500

as threat to U.S. security, 56, 94, 107, 176

and U.S. "shoot on sight" policy in western

Atlantic, 392

and war with USSR, 12, 111, 242, 465

"Germany first" strategy, 6

Gerow, General Leonard T., 338, 410, 437-38,

466, 477, 479, 485, 521

Gibraltar, 5

Gilbert Ridge, 289-91

Giles, Col. Benjamin F., 452-53, 455-56, 537

Gillis, 263

Giraud, General Henri, 439

Gneisenau, 387

Goltsov Point, 288

Good Neighbor policy, 7

Grand Coulee Dam, 77

Grant, Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. 3d, 69

Great Britain, 4-10, 13-15, 32, 63, 184, 230,

309-10, 327-28

and base exchange for U.S. destroyers. See

Destroyer-Base Agreement.

civilian defense influence on the United

States, 67-68, 79

and defense of Greenland, 449

and defense of Iceland, 442, 459-60, 465-67,

499-501, 503, 505

effect on the United States if defeated, 56, 60

and government of Western Hemisphere

colonies, 356-57

and plans for relief of Iceland garrison, 473-

80

radar equipment, 62, 426-27

relief of Iceland garrison, 520-26, 534

and survival under German onslaught, 22,

67, 386

U.S. aid to, 12, 159, 161, 388

U.S. co-ordination in defense measures in

colonial possessions of, 416-21

and unity of command, 409
INDEX 579

Great Circle Route, 103

Great Lakes, 351

Great Lakes Coastal Frontier, 22

Great Sound, 356, 368, 388

Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, 14, 184

Greece, 196, 409, 459-60

Green, Lt. Col. Kirby, 466, 493, 495-96

Green, Lt. Col. Thomas H., 200

Greenland, 3, 8, 335, 394-95, 442-58, 488, 530

build-up in after U.S. entry into war, 535-38

command arrangements in, 454-55

construction of U.S. base in, 453-54

defense considerations in, 447-49

included in U.S. "neutrality zone," 462

operations against Germans in, 449-51, 549,

552-54

planning the U.S. defense of, 455-58

U.S.-Danish defense agreement on, 388,

444-47

U.S. troop strength in, 536-38

U.S. views on defense of, 442-43

Greenland Base Command, 454, 536-37

Greenland Sledge Patrol, U.S. Coast Guard,

457-58, 552

Greenslade, Rear Adm. John W., 359

Greenslade Board, 358-59, 364-69, 375-77,

385

Greer, 494-95, 527

Grew, Joseph C., 184

Griffiss, Maj. Townsend, 359

Grindavík, 506

Griner, Lt. Col. George W., 473, 478

Groninger, Brig. Gen. Homer M., 495

Gross, Col. Charles P., 468

Gruening, Governor Ernest, 267

Guadalcanal, 274, 285n, 298

Guadeloupe, 439

Guam, 179

Guantánamo, 413, 429

Guantánamo Bay, 322

Guatemala, 340, 343, 353

Guatemala City, 343, 429

Gulf of Fonseca, 413

Gulf of Mexico, 9, 35, 98, 351, 433

Gulf of Mexico coast, 19, 95-96, 98, 101

Gulf of Panama, 306

Gulf of Paria, 355, 357, 390

Gulf Sea Frontier, 98, 424, 424n, 431-33, 437

Gulkana, 245

Gullion, Maj. Gen. Allen W., 117-18, 121,

124-29, 134n, 135

Hackworth, Green Haywood, 391

Hafnarfjördhur, 501

Haleiwa, 170, 189-91

Halifax, Lord, 373

Hamilton, 356

Hamilton Island, 390

Hamul, 482

Harbor Defense Board, 47-48, 48n

Harbor entrance control post, mission of, 51

Harbor Island, 235

Harmon, Lt. Col. Ernest N., 527

Harms, Brig. Gen. Henry W., 395

Harrison, Lt. Col. William K., Jr., 27

Harry L. Lee, 494

Harth, Lt. Col. Albert E., 287

Hawaii, Island of, 151, 154, 164, 170, 206.

See also Hawaiian Islands.

Hawaiian Air Depot, 189

Hawaiian Air Force, 157, 166, 183, 191n, 197,

204, 215. See also Air Forces, Seventh;

Air units.

Hawaiian Coast Artillery Command, 191-93

Hawaiian Coastal Frontier, 172, 204

Hawaiian Defense Project, 173

Hawaiian Department, 151, 153, 157, 163, 168,

171, 175, 179-81, 183, 192, 195, 200,

202-03, 205, 212, 214, 216-17, 222, 393

Hawaiian Division, 152, 170-71

Hawaiian Islands, 8, 53, 150-219, 401. See also

Hawaii, Island of; Maui; Oahu; Pearl

Harbor.

air defense of, 15, 27, 85, 197, 204-05, 216-

17

alerted to Japanese threat, 80, 175, 178-80

army postattack measures in, 199-201

control of Japanese residents in, 115, 121-22,

148-49, 206-14, 216

general description of, 151-52

Japanese threat to, 86, 88, 113, 126

martial law declared in, 199-200

prewar estimate of threat to, 5

reinforcement of, 150-73, 214-15

strength of Army forces in, 217

U.S. Army mission in, 151

Hawaiian National Guard, 212

Hawaiian Sea Frontier, 204

Hay-Varilla Treaty, 307

Headquarters, Newfoundland Base, 385n

Hemisphere defense. See Western Hemisphere,

defense of.

Henderson Ridge (Attu), 281, 290-91

Hepburn Board, 223-24

Herron, Maj. Gen. Charles D., 152-53, 158-

61, 163, 165, 178, 327

Heywood, 494

Hickam Field, 152, 158, 167, 169-70, 180, 183,

189, 199

Hill X (Attu), 288, 291-92

Hilo, 206

Hitler, Adolf, 4-6, 12, 13, 96, 309-10, 459,

486, 500, 532
580 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Holland. See Netherlands.

Holman, Senator Rufus C., 126

Holsteinsborg, 444, 458

Holtz Bay, 281-85, 287-89, 291-92, 294

Home Guard, 78. See also State Guards.

Homer, 245

Homer, Brig. Gen. John L., 489, 513, 516

Honolulu, 151-52, 170, 175-76, 191, 193, 211,

214, 218-19

Honolulu Advertiser, 177

Honshu Island, 113, 151, 261

Hood, 464

Hoover, Rear Adm. J. H., 413, 415, 420, 435

Hoover Dam, 77

Hopkins, Harry, 268-69, 388, 462, 546

Hoppin, Marshall, 245

Hosogaya, Vice Adm. Boshiro, 259, 263

House Subcommittee on Military Appropriations, 230

Hudson Bay, 103-04

Hudsons (British bombers), 430, 467, 503

Hull, Cordell, 4, 177, 194, 344, 348, 374, 387n,

406, 449, 461

and hemisphere defense, 13

and reaction of Atlantic base garrisons to

enemy approach, 391

signs Greenland defense agreement, 388, 445

and U.S. treaty rights in Panama Canal Zone,

308

Hurricanes (British fighters), 503, 505

Hvalfjördhur, 477, 499, 501-02, 526, 553

Hvítárvellir, 502

Hyde Park, 338

I-boats. See Submarines, Japanese.

Iceland, 3, 12, 14-15, 249, 330, 338, 396, 451,

459-531

air defense of, 503-06, 528-29

as area of U.S. interest, 459-62

British defense plan for, 499-500

build-up after U.S. entry into war, 533-35,

538

command problems in, 489-91, 516-17

conditions to acceptance of U.S. protection,

479

description of, 498

duty tour length in, 508-09

establishing the U.S. garrison in, 481, 494-

98

German air threat to, 505-06, 549, 552

and the Monroe Doctrine, 461

problems in defense of, 502-06

relations between U.S. garrison and, 510-16

relief of British forces in, 520-25, 534

Task Force 19 at Argentia enroute to, 452

U.S.-British relations in, 516-19, 548

Iceland—Continued

U.S. plans and preparations for garrison in,

466-81

U.S. troop strength in, 534-35, 538

Iceland Base Command, 501, 503-04, 509,

516-17, 519, 528-29, 535, 538-39, 541,

546-47, 552

Ickes, Harold L., 176-77

Idaho, 33

Idaho, 288, 293

Imperial General Headquarters, 298

Indian Ocean, 259

INDIGO, 478-80, 483-84, 489, 491-93, 511, 522

INDIGO-1, 483-84

INDIGO-2, 485, 488

INDIGO-3, 488, 527

Indochina, 337

Indonesia, 5, 14, 219

Infantry, 258, 388, 412, 483

Infantry Battalions. See also Parachute Battalion, 551st.

2d, 3d Infantry, 537

3d, 3d Infantry, 385n

2d, 10th Infantry, 524, 534

2d, 17th Infantry, 287-91

3d, 17th Infantry, 287, 289-92, 294

1st, 32d Infantry, 293

2d, 32d Infantry, 291-92

3d, 32d Infantry, 292-94

73d (Separate), 537

100th, 212

Provisional, 285, 288, 292, 294

Infantry Brigades

18th U.S., 311

146th British, 534

Infantry Companies

7th Scout, 285, 288

G, 11th Infantry, 389

A, 17th Infantry, 287

B, 17th Infantry, 287

F, 17th Infantry, 290

I, 17th Infantry, 290

K, 17th Infantry, 294

F, 32d Infantry, 290-91

K, 32d Infantry, 294n

Infantry Divisions, 83-84, 91, 94, 155, 159,

274, 467

1st, 464, 466-67, 469-71, 477

3d, 83

5th, 453, 463, 466-67, 470-71, 477, 486-

87, 490, 520-21

7th, 277-79

24th, 171, 192, 215

25th, 171, 192-93, 215

26th, 95

27th, 215

35th, 277
INDEX 581

Infantry Regiments, 214-15, 230, 238

2d, 102, 534

3d, 385

4th, 291, 293-94

5th, 311

10th, 494, 502

11th, 389-90

13th, 311

14th, 302

17th, 283, 287-92, 294, 294n

32d, 283, 287, 290-94, 294n

33d, 338, 439

131st, 104

184th, 277

295th, 439

298th, 212

299th, 170-71, 212

Ingersoll, Admiral Royal E., 481

Ingles, Brig. Gen. Harry C, 413

Inspector General, The, 109

Intelligence Division. See G-2.

Intelligence estimates

of German and Japanese strategic capabilities,

September-December, 1941, 176

of German attack on U.S. territory, 101

of Japanese attack on Hawaii, 183, 195

of Japanese attack on U.S. territory, 89

Interceptor Command, 77, 86, 218

Interior, Department of, 225-27

Iraq, 465

Ireland, 355, 358

Iry, Lt. Col. Clarence N., 481-82, 492-93, 520

Isthmus of Tehuantepec, 319

Italy, 55-56, 58, 81, 115, 159, 212, 310-87,

414

residents of U.S. territory, control of, 115-

16, 120, 120n, 123, 126, 130n, 131, 131n,

136-37, 139, 143-46, 146n, 199

and U.S. "shoot on sight" policy in western

Atlantic, 392

Ivigtut, 444, 448-49, 454-57, 536

Iwo Jima, 295, 300

J2F, 249

Jacksonville (Florida), 99

Jaluit Island, 218

Jamaica, 321-22, 327-29, 331, 350, 350n, 354,

397, 404, 416, 430n, 441

command problems in, 419-20

construction of U.S. base in, 375-79, 381-82

planning for U.S. base establishment in, 358,

365, 368

problems facing U.S. base establishment in,

355-57

unity of command in, 417

Jamaica Base Command, 402

James, Capt. Jules, 390, 541-42, 544-45

Japan, 3, 9-11, 3.3, 55, 159

aircraft carrier threat of, 5, 42, 56, 58, 82, 85,

88, 91, 94, 106, 153, 156-57, 160, 164,

166, 173-75, 177, 183, 185-88, 195, 198,

220-21, 261, 306

alignment with Germany and Italy, 96, 158

casualties at Pearl Harbor, 194

communications codes of, 89, 174, 186, 220

and decision for war, 14, 184

and "Germany first" strategy, 6

and Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,

14, 184

and initiation of hostilities, 80-81, 178, 186

occupation of Aleutian Islands, 92

operations of in Aleutian Islands. See Attu;

Kiska.

and plans for Aleutians operation, 258-59

plans for Pearl Harbor attack, 184-86

residents of U.S. territory, control of, 38n,

40, 115-49, 199-202, 206-14

Stimson's view on strategy of, 14

threat to Alaska, 89, 92, 233, 237, 242, 248,

253

threat to Aleutians, 92, 258

threat to Hawaii, 151, 153, 155-59, 161,

163-64, 166, 175-81

threat to Midway, 89, 92, 219-21

threat to Panama Canal, 335-37, 412

threat to the United States, 4-6, 84, 86-89

U.S. assumptions vis-a-vis Germany and, 6

Japan Current, 280

Japanese High Command, 258

Japanese Naval General Staff, 184

Japanese units

Adak-Attu Occupation Force, 259, 263

Advance Expeditionary Force, 185

Carrier Striking Task Force, 177, 185, 188,

205

Combined Fleet, 184, 219-20

1st Air Fleet, 184-85

Northern Area Force, 259-60, 263

Second Mobile Force, 259, 261

Sixth Fleet, 86, 185

Japonski Island, 235-36

Jarman, Brig. Gen. Sanderford, 315

Jarmin Pass, 292

Johnson, Herschel V., 373

Johnson, Senator Hiram, 126

Joint Action of the Army and the Navy, 21-22

107, 109, 351, 412, 547

Joint Board, Army-Navy, 21, 107, 109, 232-

34, 237, 244, 250, 257, 323, 326, 411, 417,

448, 455, 472, 478, 485

Joint Chiefs of Staff, 54, 111, 209-10, 212,

216, 264, 267, 269-70, 272, 275, 279,

296, 300
582 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Joint Claims Board, 513-14

Joint Operations Center, 419

Joint Operations Office, 34

Joint Planning Committee, Army-Navy, 232-33,

244, 323, 351, 358, 365, 376, 409, 472,

478, 483

Joint Port Committee, Iceland, 527

Joint Staff Planners, 110, 296, 299

Jonasson, Prime Minister Hermann, of Iceland,

513

Jones, Brig. Gen. Lloyd E., 276

Jones, Lt. Col. Matthew H., 495-96

Judge Advocate General, 200, 510

Julianehaab, 443, 450

Juneau, 226, 228, 245

Junkers (German bombers), 552

Junyo, 259, 262

Justice Department, 116, 118-20, 122-25, 130-

31, 135-36, 138-39, 145, 148

"K Operation," 218, 220

Kaaawa, 186

Kahuku Point, 170

Kahului, 206

Kakuta, Rear Adm. Kakuji, 259, 261-62

Kaldadharnes, 499, 501, 503-04

Kamchatka Peninsula, 254, 264

Kanakele, Benhakaka, 194

Kane, 285

Kaneohe Bay, 171, 218

Kaneohe Seaplane Base, 188

Kauai, 151, 154-55, 164, 170-71, 193-94, 206,

218

Kauffman, Henrik, 445

Kauffman, Rear Adm. J. L., 545-46

Kawailoa radar station, 186

Keflavík, 504, 534, 539

Keflavík Peninsula, 501

Kenai, 245

Ketchikan, 226, 229, 243

Key West, 47n

Kilgore, Senator Harley M., 238

Kimmel, Admiral Husband E., 163, 165-66,

175, 177, 179-80, 182, 195, 204

Kindley Field, 379

King, Admiral Ernest J., 44, 196, 221, 260,

264, 266, 299, 410, 436, 547

and beach defense, 101

on continental unity of command, 43

on extension of air facilities in Alaska, 254

and plans for airfield on Amchitka, 275

and plans for Attu operation, 279-80

withdraws approval of Tanaga operation, 270

Kingston, 357

Kingston Harbor, 357

Kinkaid, Rear Adm. Thomas C, 275, 278-79,

282-84, 293, 297

Kiska, 92, 223, 229, 258-59, 261, 263-65,

270, 272-79, 287, 296-98

Knox, Frank, 70, 161, 417, 466, 542

and control of Japanese in Hawaii, 207, 209-

11, 213

report on Pearl Harbor attack, 194-95, 204

Kodiak Island, 92, 224, 229, 232-34, 236-39,

244-45, 249, 256-57, 260, 266

Kofoed-Hansen, Mr., 515

Komandorski Islands, 243, 278, 282

Koolau Range, 156

Korematsu v. United States, 142n

Krueger, Lt. Gen. Walter, 95

Kuehn, Otto, 201

Kuniholm, B. Eric, 492, 511, 513, 515

Kuril Islands, 177, 185, 273, 295, 299-300

Kuskokwim River, 226, 245

Kuter, Brig. Gen. Laurence S., 265, 267

Kwajalein, 87

La Guardia, Fiorello H., 68-70, 75, 78

Labor. See Local procurement.

Labrador, 396, 488

Ladd Field, 230, 250, 269

Lago, 423

Lake Huron, 102

Lake Logurinn, 499

Lake Minchumina, 245

Lake Myvatn, 499

Lake Nicholas, 289

Lake Superior, 102

Lake Thingvallavatn, 502

Lanai, 170

Landreth, Lt. Col. Earl, 230

Landrum, Brig. Gen. Eugene M., 277, 293, 293n

Latin America, 5, 7-8, 10, 155, 414

Lazy Bay, 256

Lea, Representative Clarence F., 123, 133

League of Nations, 4

Lear, Maj. Gen. Ben, 315

Leeward Islands, 331

LeGallion Field, 439

Lemnitzer, Maj. Lyman L., 505-06, 524

Lend-lease, 11, 388

Lend-Lease Act, 12, 31, 374

Leonard Wood, 390

Lerch, Col. Archer L., 128

Lexington, 183

Limitations of Armament Treaty, 153

Litvinov, Maxim, 183, 268

Local Combined Defense Committee, 417, 418

Local Joint Military Defense Subcommittee, 417

in Newfoundland, 543

in Trinidad, 418
INDEX 583

Local procurement

of labor, 321-22, 381-83, 514-15

of supplies, 379

London, 369, 374, 465

Long Island, 144

Long Island Sound, 47n

Loomis, Lt. Col. Harold F., 389

Los Angeles, 47n, 82-83, 87-88, 91, 94, 117,

130-31, 141

Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, 117, I23n

Lothian, Lord, 359

Louisbourg, 358

Lovett, Robert A., 29-30

Low Countries. See Belgium; Netherlands.

Luftwaffe, 111, 549, 552

MacArthur, General Douglas, 175, 178

McCloy, John J., 124-25, 128-29, 131-32, 135,

139-41, 146-48, 210-11, 218

McGrath, 245

Mackenzie Bay, 458

McMorris, Rear Adm. Charles H., 181, 278-79

McNair, Maj. Gen. Lesley J., 25-26, 39, 135,

395-96

MacVeagh, Lincoln, 514-16, 545-46

Madden Dam, 316-17, 319, 346

Maine, 35, 47n, 355, 494

Makhnati Island, 236

Malony, Brig. Gen. Harry J., 359, 369, 373,

375, 478, 489, 521

Malta, 484

Manchuria, 185

Manila, 174

Maracaibo, 421, 423, 436

Margaret Bay, 236

Marine Brigade, 1st Provisional, 471, 473n

Marine Corps, 42, 83, 91, 110, 165, 188, 193,

265, 322, 439, 489-91, 500

relief of troops in Iceland, 521, 534

troops for Iceland, 470-72, 474, 480-81,

484-85, 487-88, 491

Marine Defense Battalion, 13th, 439

Marine Regiment, 6th, 470

Maritime Commission, 468, 521, 526

Markham, Col. Edward M., 154-56

Marshall, General George C, 39, 42, 83, 125,

323, 344, 395, 436

and acquisition of the British base sites, 365,

369

and air autonomy, 29

on air co-ordination in Caribbean, 333

on aircraft for Alaska, 249

alerts commands against surprise attack, 327

and Aleutians operations, 274-75, 280

approves department status for Puerto Rico,

323

Marshall, General George C.—Continued

approves increase in Iceland force supply

levels, 476

approves supply depots in Puerto Rico and

Trinidad, 402

approves WPD plan on troops for Surinam,

338

and beach defense, 101

and civilian defense preparations, 67, 75

and command arrangements in Alaska, 267

and command arrangements in

Newfoundland, 396

and command in Iceland, 490

and composition of the Iceland force, 470,

487

and continental defense, 34, 37, 108-10

and defense of Alaska, 230, 238, 242-43,

246-47, 264

and defense of Hawaiian Islands, 151, 157-

59, 161, 163-64, 171, 175, 197, 215-16, 

and defense of west coast, 89, 91, 138n

designates Western Defense Command as

theater of operations, 33, 35n

establishes Air Defense Command, 20, 26-27

establishes operations section in GHQ, 31

and evacuation of aliens from sensitive areas,

124, 129n, 135, 141, 208-09

and garrisoning of the Atlantic bases, 384

on gas warfare estimate, 89

and length of service for selectees, 481, 486

on naval aspects of hemisphere defense, 9

and organization of air forces, 24, 28, 28n

and protection of nonmilitary installations/

76-78

and reaction of Atlantic base garrisons to

enemy approach, 391

and reinforcement of Alaska, 264-65

and reinforcement of Iceland, 520

and restriction of Japanese use of Panama

Canal, 336

and threat of Japanese invasion of Alaska,

260

and unity of command, 43-44, 204, 329-30,

395, 542, 544-45

and unity of command in Caribbean, 410-11

and war warnings to U.S. forces, 81, 177,

179, 186

Marshall Islands, 218

Marston, Brig. Gen. John, 471, 490, 513

Martial law, in Hawaii, 199-201, 207, 209

Martinez, Pvt. Joe P., 294n

Martinique, 328, 393, 438-41, 464

Maryland, 144

Massachusetts, 397

Massacre Bay, 281, 283-85, 287-90

Massacre Bay Beach, 289, 291
584 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Massacre Valley, 281, 288-92, 294

Matanuska Valley, 225

Maui, 151, 170-71, 206

Medal of Honor, 294n

Medical officers, 402

Mediterranean Sea, 96, 242

Meeks Field, 504, 539

Melgerdhi, 499

Memel, 309

Metlakatla, 229, 230. See also Annette Island.

Mexico, 17, 113, 125, 301, 312, 353, 409

Miami, 390, 436

Michigan, 113

Middle East, 486

Middletown Depot, 396

Midway, 89, 92, 152, 174, 180-81, 199, 219-

22, 258, 260, 263

Midway, Battle of, 71, 92-93, 200, 220-21, 263

Military Area No. 1, 136, 139, 143, 146-47

Military Area No. 2, 139, 147

Military government, 200n, 204

Military Police, 75-76, 78-79, 103, 105, 108,

523

Military Police, Corps of, 75

Military Police Battalion, 702d, 103

Mines and mine fields, 45-46, 50-51, 98-99, 336

Miraflores Locks, 301, 320-21

Mississippi River, 141

Mississippi River Delta, 98-99

Mitchel Field, 27

Moffett Field, 395

Molokai, 170, 210

Monroe Doctrine, 3, 7, 442, 461

Montana, 33

Montana, 320

Montreal, 447

Moore, Maj. Gen. Richard C, 320, 521

Morale, 403-04, 404n, 440, 507, 509-10

Morgan's Island, 368

Morocco, 434

Morris, Lt. Col. Edward M., 483, 495, 504, 539

Moscicki, President Ignace, 310

Moscow, 269

Moth (British fighters), 467

Mount Tantalus, 218

Moyne, Lord, 375

Munargo, 452, 453n

Munich, 4

Myradsjökull, 498

Naknek, 229, 244-45

Narragansett Bay, 47n

Narsarssuak, 444, 453, 553

Nashville, 452

Nassau, 288

Natal, 530

National Defense, need for a department of, 411

National Defense Act of 1920, 17, 469

National Guard, 23, 52, 57-59, 73-77, 159,

171, 215, 324, 350, 468-69

National Labor Relations Act, 382

National Technological Advisory Committee, 67

Naval Operating Base, Bermuda, 544-45

Navy, British. See Royal Navy.

Navy, German, 12, 96

Navy, Japanese, 86, 176, 184-85, 206, 220, 438

Navy, U.S., 9-10, 27, 31, 80, 88, 91, 94, 119,

148, 220, 335, 420. See also Knox, Frank;

Stark, Admiral Harold R.; Stimson, Henry

L.; U.S. Fleet,

and air defense, 85, 110-12

air defense mission in Iceland, 527-29

alert measures in Hawaii, 181-82

and antisubmarine operations, 97-101,

434-36

casualties at Pearl Harbor, 193

and coast defense, 51, 59, 107

and command arrangements in Iceland, 489-

90, 545-48

and defense of Alaska, 223-24, 232, 234-36,

241, 243, 248-50, 254, 260, 265-66

and defense of Hawaii, 151, 153, 157-61,

163, 165, 172, 197-98, 204-06

and defense of Panama Canal, 303-06, 320-

21, 352, 413

and division of fleet between Atlantic and

Pacific, 157-58, 161, 163-64, 197

and evacuation of Japanese from Hawaii,

210-11

and a Galápagos Islands base, 340-42

and German activities in Greenland, 450-51

and Japanese threat, 89, 92, 177

plans for Aleutian operations, 270, 274-75

and the RAINBOW 4 plan, 10

and relief of British in Iceland, 521, 530

role in hemisphere defense, 11-12

and shipping for Iceland force, 468-70, 472,

475-77, 508-09, 520

and unity of command, 42-44, 411, 541-42

and U.S. acquisition of British bases,

358, 367-68

unpreparedness to meet German submarine

assault, 429

voice in Army Pacific defense measures, 15

war warnings to fleet commanders, 175, 177,

179

Navy Department, U.S. See Navy, U.S.

Navy Patrol Wing Three, 430

Navy Patrol Wing Two, 205

Nawiliwili, 206

Negro troops, 408

Nenana, 245
INDEX 585

Netherlands, 8, 184, 230, 442. See also Aruba;

Curacao; Surinam.

Britain and France move to protect colonial

possessions of, 328

command arrangements in colonial possessions of, 421-22

U.S. steps to defend colonial possessions of,

337-39, 393-94, 414-16

Netherlands East Indies, 442

Neutrality Act, 313, 462

Neutrality patrol of U.S. Navy, 462

Nevada, 33

Nevada, 293

New Bedford, 47n

New Caledonia, 258

New England, 55, 75

New Jersey, 144, 397

New Orleans, 415

New York City, 6, 34, 111, 144-45, 390, 527

New York Harbor, 47n, 99, 452

New York Port of Embarkation, 483, 488,

494-95

New York Times, 315, 481

Newfoundland, 8, 249, 327, 330, 354, 488, 548

administrative problems of base operation

in, 397, 400-401, 403, 407

construction of U.S. base in, 375-79, 383

garrisoning the U.S. base in, 384-90

mission of U.S. garrison in, 391-92

negotiations for U.S. base in, 366-67, 372,

375

planning for U.S. base establishment in, 358,

364

problems facing U.S. base acquisition in,

355-57, 366

strategic importance of, 358

unity of command in, 542-44

U.S. command problems in, 394-96

in U.S. Eastern Theater of Operations, 35-37,

39

U.S. troop strength in, 538

Newfoundland Base Command, 35, 393, 395-

96, 400, 454, 542-43, 549

Newfoundland Commission of Government, 407

Newfoundland Railway, 400

Niblack, 462, 467

Nicaragua, 319

Niihau, 151, 194

Nimitz, Admiral Chester W., 204-05, 216-17,

275, 277, 279, 296, 299

Nisei, 127, 194, 212

Nome, 229, 243-45, 250, 254, 260, 264, 269

Nomura, Kitchisaburo, 387

Norfolk, 58, 483

North Africa, 101, 285n, 409, 434, 438, 460,

486

North America, 3, 108-09

North Atlantic, 8, 12, 14, 26, 31 56, 358, 395,

397, 401, 436-37, 442, 531, 535. See also

Atlantic Ocean.

GHQ proposal for defense command in, 396,

488-89 and lifeline to Great Britain, 5, 11-14

North Atlantic Coastal Frontier, 22, 26

North Star, 553

Northeast Defense Command, 28, 32, 34-35

Northeastern Air Theater, 396

Northeastern Sector, Iceland, 499

Northern Landing Force (Attu), 288, 294

Northland, 553

Northwest Africa, 5

Northwest Staging Route, 251, 255-56, 269

Northwestern, 262

Northwestern Sector, Iceland, 499, 502

Norton Sound, 245

Norwalk, 496

Norway, 96, 103, 449, 458, 500, 552

Nova Scotia, 9

Oahu, 3, 9, 14, 199, 201. See also Pearl Harbor.

danger from Japanese population on, 121-22,

201, 207-11

Japanese attack on, 186-92

organization of U.S. Army forces in, 17, 152

preparations to defend, 150-61, 163-73,

180-81

reinforcement of, 214-15

O'Connell, Lt. Col. Geoffrey M., 472-73

Office of Civilian Defense, 67-73, 75

Office of Government Reports, 139

Office of Production Management, 456

Ok Mountain (Iceland), 502

Okinawa, 300

Oldendorf, Rear Adm. Jesse B., 421-22

Olfusa River, 498

Olson, Cuthbert L., 122, 124-25

Ominato, 261

Ontario, 104

Opana radar station, 167, 186, 195

OPD. See Operations Division.

Operations Division, 39, 54, 91, 105, 108-10,

211, 299, 546-47. See also War Plans

Division.

ORANGE War Plan, 153, 224

Ordnance, Chief of, 48n

Oregon, 33, 92-93, 113, 120, 126, 129, 131,

133, 136, 139, 147

Organized Reserves, 58

OS2U-1, 250

OS2U-2, 249

Otter Point, 242, 258, 262

Owens Valley, 141

P-8 road project 317, 319
586 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

P-36's, 191, 248, 251, 312

P-38's, 273, 278

P-39's, 349

P-40's, 161, 163, 167, 191, 219, 249, 262, 276,

278, 339

Pacific Coastal Frontier, 22

Pacific Development Company, 340-41

Pacific Fleet, 163-64, 181, 183, 192, 195, 197,

199, 204, 216, 266, 299. See also U.S.

Fleet.

and Battle of Midway, 220

constituted, 163

losses at Pearl Harbor, 187, 206

units transferred to Atlantic, 387, 387n

Pacific Northwest, 55

Pacific Ocean, 3, 9, 11-12, 14, 19, 92, 113. See

also Southwest Pacific.

coast, defense of, 47, 50, 52, 61-62, 77-78,

81-82, 85-86, 89, 91, 138

joint defense plan for, 80-81

and U.S. 1940 intention to avoid war in, 10

versus Atlantic in U.S. defense planning, 5,

11, 14-15, 34, 47, 58, 157-58

Pacific Sector, Panama Canal Zone, 302, 311, 315

Pan American Airways, 10, 226, 341, 343, 364,

439

Panama, Isthmus of, 301, 316-17, 319

Panama, Republic of, 302, 306, 317, 350, 440.

See also Panama Canal.

and importation of labor into Canal Zone,

321-22

and negotiations for U.S. base rights in,

344-48

U.S. treaty arrangements with, 307-09

Panama Air Force, 344

Panama Canal, 4, 9, 103, 155, 158, 198, 301-27,

335-36, 352-53, 415, 436, 438, 463. See

also Panama, Republic of.

air defense of, 27, 301-05, 314-15, 326,

333-34, 349, 412

inspection of ships in transit, 310-12, 349

prewar plans and preparations to defend,

301-17, 319-21

Panama Canal Department, 302-04, 312-14,

316-17, 327, 329-31, 349, 359, 392

Panama Canal Zone, 9, 243, 302, 328-53, 402,

440

alerts communicated to, 177, 327

as defense bastion, 3, 9, 150, 174

governor of, 312-14, 319-20

importation of labor for, 321-22

organization of U.S. Army forces in, 17,

302-03

prewar estimate of threat to, 5

radar defenses of, 425-29

troop strength in, 326, 348, 413

Panama Canal Zone—Continued

U.S. control and jurisdiction over, 312

and unity of command, 204, 327, 330, 410-11

Panama City, 317, 346

Panama Coastal Frontier, 204, 351, 410, 415

Panama Mobile Force (Provisional), 315

Panama Naval Coastal Frontier, 413

Panama Provisional Coast Artillery Brigade

(AA), 314

Panama Sea Frontier, 424, 430-33

Panama Separate Coast Artillery Brigade (Provisional), 315

Parachute Battalion, 551st, 439

Paramushiro, 300

Parimaribo, 339

Parker, Capt. Ralph C, 250

Passage Canal, 226, 241

Passive Defense Against Air Attack, 65

Patterson, Robert P., 76, 419

Patterson Field, 504, 539

PBY's, 205, 329, 430, 434, 500, 528

Pearl Harbor, 150, 174-96, 206. See also Hawaiian Islands; Oahu.

importance of as major Pacific base, 153, 155,

157-58, 198

Japanese plan to attack, 184-86

Japanese threat to, 161, 166, 218

Pacific Fleet activity at, 183

responsibility for U.S. failures at, 194-96

U.S. Army mission to protect, 151, 153

Pearl Harbor Board, 160

Pedro Miguel Locks, 301

Pennsylvania, 285, 285n, 288, 293

Pensacola, 47n

Permanent Joint Board on Defense, CanadaUnited States, 7, 9, 102-04, 364, 372, 384,

392, 396, 400, 407, 542

Peru, 342, 353

Petropavlovsk, 243, 254

Philippine Department, 393

Philippines, 15, 17, 80, 153, 167, 174, 177,

178, 181, 183, 197, 219, 249, 355, 401

Piarco Field, 389-90

Pina-Rio Providencia highway, 346

Poindexter, Governor Joseph B., 199-200

Point Barrow, 243

Point Borinquen, 323, 325

POL, 402, 404

Poland, 223, 309

Ponte Vedra Beach, 99

Port-aux-Basques, 355

Port Heiden, 229, 242, 244, 264

Port of Spain, 355-56, 369, 376, 378, 382,

389-90, 400

Portage, 226, 241

Portland (Maine), 47n
INDEX 587

Portland (Oregon), 82-83, 129

Portsmouth (New Hampshire), 47n

Portugal, 463

Pratt, Maj. Gen. Henry C, 419

President's Emergency Fund, 317

Presque Isle, 447

Pribilof Islands, 264, 272

Prince Rupert, 261

Prince of Wales, 464

Prince William Sound, 223

Prinz Eugen, 464-65

Production, 79, 82, 239

Protective Mobilization Plan, 57-60

Provost Marshal General, 38, 66-67, 117-18,

128, 133, 144

Provost Marshal General, Office of, 75, 118,

124, 134, 144-45

Public Law 503, 136

Public opinion, U.S.

on evacuation of aliens from sensitive areas,

121-22, 127, 138

Roosevelt's appreciation of, 13-14

Puerto Rican Department, 324-26, 329, 331,

393, 402, 415, 440

Puerto Rico, 9, 321, 423-24, 430, 430n, 438, 440

developed as a U.S. base, 322-26

employment of troops of, 440-41

general supply depot authorized in, 402

organization of U.S. Army forces in, 17, 350

troop strength in, 326, 350, 413

Puerto Rico Air Base No. 1, 325

Puget Sound, 47, 82, 229

Pye, Admiral William S., 198, 204

Quartermaster Battalion (Port), 392d, Company A, 483

Quartermaster General, Office of The, 401

Quartermaster General, The, 401

Quartermaster personnel, 537

Quartermaster Replacement Center, 77

Quartermaster units, 523

Queens Park, 389

Quidi Vidi Lake, 378

Rabaul, 278

Radar, 205. See also Aircraft Warning Service;

Aircraft warning systems.

development of, 61-62, 86, 428

in Iceland, 506

measures to protect Panama Canal, 425-29

operations in Hawaii, 167-68, 186-87, 195,

218-19

RAINBOW plans, 171

RAINBOW 4, 10-11, 328, 442, 510, 530

RAINBOW 5, 32, 42, 80-81, 83, 172, 178, 351,

412-15, 530

Reconnaissance Troop, 7th, 283, 285, 289, 294

Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 340, 400

Regular Army, U.S., 23, 52, 57-59, 155, 324,

440, 471, 486

Republic, 494, 496

Republic of Panama. See Panama, Republic of.

Reserve personnel, 468-69, 471, 480, 484, 487

Reybold, Brig. Gen. Eugene E., 477

Reydharfjördhur, 501

Reykjavík, 470, 473, 475, 477, 495-96, 498-

99, 501-07, 511-12, 515, 522, 524, 526,

529, 552

Richardson, Admiral James O., 157-61, 165

Richardson Highway, 226, 241

Riddle's Bay, 390

Ridgway, Col. Matthew B., 341

Rio de Janeiro, 415

Rio Hato, 306-09, 316, 344, 346

Robert, Admiral Georges, 328, 439-40, 464

Roberts, Justice Owen J., 142n, 195, 198

Roberts Commission, 121-22, 195-96, 198, 208

Rockwell, Rear Adm. Francis W., 277, 280,

283-84, 285n, 287, 292-94

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 9, 35n, 87, 100, 103,

112, 198, 200n, 310, 322, 397

and air route to Siberia, 254-55, 268-69

approves agreement for defense of British

colonies, 417-18

approves "calculated risk" defense policy,

107-08

approves martial law for Hawaii, 200

approves plans for Greenland base, 444

attaches Marine brigade to Army in Iceland,

490-91

authorizes funds for Greenland base, 451

on Axis use of U.S. defense waters, 494

and base negotiations with Panama, 344

and civilian defense, 66-69, 72

on composition of the Iceland force, 470

concern over adequacy of Iceland force, 477-

80, 492

and control of aliens in sensitive areas, 116,

128, 131-33, 135-38, 140-41, 145-47,

209-13, 216

decides to reinforce British in Iceland, 479-80

and defense of Alaska, 230, 248, 253, 256

and defense of Hawaiian Islands, 154, 158-

59, 161, 164, 172, 197

and defense of the Panama Canal, 305

and defense of South America, 10

and defense of Western Hemisphere, 13-14

arid Destroyer-Base Agreement, 328, 364,

369, 373-74

directs dispatch of air unit to Iceland, 483

and extension of "neutrality zone," 462

and funding of the Atlantic bases, 377-78
588 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Roosevelt, Franklin D.—Continued

and Galápagos Islands base acquisition, 340

and garrisoning of Bermuda and Trinidad,

387-89

and German activities in Greenland, 450-51

and German submarine threat, 436

and initiation of hostilities, 81, 176

and Japanese intentions, 177

and measures to counter German threat in

Atlantic, 387

moves to deny Azores to Germany, 464

and naval operations in Atlantic, 12, 31

orders command changes in Hawaii, 203-04

orders U.S. control and jurisdiction over

Canal Zone, 312

and Pearl Harbor attack, 194

and prewar concept of national security, 4-5

and protection of Dutch colonial possessions,

337

on protection of nonmilitary installations, 78

and public opinion, 13-14

and the RAINBOW 4 plan, 10

and reaction of Atlantic base garrisons to

enemy approach, 391-92, 527-28

and reinforcement of Newfoundland garrison, 388

on retention of the Iceland garrison, 533

and troops for Iceland, 12, 395, 453, 466,

520-22

and unity of command in Panama, 410-11

ROUNDUP, 535

Rowe, James, Jr., 118-19

Royal Air Force, 430-32, 434, 467, 501, 504,

534, 541, 552

Royal Canadian Air Force, 261, 265, 357, 394,

444, 541-43

Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 103

Royal Naval Station, 356

Royal Navy, 460, 464, 541, 548

Ruby, 245

Russell, Col. Carl, 267

Russia. See Soviet Union.

Ryujo, 259, 261

Sabine Island, 552-53

Sabotage. See Subversive activities.

Sacramento, 124

Sadler, Rear Adm. F. H., 413

St. Croix, 430n

St. George, 356

St. George Island, 272

St. George's Island, 390

St. John's, 355, 357, 367, 385, 389-90, 400-

401, 543

St. Lawrence Island, 264

St. Lawrence River, 9

St. Lucia, 327-29, 331, 350, 350n, 354, 356-

58, 397, 430n

construction of U.S. base in, 376-79

unity of command in, 416-17

St. Luica Base Command, 402

St. Mary's River, 102

St. Paul Island, 272

St. Thomas, 322

Sakhalin Island, 254

Salerno beachhead, 212

Salinas (Ecuador), 340, 342, 353, 428-29

Salt Lake City, 141

Samoa, 179, 199

Samoan Islands, 258

San Diego, 47n, 82-83, 86-87, 89, 130-131,

220, 280, 295, 471

San Fernando (Trinidad), 356

San Francisco, 47n, 83, 87-88, 91, 94, 117-19,

132, 134, 139-40, 144, 197, 202, 214,

217, 247

San Francisco Bay, 82, 130

San Francisco Port of Embarkation, 217

San Jose (Guatemala), 343

San Juan (Puerto Rico), 322, 324-25, 329, 350

San Nicolas (Aruba), 423

San Pedro (California), 113

Sand Island, 191

Sand Point, 229, 242

Santa Barbara, 87, 138

Santa Monica, 88, 121

Sarana Bay (Attu), 281-84, 289-91

Sarana Beach (Attu), 290

Saratoga, 183-84

Sault Ste. Marie, 102

Sault Ste. Marie, Military District of, 103-04

Sault Ste. Marie Canal, 63, 102-05

Sault Ste. Marie Military Area, 104

Scharnhorst, 387

Scheer, 387

Schofield Barracks, 152, 169-70, 189, 191-93

Scoresby Sound, 449-51, 458, 552

Scotland, 535

Seabees, 539

Seattle, 82-83, 91, 129, 131, 226-27, 247

Seattle Harbor, 92

Secretary of the Interior, 77

Secretary of the Navy. See Knox, Frank.

Secretary of War. See Stimson, Henry L.;

Woodring, Harry H.

Selectees, 468-69, 471, 477, 480-81, 484-87

Selective Service Act, 385, 469, 492

Selfoss, 501

Sendai, 113

Service of Security Plan, 66

Services of Supply, 39, 141n
INDEX 589

Seward, 225-27, 229, 237-39, 245, 250, 264

Seward Peninsula, 243, 264

Seydhisfjördhur, 499, 501, 534

Shaffer, Lt. J. D., 552

Shahan, Lt. E. E., 552

Shasta Dam, 77

Shemya Island, 273, 291, 295

Sheppard, James C., 70

Shipping, 549

losses to submarines in Caribbean, 423, 431-

34, 436-37

problems in transporting and maintaining

Iceland force, 468-69, 474-79, 508-09,

519, 526

Short, Lt. Gen. Walter C., 163-66, 168-71,

175-76, 177n, 178-82, 192-96, 199-200,

200n, 202-03, 214-15

Shumushu, 299

Siberia, 242, 253-54, 264, 268-69

Sierra Nevada Mountains, 128

Signal Battalion, 50th, 525

Signal Corps, 61-62, 167-68, 226, 426, 428,

523

Signal Officer, Chief, 48n, 167n, 313

Simiutak Island, 454

Sinton, Cdr. William, 444

Sitka, 223-24, 228-29, 232, 234-37, 245, 250,

256

Sitka Sound, 235

Skagway, 223, 225, 250

SLEDGEHAMMER, 535

Smith, Maj. Gen. Holland M., 278

Smith, Capt. Oscar, 477

Soapstone Point, 223

Solomon Islands, 275

Somerset Island, 390

Søndre Strømfjord, 443-44, 453

South America, 3, 9-10, 12, 302, 351, 463

South Atlantic, 9-10, 56. See also Atlantic

Ocean.

Southeast Asia, 86, 88, 219

Southern California Sector, 77

Southern Coastal Frontier, 22

Southern Defense Command, 28, 34-36, 40,

42, 44, 95

Southern Land Frontier, 84, 96

Southern Landing Force (Attu), 288, 290-91,

294

Southwest Pacific, 15, 86, 278, 280. See also

Pacific Ocean.

Southwestern Sector (Iceland), 499

Soviet Union, 5, 12, 111, 158, 242, 253-54,

259, 264, 268-69, 298-99, 309, 465

Spaatz, Brig. Gen. Carl, 232, 394, 537

Spain, 5, 321, 463

Spears, Capt. W. O., 341

Special Army Committee, OPD, 108

Special Committee Investigating Defense Contracts, 238

Special Observer Group (SPOBS), 465-66,

472, 491-92, 516-17, 523-24

Stalin, Marshal Joseph, 253, 255, 269

Standing Liaison Committee, 342

Stark, Admiral Harold R., 126, 158, 204, 216,

238, 341, 369, 391, 522, 528, 545n

and coastal frontiers proposal, 351-52

and evacuation of Japanese from Hawaii, 210

on need for strong measures in Atlantic, 387

and Panama Canal locks project, 320

and status of Marines in Iceland, 480, 490

and unity of command in Panama, 410-11

and war warning to field commanders, 177

State, Department of, 186, 388, 404-05, 461,

511

and acquisition of land in Panama, 308-09,

316, 344-45, 348

and base negotiations with Britain, 367

base negotiations with Netherlands Government, 337-38, 421-22

and defense of Greenland, 443-45, 448,

456-57

and Galápagos Islands base, 341-42

and relations with Martinique regime, 439

State Guards, 75-79

Steeze Highway, 226

Stefansson, Vilhjalmur, 442n

Stilwell, Maj. Gen. Joseph W., 77

Stimson, Henry L., 321, 323, 451, 461, 481

acts to improve Panama Canal radar defenses,

427-28

on air reinforcement of Iceland, 528

approves agreement for defense of British

colonies, 417

and Army organization for air forces, 29, 31

and base negotiations with Panama, 344

and the "Buy American" law, 401-02

and "calculated risk" defense policy, 108

and civilian defense, 67, 70-71, 75

and composition of the Iceland force, 470

on danger of Japanese attack on west coast, 88

and defense of Alaska, 246, 248

and defense of Hawaiian Islands, 154, 159,

161, 163-64, 171

and defense of Iceland, 466, 481

and defense measures in the Pacific, 14

and evacuation of aliens from sensitive areas,

118, 120-22, 124-25, 131n, 131-33, 134n,

135-36, 140, 143, 145-47, 208-10

on Pearl Harbor as naval base, 198

and protection of nonmilitary installations, 78

and reaction of Atlantic base garrisons to

enemy approach, 391-92
590 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

Stimson, Henry L.—Continued

restricts Japanese use of Panama Canal, 336

and unity of command in Caribbean, 409-11

on U.S. failures at Pearl Harbor, 196

on withdrawal of Iceland garrison, 533

Stone, Maj. Gen. David L., 304-14

Storis, 553

Stratford, 509

Strong, Brig. Gen. Alden G., 389-90, 400,

407, 544

Submarines, 114, 413

Submarines, German, 95, 103, 387, 460, 462,

494-95, 536, 549-50

along Atlantic coast, 42, 51, 99-100, 111,

383, 437

in Caribbean, 421, 423-24, 429-34, 437

off Gulf coast, 96, 98, 437

U-156, 424

U-202, 99

U-584, 99

U-654, 433

Submarines, Japanese, 86-88, 92-93, 120, 182,

185-86, 193-94, 202, 206, 218, 220, 297-

98

I-7, 206

I-8, 87

I-17, 87-88

I-25, 87, 92-93

I-26, 92

I-70, 194

Subversive activities, 99-101, 103-04, 144,

147-48, 164, 173-75, 178-80, 183, 201,

382

measures to protect Panama Canal against,

310-11

Suffolk County (New York), 144

Sunderlands (British flying boats), 467

Suntrana, 225

Supreme Court, U.S., 142

Surinam, 337-39, 350, 350n, 394, 416, 422,

430, 441

Syria, 465

Tacoma, 129

Talara, 340, 342, 342n, 353, 412

Talbot, Brig. Gen. Ralph, Jr., 338, 390, 394,

400-401, 405, 417-19, 422

Talley, Col. Benjamin B., 258

Tanaga Island, 265, 270-72, 274-75

Tanana Crossing, 229

Tankan Bay, 177

Tanks. See Armor.

Task Force 4

First Echelon, 483, 485-87, 492, 495, 508,

519

Second Echelon, 485, 487, 491-92, 494-95,

497, 508, 512-13, 519-20

Task Force 8, 260, 265, 274

Task Force 15, 494n

Task Force 19, 452

Task Group 6.3, 435

Tehuantepec, 353

Temnac Cove, 281-82, 290

Tenth Fleet, 436

Tenth Naval District, 351, 435

Terminal Island, 77

Territory of Hawaii, 199. See also Hawaiian

Islands.

Theater of Operations Plan. See INDIGO.

Theobald, Rear Adm. Robert A., 260-61, 270,

274-75

Thingvellir, 502

Third Naval District, 494

Thirteenth Naval District, 231, 234

Tinker, Brig. Gen. Clarence L., 503-04

Tokyo, 113, 184-85, 260

Tokyo raid, 88, 93, 113, 220, 259, 300

Torpedo boats, 50-51

Trades Union Council, 381

Transportation Section, G-4, 468

Treasury Department, 117

Trinidad, 9, 327-29, 331, 338, 350, 350n, 354,

413, 416, 423, 430, 430n, 436, 440-41

administrative problems of base operation in,

397, 400-406, 408, 417-19

construction of U.S. base in, 375-79, 382

garrisoning the U.S. base in, 384-85, 388-91

general supply depot authorized for, 402

jurisdictional issue with, 404-06

negotiations for U.S. base in, 369, 372

planning for U.S. base establishment in,

358, 368

problems facing U.S. base acquisition in,

355-57

submarine operations in waters of, 432-34,

436-37

unity of command in, 417

Trinidad Base Command, 393, 400-403, 406,

419. See also Trinidad Sector.

Trinidad Sector, 382, 394. See also Trinidad;

Trinidad Base Command.

Tripartite Pact, 242

Troop Basis, January 1942, 52, 60

Truk, 259-60

Tucker's Island, 368

Turner, Rear Adm. Richmond Kelly, 410, 521

U-boats. See Submarines, German.

Umnak Island, 242, 244, 254, 256-58, 260-63

Unalaska Island, 223, 229, 234, 237, 239, 241,

257

United Kingdom, 372, 447, 489

United Service Organizations (USO), 404,

404n, 507
INDEX 591

United States Guards, 74

Unity of Command, 22, 330, 395, 491n, 540

in air defense, 26-27, 41-43

in Alaska, 255

in Bermuda, 541-42, 544-45

in the Caribbean, 393-94, 409-10, 434-35

in coastal frontiers, 351-52

in continental defense, 41-44

in Defense Commands, 29, 40

in defense of British colonial possessions,

416-17

in Hawaii, 165-66, 182, 200n, 204-05

in Iceland, 489-91, 541

in Netherlands Antilles, 420-22

in Newfoundland, 542-44

in Panama, 204, 327, 330, 334

Secretary Stimson's concern over, 409-10

in Surinam, 422

U.S. Army theory on, 17

University of Hawaii, 183

U.S. Coast Guard, 91, 99-102

U.S. Conference of Mayors, 68

U.S. Fleet, 43, 58, 86, 157-58, 184, 240, 547.

See also Atlantic Fleet; Pacific Fleet.

and Battle of the Atlantic, 387

and defense of Hawaiian Islands, 151, 154-

55, 157-58, 161, 163, 172, 184

redesignated Pacific Fleet, 16?

U.S. Naval Base, Trinidad, 418

U.S. "Public Roads Administration, 317

USSR. See Soviet Union.

Utah, 33, 120n

V weapons, 111

Valdez, 226

Van Asbeck, Capt., 421

Van Voorhis, Maj. Gen. Daniel, 314-16, 327,

329-31, 333-36, 344-45

Vancouver Island, 92

Vatnsendi Ridge, 501-02

Venezuela, 338, 394, 415

Vera Cruz, 424n, 431n

Vernon Field, 430n

Vestmannaeyjar Island, 506

Veterans Administration, 47n

Vichy Government, 9, 328, 439, 464. See also

France.

Virgin Islands, 322-26, 331, 440

Vital Defense Area, 104

Vladivostok, 253, 269

Volunteer Participation Committee, 68. See also

Office of Civilian Defense.

Wake Island, 174, 180-81

Waller Field, 379, 430n

Wallgren, Senator Mon C, 126

War Department, 21, 31, 40, 80, 91, 94-95,

194, 198, 200-201, 267, 299, 404n, 420,

422

and air defense of U.S., 20, 28, 34, 36, 41,

44, 60-62, 89, 111-12

and Aleutian operations, 277, 296

and Army command organization, 16

authorizes GHQ to supervise defense planning, 32

and Caribbean command organization, 329-

31, 333-34

and civilian defense, 65-68, 71

and continental defense commands, 28, 83,

105-06, 108, 329

and defense of Alaska, 224, 227-28, 231,

233, 235-40, 242-47, 249, 252, 254-60,

264-65 and defense of Greenland, 442-43

and defense of Hawaiian Islands, 150-51,

154-56, 158-60, 164, 166-72, 202-03,

214-15

and defense of Iceland, 388, 528-29

and defense of Panama Canal, 303-11, 314-

17, 319-20, 335-36, 349, 426

and defense of the Philippines, 174

and defense of Sault Ste. Marie Canal, 102-

05

and development of Puerto Rican base, 323-

26, 412

establishes army areas, 17

establishes corps areas, 17

and evacuation of aliens from sensitive

areas, 117, 120, 122-25, 129-33, 134n,

135-39, 141n, 144-46, 207-09, 212-14

and Galápagos Islands base acquisition, 341-

42

and garrisoning of the Atlantic bases, 384,

388

and GHQ, U.S. Army, 22, 35, 397

and harbor and coast defense, 33, 46, 49,

52, 81-82, 101

and labor policy in base construction, 382

and maintenance of Iceland garrison, 508,

510, 512, 517, 521, 526

and planning for Iceland force, 461, 463,

465-68, 471-78, 483, 485-87, 491-92

policy on use of Puerto Rican troops, 440

and protection of nonmilitary installations, 73

and reinforcement of Greenland, 5 37

and reorganization of air forces, 24, 28-30

and reorganization of field forces, 22

reorganization of 9 March 1942, 38

separates armies and corps areas, 24

and U.S. acquisition of base sites from allied

nations, 354, 358-59, 366, 369, 377

and war warning for Hawaii, 175-76, 178-

79
592 GUARDING THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTPOSTS

War Department Civil Defense Mission, 67

War Department Civil Functions Bill, 319

War Department General Staff, 18, 38, 46, 58,

65-66, 94, 231, 244, 396, 488-89. See also

G-1; G-2; G-3; G-4; Operations Division; War Plans Division.

War Department Special Staff, 38

War Department Mobilization Plan, 489

War Manpower Board, 108

War Plans Division, 33, 156, 161, 226, 231-32,

237, 241-42, 251, 303, 305, 307, 311-12,

314, 317, 340, 343, 381, 401, 437. See also

Operations Division,

absorbs operating functions of GHQ, 39

and air defense, 20, 28, 42

and antiaircraft needs, 57-58

and Army Air Forces organization, 30-31

assumes direction of Greenland base development, 451

and Caribbean command organization, 329-

31, 396

and command arrangements in Newfoundland, 394, 396

and continental defense organization, 37-38

and defense of Ivigtut, 449, 456-57

and defense planning, 32

on definition of corps area and army commanders' responsibilities, 18

estimate of Hawaiian defense capability, 164

and evacuation of Japanese from Hawaii,

208-09

and garrisoning of the Atlantic bases, 389,

391

and planning for Iceland force, 461-63, 466,

469-72, 475-81, 483, 485-90, 492-93

and protection of Surinam, 338-39

recommends department status for Puerto

Rico, 323

and relief of British in Iceland, 521-22

study on continental defense organization,

25-26

and unity of command in Bermuda, 542, 545

and unity of command in Iceland, 545-46

and U.S. acquisition of base sites, 359, 376

War Plans Division, U.S. Navy, 48, 410-11

War Production Board, 217, 457

War Relocation Authority, 140-41, 142n, 147-

48, 212

Warren, Earl, 122

Wartime Civil Control Administration, 141

Washington, D. C, 447

Washington (State of), 33, 47n, 87, 92, 115,

120, 122, 126, 129, 131, 133, 136, 147

Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, 223

Washington Provisional Brigade, 359

Wasp, 483-84

Watson-Watt, Robert A., 86, 427-28

Welles, Sumner, 336-37, 342, 388, 391, 421,

462

Wellingtons (British bombers), 503

Welty, Col. Maurice D., 385

West Indies, 321, 327, 329, 356, 364, 401,

408, 548

West Massacre Valley, 281

West Point, 516

West Virginia, 238

Western Defense Command, 35, 39-40, 77,

84, 114, 117-18, 277

and air defense, 41-42, 84, 93

area of, 33, 44

combat units of, January-February 1942, 83

commands of, 33, 44, 231-32, 255

creation of, 28

detachment of Alaska from, 44, 231-32,

267-68, 300

and evacuation of aliens from restricted

areas, 117-18, 123, 134, 136-37, 140,

143-44, 146n, 146-47

preparedness of, 80, 91

reorganization of, 36-38

strength of, 83, 91, 105-06

as a theater of operations, 33, 35, 37-39,

44, 83, 94-95

Western Hemisphere, 223

and application of Monroe Doctrine, 3, 7,

461

area defined, 3

defense of, 4, 6-10, 13-15, 55-56, 155,

301, 328

distribution of U.S. Army troops in, 15-16

and German threat to, 4-6, 9-11

prewar estimate of threat to, 5

and RAINBOW 4 plan, 10-11

reaction to enemy approach of U.S. Atlantic

base garrisons in, 391-92

U.S. acquisition of European colonies in.

See Destroyer-Base Agreement.

Western Hemisphere Defense Plan No. 1, 12

Western Hemisphere Defense Plan No. 5, 12

Western Sector, Iceland, 499, 502

Western Theater of Operations. See Western

Defense Command.

Wheeler, Senator Burton K., 481

Wheeler Field, 152, 158, 169, 180, 187, 189,

191, 193, 196

Wheeling, 238

Whitcomb, Maj. Richard S., 481-82, 496-97

WHITE, Emergency Plan, 74-75

White Pass and Yukon Railroad, 225

Whitehorse, 225

Whiting Harbor, 236

Whittier, Alaska, 226
INDEX 593

Wilby, Brig. Gen. Francis B., 389

Wilhelmina, Queen of the Netherlands, 337-38

Willamette University, 183

William P. Biddle, 494

Willoughby, Capt. William H., 285, 288

Wimsatt, Lt. Col. Robert W. C, 537

Winant, John G., 373-75, 408

Windward Islands, 433

Woodring, Harry H., 310, 319-20

Worden, 276

Works Progress Administration, 170

World War I, 3, 6, 17, 52, 68, 73-74, 97, 151,

511

Wyman, Lt. Col. Theodore, 203

Yakutat, 229, 231, 250, 261

Yamamoto, Admiral Isoroku, 184

Yamazaki, Col. Yasuyo, 282, 288

Young, Sir Hubert, 405-06, 417-18

YP-63's, 413

YP-64's, 413

Yucatan Channel, 350

Yukon River, 226, 245

Zanderij Field, 430

Zeilin, 285, 285n

Zeros, (Japanese fighters ), 176

Zimmerman, Col. Wayne L., 292, 294n

Zone of the Interior, 27

Zwinge Valley, 291

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